H Series Live Recording Guide v1.0

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Firstly, nods to Fishmonger for his original recording tips post for spurring me to throw this together... (Be warned, this is a loooong guide made up of several posts).

As a taper of live music, the ability of the H Series to record was what first drew my attention to it when I was looking for my first ever DAP to take over from my old MD setup. Even though the Nomad Jukebox 3 is the gig taper’s field recorder of choice, I think the iRiver gets a lot of brownie points for portability/stealthability, plus it's preamp option is handy if you're trying to go super-minimal. And its WAV recordings sound far better than MD. (Though the advent of Hi-MD now makes them fairly equal again).

Having had it about 6 months now, I’ve tried it out in various settings to see how it coped – It’s done pretty well in my opinion. I’ve decided to put together a comprehensive guide for anyone who might be interested in using the record facility on the H Series to make decent live recordings you can listen to at home. I’ll also discuss its shortcomings as a recorder and how best to deal with them.

Main Topics:

- Restrictions
- Deck Settings
- File Format
- Microphones & Power
- Higher Budget Mics
- Soundboard Patching vs Mic Recording
- The Glitch (And How To Cope With It)
- Distortion

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RESTRICTIONS

Remember primarily the current recording restrictions:

- Recording in WAV is limited to 795MB (~75min)
- Recording in MP3 (any bitrate) is limited to 195MB (~3hr @ 128Kbps)
- Total record time is limited to 5 hours (only attainable for low bitrate MP3s)
- When the record limit is reached, the player goes back into record standby from where you can begin a new file – It is recommended that you manually stop it before it gets there so it doesn’t stop mid-song
- The battery is usually good for up to 4 hours of stop-start WAV recording. It will stop, save the file and shut down when the battery becomes critical.

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DECK SETTINGS

INT MIC - Really only useful for dictation etc. The noise of the HD spinning up will give you a headache pretty quickly when recording to WAV (every 30 secs or so) but for a 64Kbps mp3 (which is all you really need for note taking), this only happens around every 4 minutes, so it’s not so bad. Turning on the AGC cuts down the distortion levels pretty well, and helps to boost those more distant sounds. All recordings are dual-channel mono.

EXT MIC - Probably the most used setting. As the H Series currently lacks any record level indicator, it can be a little bit of trial and error getting it setup right to make good recordings. The gain applied depends very much on the sensitivity of the mic you’re using (I’ll discuss aftermarket mics later). In most cases, around 5 – 10 would do, though for ambient sounds you’d probably want to increase that, or lower it for loud music.

Calibrating what gain level you need: the best method I’ve found is to run a few tests with the mic you intend to use before you run it in the field. Set up at home, with an appropriate sound source (your stereo or whatever) set to an applicable level. Run three record tests, at a gain of 0, 8 and 15, and then hook up to your PC. Then use whatever editing software you prefer to have a look at the waveforms. Here’s what you’ll probably see:

Gain 0: Probably a little too quiet




Gain 8: Not bad, but clipping on some of the loud peaks




Gain 15: It hurts my eyes! Put it away!




So from those 3 tests, you may decide to run at about Gain 5, which produces:



…a nice wave form with a bit of space to breathe around the peaks.

Remember it’s always better to run too quiet than too loud when it comes to live recording. Hiss is easier to deal with than distortion – I’ll cover this later as well. Once you have the recording levels set the way you like, there’s usually no need to use the AGC, as its compression effects can make your recordings sound a little uneven when they’re in any way dynamic.


LINE IN

Line In (Optical or Analog) will be used most often when transferring music from vinyl, MD, etc. but it could certainly be used in other situations such as:

- When you’re recording VERY loud music, when even Gain 0 is at risk of clipping (Note that at these sort of levels, your mics will probably be approaching their dynamic limit, so you may want to consider increasing the power to them – Again I’ll cover this later).

- When you have a more professional recording setup, with a mic preamp with either an optical or analog out to run to the line in. These often have a sound level indicator built-in, which will allow you to monitor and control the feed into your deck nicely. Several preamp options are available from soundprofessionals.c om, ranging from about $150 and up. Top of the line portable preamps include the Core Sound MIC 2496. If you have one of these though (or the money to buy one), you’re more likely to be running into a DAT or a JB3.

Another little tip – If you want to run a really stealthy setup, keep the remote (sans earphones) plugged in as your control interface. That way you can keep the deck with and battery box/preamp stashed in your pocket/bag. Now you can stop and start the system with the minimal amount of disturbance to your mics and without drawing too much attention to yourself.

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FILE FORMAT

Whenever possible, record to WAV, even if you intend to distribute your recordings as MP3s later. This will enable you to carry out lossless editing on your master recording before doing what you want with. MP3 encodings that are upsampled to WAV for editing and reencoded to MP3 will not sound as good as your source recording. However, encoding direct to MP3 is fine if you’re just taking notes for playback on the iRiver itself, as mentioned earlier.

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MICROPHONES & POWER

Power: The H-series can provide Plug-In Power to condenser electret mics, feeding 2.5V to the mic (this is 1V more than most MD decks etc) in the EXT MIC setting. Power is very important regarding mics like this, as the more voltage you can get to them, the more their dynamic range will be. Therefore if you see yourself recording loud stuff, you may want to consider and extra power option for the mics as opposed to just the plug-in feed. I’ll come back to this when discussing higher range mics.

Supplied external mic: The mic that comes with the deck is pretty much the same as a standard desktop PC mic, supplying a dual-channel mono signal to the deck. Useful for low-fi home recordings (again, like dictations or lectures) with the added bonus that you don’t pick up the HD noise. However, if you want to make more professional recordings, you’ll probably want to pick up a third party aftermarket mic. Anything would do the job if you just want to match the quality of the supplied mic, just make sure it has a stereo jack, or you will probably only record the signal to one channel.

What kind of mic you buy depends on what you want to use it for. Certainly go for a stereo electret condenser mic if you want something with a wider array of uses.

Here are some small mics I have experience of:

I highly recommend as a budget option the Skytronic 173.623 lapel mic, also sold under other names such as the YOGA EM-8 from Maplins. I know of several gigs that have been recorded on these that sound just as good as the higher-end stuff. These are certainly easy to find in the UK and Ireland, but may be trickier to track down elsewhere:



The Skytronic comes with a box for an AA battery, to power the mics, though it will work without the box if you like and the sound quality is very good for such a budget option. This comes in about £20, so very affordable. I have even seen them used with their power box to run line-in on an MD without a plug-in power jack, which worked surprisingly well.


Next up would be one of Sony’s ECM range:

I've used the Sony ECM-717:



...and I know a few people who've tried out the ECM-DS70P:



Though not exactly the same, they're close cousins. The 717 can be powered with its own watch battery should you need to use it, while the DS70 is set up to jack straight into your deck without any excess wires. Both use cardiod elements for uni-directional recording. I found the 717 pretty handy for recording gigs to MD, though its main problem was its dynamic range when using plug-in power of only 1.5V. Very loud music (especially bass heavy) would overload it with ugly results. The 2.5V from the iRiver may improve things. Again, the 717 could be run line-in to an MD using its own battery.

However, I’ve heard the sensitivity of the DS70 is very low to avoid distortion in loud situations, so even with a gain of 20 it struggled to pick up distant quiet sounds. If you plan just to record music, it’ll probably be fine. Note also with a direct plug like on the DS70 that you risk picking up the sound of the HD, so you may choose to use the extension lead it comes with anyway. Sound Professionals do a very similar T-mic at a lower price – The SP-SPSM1.

The 717's now been replaced by the 719 I think...



…which has slightly better stereo imaging I believe.


Information on several more budget options such as the Reactive Sounds mics (which I have no experience of) are available at http://www.minidisco.com:

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HIGHER BUDGET MICS

Firstly, I have most experience with ‘cardiod’ mics, so I’ll mostly cover them. First in the list of the more expensive mics are the Giant Squid Cardiod Mics:

http://www.giant-squid-audio-lab.com...dbattery1.html



$90 with a 9V battery box - Nice and small for what you want to use them for, also great if you want stealth record live music too. They'll probably put out enough juice to go line-in too.

* NOTE - With all of these higher end mics, it is recommended that you always use at least a 9V battery box to maximise the dynamic range on the mics. 9V is the maximum voltage you can feed to a mic through the 3.5mm jack – Various higher-end preamps like the Core MIC 2496 can supply 48V Phantom Power to a mic, but the connectors must be modified in order to support this voltage:



You will usually have the option of having this modification done when you order. The very top-of-the-line mics like AKGs, Neumanns, DPAs and Schoeps usually only run on 48V, but I won’t discuss them here as I’ve never had the capital to invest in mothers like those). The guys over on taperssection.com would be more help to you there than me...

Up another step in price, and you’re into the Audio Technica modified mics available from Sound Professionals:

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cg.../item/SP-CMC-2



Or the custom-built ones from Core Sound:

http://www.core-sound.com/cardioid.html



A set of these kind of mics with a 9V power box will set you back about $250, but their small size (‘stealthability’ I suppose), wide dynamic range and fidelity to the source sound make them worth their money. I would recommend the mics I use (Sound Pro modified Shure MX185s), but they don’t sell them anymore .

The benefit of all these styles of mics is that the two mics that make up the stereo feed are free of each other, meaning you can mount them in a myriad of ways. Many people clip them to their glasses, hat, headband, shoulders and so on. ‘Omni’ mics, which these companies also sell, can be used to make ‘binaural’ recordings, where mounting the mics in or beside your ears can produce very realistic, almost 3D recordings.

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SOUNDBOARD PATCHING vs MICS

Some bands allow members of the audience to patch into the soundboard and record a concert. If the soundboard is putting out a genuine line level, then you should have no clipping running to linein on the iRiver. The only big issue you will have is finding a good time somewhere around 60-70 minutes to stop it and begin a new file before it stops itself (possibly midsong) at about 75 mins. It helps if you’re familiar with the band you’re taping so you know when they’re likely to take a little longer between songs to switch guitars, etc.

Note that though a soundboard patch can sound great (especially for the removal of the crowd noise), you will be recording the mix that sounds best for the venue acoustics. In some cases this may sound AWFUL when recorded, with the drums being way too quiet and the vocals being way too loud. Audience mic recordings can often be much more realistic and pleasing to the ear.

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THE GLITCH

As has been documented elsewhere, the H-series will drop a few samples every 30 seconds or so when recording to WAV (less often when going to MP3) as the HD spins up and flushes the buffer. These are often inaudible, but can and do make themselves known as a distinctive ‘click’ on the recorded track. There is nothing that can be done on the player to avoid this as yet.

However, Cool Edit Pro, now Adobe Audition (and probably Soundforge I presume) has a Pop and Click remover, which can scan your file and remove them for you automatically. It's very slow though so I upgraded to the ClickFix plugin, which does the same job a lot quicker - It can't rid you of the click altogether, but it comes damn close. A single pass with this filter makes them inaudible to my ears. We still don't know if the glitch is to be dealt with firmware updates – time will tell I suppose.

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DISTORTION

Many people starting out in taping suffer from the dreaded distortion that has ruined a perfectly good recording of a great gig. Note there are two distortion types you can have issues with:

1. Overloading your mic at very high sound pressures (+120dB etc)

2. Electronic clipping, when your deck receives too high a signal from the mics to record within the amplitude parameters (ie you should turn down your gain)

The best way to avoid distortion when you are say, recording a gig from the audience is thus:

- Use cardiod mics which will eliminate much of the noise of the crowd behind you
- Power your mics as best you can (Like I’ve already said, plug-in power on the iRiver will only be able to give you some of the max dynamic range of the mics. Adding a 9V battery box is probably the way to go for a small-size, low budget solution.
- Don’t get too close to the venue amplifiers where sound pressure is high (but don’t stand right at the back where you will get mostly audience chatter)
- Run line-in when it's REALLY loud to avoid clipping that may be introduced by the gain when running mic-in
- Most importantly though, like I’ve said, if you want good sound, get good mics.

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I think that’s all I have to offer for now – If anyone has anything they’d like to add to this guide, let me know and I’ll stick it in. I hope some folks somewhere will find it useful.

Later lads,

G

[Lone]

I appreciate the time taken to compile this recording info, especially the mic comparison, and the details about powered mics/non-powered mics (info which is sort of new to me). Thanks a ton!

[goatfarmer]

This is an outstanding resource on recording with the H series. It answered so many of my questions.

I recommend that this be placed in the FAQ. Excellent job and thank you.

[cloudscapes]

Thank you very much for this great source of information! Especially the part about the mics, of which I'm not as familier with. Thanks!

[BroChaos]

thats some really good info. thank you for taking the time to post that.

[B-K]

Thank you, framesaver. This is EXACTLY the type of info I've been looking for. I think I'm going to get a Giant Squid mic, not sure whether to go with the omnidirectional or the cardioid yet.

[thebobblehead]

Thank you for providing such a comprehensive resource for the Misticriver community.

[Arm_The_Homeless]

That's absolutely amazing. Finally all questions answered at the same place in an easy to understand fashion. I've been looking for something like this for months, and some questions were answered here that I didn't even get from an audio engineering course I'm taking.

THANK YOU

[withak]

Wow, excellent work. I was just wondering about mics after playing with the recording feature and deciding that I liked the H140 a lot better than my MD.

[andrewmel]

well done....

[WristBandMan]

someone STICKY this!