Recording practice/muck about sessions

[Si600]

I'll probably give myself GAS with this, but...

What do you guys use to record practice or general muck-about sessions? At it's simplest I'm thinking of a mic attached to a huge hard disk, which sounds like I've answered my own question - a laptop with a mic attached, but is that really the best answer?

[51m0n]

[url="http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h4n/"]Zoom H4n[/url]

Sounds incredible at recording all sorts of stuff.

[url="http://soundcloud.com/51m0n-1/track-7/s-T7TIC"]Here [/url]is a recording of a jam in a rehearsal room on Sunday night

[Commando Jack]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1342001323' post='1727641']
[url="http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h4n/"]Zoom H4n[/url]

Sounds incredible at recording all sorts of stuff.

[url="http://soundcloud.com/51m0n-1/track-7/s-T7TIC"]Here [/url]is a recording of a jam in a rehearsal room on Sunday night
[/quote]

Seems to be the most popular, I myself use an Olympus LS-10 which is real easy to use. I think there is a newer one out. On the cheap you can go for the [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-H1/dp/B003Y6S2WU"]Zoom H1[/url].

[51m0n]

A friend of mine has an H1, its good, but it doesnt allow you to turn the gain down enough for loud rehearsals in small rooms.

IIRC the H2 does, and the H4 does and the H4n definitely does, although if you get an older one you would almost certainly need to flash the device (not a difficult operation) to update the firmware to allow the input gain to be a fraction of 1. Worth double checking though!

The H1 hasn't had its firmware updated to allow this (yet) - which is a real shame, since other than that its a great looking tool.

Other than that, they are superb tools, and can easily easily fit a coupl eof hours rehearsal recorded at 24bit 48Khz on to a 2Gb flash card (I would still suggest you get something far larger though)

[Shambo]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1342005452' post='1727782']
A friend of mine has an H1, its good, but it doesnt allow you to turn the gain down enough for loud rehearsals in small rooms.
[/quote]
I use a H1 and bang for buck it's been one of my best ever buys. I've never gotten to the loudness levels in enclosed space to consider the problem above... and the thing being so cheap I never imagined they'd bother with a firmware fix, otherwise people wouldn't upgrade to their higher spec models.
One thing I realised too late is to turn the auto level off and set the gain yourself. Otherwise, you play quiet passage in a song and the gain goes up arbitrarily after a couple of seconds, then move to a louder passage in a song and the gain's knocked down in a similar fashion, leaving you with hours of rehearsals practically unlistenable with clumsy fluctuations in volume.

[Booooooom]

I've got an [url="http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h2/"]H2[/url] and it has a three position - low,mid,high - gain selector. I just stick it in a mic stand (mic barrel adapter included) in the centre of the room with both pairs of mics on and we generally get excellent quality recordings from our rehearsals.

[krysh]

[url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/roland_r_05.htm"]roland r-05[/url]