I’ve carried on researching more recorders and recording equipment. As it currently stands my idea is to take a day trip to a forest close by (unsure of the location where yet) and record the environment using an analogue recorder. I’m interested in how equipment can dictate or perhaps influence our usage of it and how we record and interact with our sonic environment. I wanted to film a short nature film with Super 8, 2-3 minutes, as there is no sound recorded through it, and continue to record the environment with sound and create a beautiful short film. Something so meditative about the sounds of nature and the combination of sound and film can really take off from each other. As even political groups such as Ultra Red when recording protests on to CDs add a short text to explain the situation as it needs context sometimes for the audio to really shape and have meaning I believe it can be the same with visuals attached.
The first recorder I looked into was the Sony TCD5M
First released in 1979 it’s still one of the best cassette field recorders to this date, its sturdy made of high lasting materials and records in multiple tape types, and has Dolby b noise reduction. I was interested in how field recordists used condenser microphones in the past, as this machine didn’t include it. I’ve come to find out a lot of older microphones had batteries inside you could change and replace such as the Sony ECM-MS907 which is a stereo condenser microphone. The only downside of this machine is the rarity and stupid prices of £1000+, I’m hoping to find one around £200-250 price point if possible.
The next thing I did was start googling field recording cassette, and other key terms as I knew at this point the best place to find guidance was old forums where people are still discussing these things. I managed to find one where everyone started giving advice to this user asking about using a cassette field recorder in new york for sound effects and a lot of people were dismissing him. One recommended a Marantz PMD430 – CP430 one was used for USA other for Europe. He said he used to use them on set back in the day when he worked in the film industry. He spoke bout the handy 3 heads this machine has which allows you to hear the recording while it’s recording. Very handy for monitoring the actual tape instead of the input when field recording, a lot of machines don’t have this which makes the Marantz CP430 very useful. The only downside is that there isnt an XLR input just 1/4 Inch. Although converters could work, and i could use external mics with there own power source.
I tried finding a few on Ebay and i’m unsucessful for finding one around my price range. Which lead me to read on further and research more into it.
The Uher 4000 was BBC stock recorders for years and it’s very trustworth for what i need it for, Except no 1/4 inch inputs, just DIN inputs which is annoying unless i find the correct mics. Again i want to record to tape for the fact i cant record hours and hours of recordings, i want the limited recording abilities to push me to listen more to my enviroment than to record anything just because i have an SD card loaded in. I decided that any reel to reel recorders would be out of the question as they’re incredibly heavy and perhaps to inconvinient for me.