
New Roland R series Field Recorder
I have had quite a few music teachers ask me about recording their students and bands at school. It is getting easier and easier to get great recordings every time. Over the last several years we have been introduced to several companies making pocket field recorders and they are all great in their own way. The one I have always liked to use is the Roland R-09 and R-44. They both give good results and are easy to use with the R-44 giving you the flexibility of recording 4 tracks simultaneously by adding 4 XLR external microphones. I like to use two stereo NT4 Rodes condenser mics. It also has two built in mics similar to the R-09 which is a two track recorder. While recording IB Music Recitals and performances I like to use the R-44 as the main recorder and then back it up by also recording with the R-09, just in case the audio files get lost or corrupted. This setup gives me great results with little effort and I have never had a problem.
Now Roland has more or less combined the best of both devices in their new model the R-26. There are many nice features but the most interesting for me is that it has two sets of built in mics and two XLR connections to add two external mics. The best thing about the R-26 besides the great audio sound, is that you can use all of them at the same time. The built in mics are a pair of directional and a pair of omnidirectional. The directional mics can be used to pick up the voice or instrument of the main performance and the omnidirectional will add a the more ambient room sound. Then of course you can add two external more expensive mics and place them where you like.
Another new feature is that the R-26 has two nice large dials for setting input of the two external mics and touch screen technology.
The R-26 can be purchased online for around US $500. Quite a good deal.