Quote:
Originally Posted by
Piedpiper
β‘οΈ
For professional sound quality, the Sound Devices MixPre is far superior and similar ergonomics, if slightly bigger. Used a lot for ultra portable audio capture for film production. More expensive but worth it. they make different sizes for different track count capability.
They make beautiful stuff but that's like 4x the price for the 6-track, I couldn't spend that on it at the time. It would be a great choice for professional film production, no question. I considered the Zoom F-series, the F-8 is 8-track and a bit cheaper, but probably one step down in overall standard from the MixPre; possibly as good value though.
When I got the H6 it was for personal use, just something to record in low-track-count multi-track for my own reference, when I got new mics for example so I could record a new one and whatever I was using before on the same source, to a track each and compare them later at home. It's plenty good enough to record a gig in 6 tracks, take it home and process/mix it into a serviceable live recording the band can use for promo, as a demo and for their rehearsals; the limitations of a recording like that aren't in the recorder itself IMO but the format of the production, so that little unit is fine for me. It services my live sound mixing, which is my base/regular income, and it does it well, but I don't think it would have been wise to spend much more on it.
I'm starting a mobile recording service soon, with an interface in a rack and a laptop, so that's my commercial-grade kit but something like a 10-ch. version of the MixPre or even the F8 would have been a good start too. However, I think I would then want to upgrade to rack-mounted interfaces at some point.
One market I want to service is auditions, with a student solo singer or instrumentalist and a piano accompanist. The MixPre would be great for that IMO, there's a lot of merit to keeping it compact for me but it has to be pro quality. I need to be ready to do field-recording type jobs too so a unit like that Sound Devices one would be ideal