New member and total newbie

[Kevin H.]

Hello all,

My name is Kevin, I live in Jesup IA, and I want to start doing some audio and video recording - at a beginner level. Time and money are a bit of a limitation so I am starting out small. I just bought a new Tascam DR-40 4-channel handheld digital recorder. I have a couple of digital video recorders: a Canon G-10 and a Canon 70D (DSLR w/ video.) I also have Photoshop CS6 and plan to use Adobe Premier Pro and Audition to edit my files.

I've done a fair amount of video and video editing with the aforementioned cameras, but I've always only used the built in microphones on the cameras. My new DR-40 will, I hope, make better recordings than the built in mics. I have a Shure LM-58 and a Lavalier (sp?) mic that I will start out with.

I'm hoping to be able to ask lots of questions on this forum regarding the DR-40 and audio recording in general. I did not find the DR-40 mentioned in the list of all the forums in the Home forum; is there a particular forum I should post on that answers question on the DR-40?

In the meantime, I hope to get to know some of you better and look forward to some great answers!

Thanks,

Kevin H.

 

[Arjan P]

Hi Kevin, and welcome! MOst DR-40 posts I see are in the Handheld and Field Recorders section. Good luck recording, and I'm sure you'll find this forum a friendly place with lots of helpful people.

 

[Gerk]

Welcome Kevin and good luck.

My best advice for you with an external recorder is to use a clapper board or something similar (even clapping your hands in view of the lens) at the beginning of shots to help you line up your audio/video. You can do it without this approach but it makes life much easier as you have a single reference point in both audio and video that's easy to line up. You'll be much happier with the audio quality of the recorder as compared to the built-on mics on the cameras.