@JDN

MixPre-D is all fine, but not suitable for fast documentary stuff.

All that is required is simple small recorder with XLR. DR40 is smallest and as far as I see with acceptable quality.

Also, if the mic is mono, you'll need that mono to stereo adapter to get anything

@Vitaliy_Kiselev I guess it depends on the usage but for me it works great run and gun. When the mix pre d is in my little portabrace bag and gh2 on my steadicam with vest or shoulder rig, I can look down and see levels in any light, immediately with my mix pre d -- large, 20 LED display gives me a good idea where its at and if someone gets overly animated, or BG noise changes, adjusting one level individually is a quick and easy knob turn away, without putting down the camera. For me, its perfect for run and gun -- but I understand how for ultralight setups and low profile work would not be desirable at all. But I really like it (paired with the DR-40). They make a nice, ultralight, ultraportable professional quality solution.

For web delivery dr-40 is more than enough but for broadcast or theatrical, I'd strongly recommend a mixer. But my two cents and realize it may not be for everyone.

@AKED

I don't think it is possible to turn on phantom for just one channel on the bottom inputs. So try to have the microphones match in terms of what phantom power they require. The 3.5mm mic voltage is called "plug-in power" and it is very different from phantom. It might be possible to design a circuit to adapt but not sure if a single 47 kohm resistor will do it. Haven't tried it yet. I am just using matching microphones but am looking to build a binaural pair eventually using the directions I posted before because I haven't found those with XLR. Here is a discussion link that might be relevant to your adapter woes:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/remote-possibilities-acoustic-music-location-recording/555761-plug-power-not-phantom-xlr-adapters.html

Good luck but don't phantom fry any mic (as bad as a scratched lens or blown speaker)!

@Vitaliy_Kiselev

Oh, I'm sorry. I think I may have inferred wrongly what @AKED wanted to do. @AKED mentioned he is plugging the XLR in one channel and then wrote about Phantom power so I assumed you already had the XLR Phantom powered microphone. Then @AKED mentioned ordering a dynamic head mic that does not need Phantom power. This is where I probably assumed wrongly that you will use both the XLR which I assumed needs Phantom power and the new mic @AKED ordered which doesn't at the same time. My point was that the microphones plugged into the bottom of the DR-40 must match their Phantom power requirements. That is all.

That is a great link BTW. Did not see that before. I will try the approach of getting the mic capsules wired for Phantom and not adapt to line.

Since I bought a DR40 to use as a bit bucket I thought I'd chime in.

What sold me was: price, 2 XLR/TRS with lock, +4 input, battery life (18hrs claimed), and ability to record safety track (-6 to -20dB down)

After using the absolute resource hog Tascam DR-2d (we're talking barely an hour of 24/48 recording using the line input!!!) it was nice to get a unit that you could run for the better part of a day without changing batteries.

However, the pre-amps suck ass (less hiss than something like the GH2 but still unacceptable and a pain to remove in post) and the safety track is not clean. I noticed after running a test what seemed like a mid-high frequency bump. A simple nulling test proved this correct. The safety track is NOT an identical copy X Db's less than the original.

However, with an external pre amp this unit works fine as a line in recorder and the limiter is a nice feature to have.

For those looking for a cheap DIY preamp I posted a schematic on another thread that works fantastic on two 9V batteries and is very quiet. If you're just using one microphone I recommend you get a preamp and a smaller unit like the DR-08 (doesn't need to be Tascam) with a 3.5mm line in. No need for the extra expense and bulk of the larger recorders since ultimately all you need is to record a clean signal on a memory card.

@spacewig I got very confused when you called it a bit-bucket and went back to look at the I/O. It does not offer any form of digital input (SPDIF/Coax or optical, Lightpipe, etc.) so it cannot be used as bit-bucket. No matter what you do, you have to make use of the analog side of it. :)

@thepalalias My apologies for incorrect use of the jargon. what I meant is that in line in mode the pre's do not figure in any significant way and so the unit basically acts as a pure recording device, i.e. whatever effect the components in the signal path impart on the sound are basically negligible.

@Aked I'd say WAV 24bit 48k, but I'm not a sound guy either.

@vicharris

Question was conserning future delivery via vimeo and youtube. Looking at the guidlines (see links in our Photokina wiki) it seems like 44k 24bit can be better.

OK, rechecked guildlines, 44k is for Vimeo. Google prefers 48k instead.

So, 48k/24bit will be the choice.

I've read that uploading footage from 48k to 44.1k hurts the audio but I really can't tell the difference. I'm sure some sound engineer might be able to notice.

Thanks, i stay with 48 Khz then