Advice Re: Live Recording In The Amazon Options

[omoanya]

Im going to record traditional music in southamerican amazon and am planning on taking a g4 power book.
Does any one know of:

a: battery operated hardware that i can use to get mic inputs into the power book?... i prefer to use 4-6 mics and record live multitrack
b. the most reliable software i can use


needless to say i wont be able to call tech support so it has to work!

theres a possibility ill have an a/c generator

i want the best quality as i will be releasing records from this material ,,,


any resources you can hip me to, i would appreciate,,

thanks for your help

[Tim Clark]

Miss Kiki is right! Recording in the Amazon needs some special prep. Tom Lopez and I did it a couple of times in the 1986 and 1987. The best thing we had to record on at the time was a F-1 that recorded on Beta cassettes. We rigged the whole thing up in an aluminum frame so we (meaning me!) could carry it in a backpack. I think it weighed about 25 pounds. I remember it didn’t feel so good after a couple of hours.

There are a couple of things that’ll shut you down pretty quick. One of them is batteries. We found that out when we needed extras in Manaus and spent 2 days trying to track some down. No deal. There’s no way to describe the despair you feel when you’re 3 days out in the jungle, great sounds are happening all around you, and you know you’ve got 15 minutes of recording time left. So as far as batteries are concerned-Backup, backup, backup, backup! The other thing that’s going to get you is the humidity. We hauled a Kunstkopf binaural head mic all the way down there and could never use it because of the humidity. Actually, we had the best luck with tiny lapel mics made by Tram.

I think you can probably safely record on a digital machine. The Nagra is great, of course, but it costs a fortune, no one in their right mind will lend you one, and if you could rent one, the fee would be more than you’d spend on a digital recorder. In any case, you might want to send a note to Tom Lopez via info@zbs.org. I’m sure he could tell you some of the best things to use, especially if you’re on a tight budget.

Good luck. Watch out for the spiders. They’re pretty big.
Tim Clark