Christian seems (at a cursory glance at his profile on the Elder website) to be right into the electronic/computer music thing. I'd say that so far, computer music practitioners have been the "best" practical composition teachers, that I've had. I used to study with Peter McIlwain, and he was excellent as a mentor! Not sure if you know him?

Back on thread topic. The Sony looks (and sounds) pretty good, especially for the money compared to the Korg. The Marantz 620 sounds excellent for instruments, but is expensive and comparatively bulky. Hm... getting tough!

Christian Haines (aka 'Jesus Christ').

May I ask who your hons. supervisor was?

As far as books devoted to (field recording?) mic technique goes..no; and the phonography "Masters" tell me it's all: "practice practice practice", which is not particularly helpful in modern times. Krauses' book 'Wild Soundscapes' has some bits and pieces that might be of interest to you (but is otherwise fascinating). Also, the 'Sound Effects Bible and Practical Recording Guide 5' (again, recommended to me by my Hons. Super., who I have a LOT of respect for : ).

I am unsure whether I would want to use an external microphone, at this stage I can't foresee the need, but that's foresight for you, you never can tell what's going to happen! As a standalone unit the H4n is probably good enough, but the external inputs I've found now to be fairly ordinary, though not unusable. For pure sound reproduction though, either a decent audio interface + laptop, or some other device would be preferable for external mic use I think.

b and c: I want a unit that is as versatile as possible, so, for example, to capture a very large, open space in as much detail as possible or to record an ensemble in a small space. Or anything in between. Big ask, I'm sure, but any unit that does one thing very well and the other tolerably would be more than adequate!

So far Sony are having a good run of recommendations, this is good. Marantz? Goodness, that can't have been cheap!

Are you aware of any books on field-recording mic technique? There's hundreds for instrument microphone technique books, but I've not seen one for field recording. Any recommendations?

Thanks again!

a) Whether you plan to use an external mic (and if so, what sort and what's its compatibility impedance-wise with the PAR etc etc);

b) In what conditions/environment you plan to record;

c) Whether you want to record small or large spreads and from short or long distances; and

d) Mic technique.**

Mostly due to budget constraints I ended up with a Marantz PDM661 for my PhD work (note that this was against my Honours Supervisors' recommendation – he thinks Sony make better PARs and whilst ordinarily I'd be inclined to agree with him, at the time of purchase I was both sick of deliberating over which machine to buy, and couldn't afford a (high-end) Sony. Such is life).

If you can get hold of one, I would suggest a Korg MR-1. They were discontinued a while back but there might be stores in the states who still carry old stock (my Masters Supervisor found one on eBay). Alternatively, a Zoom H4 will suffice for *most* situations, but be prepared to pay out for a noise-removal plug-in at some point.

**"The Books" say, at the end of the day it's about mic techniques...which could or could not be a comforting thought, I guess.

I've been pretty happy with the quality of the H4n, including through the XLR jack. And it's so much fun! Will look at the price of the Sony (449 according to the website, but I reckon I can do better!).

Re: being an oscillator king or whatever, hardly. I'm not doing any serious work with programming at the moment, and I think you're right about the "two different tools for different uses"; I didn't even realise max had no array functionality. It has a lot of things very similar, or that are used in ways you can use arrays in pd. But that's interesting. Anyway, because I have no projects with Max/PD, I'm just not really digging into it with any seriousness yet.

I have used the H2, the H4 and the H4n.  The H2 is very good for recording rooms through its microphones (Which are the same as the H4 on board mics), but it does not have the XLR/Patch cable inputs that the H4 and the H4n have, which allows them to be used as interfaces.  The H4n has much better on board mics than both the H4 and the H2 and it can record using the inputs and the on board mics at the same time.  The H4n also has an edge over the H4 because it can handle SD cards over 16GB, has a built in 1/4-20 mount (The H4 had some stupid strap-on thing), the mics can focused to either be X-Y stereo or directional, and the H4n has an on board speaker so you can preview your recordings without having to lug around a pair of headphones.  The H4n is also made of much sturdier material than the H4 or the H2.

Fantastic. Thank you!

I haven't tried Max/MSP. I've mostly done Reaktor and PureData, then went crazy and built a Eurorack system.