Searching gives me no clear answers, because there is so much! But basically i just want to know: what kind of equipment do i need to be able to go out and about and record sound in the field? I'd like to stick with digital equipment. What kind of gear can i get and what might it cost? What do you use? I ask because i really liked that elevator sample from Sonic Valley and i wish i had more raw material like that. I pay attention to those kinds of things around me and i wish i had some way to bring all that home to play with on the computer.

My preffered recording equipment at the moment is the Fostex FR-2 recorder, i don't know how much it sells for in the states, maybe $2000 with all the neccesary bits (power supply, bag, media). It's a 2 track digial recorder working with hard discs or compact flash. Recordes right up to 24bit/192KHz and the preamps are really nice on it. My current favourite stereo mic is the Rode NT4 which i love for sound effect recording, has a battery compartment to save on recorder battery. Guess they sell for about $400 (although again, i'm guessing US prices). You'll need some headphones, get ones with a low Ohms spec because they'll use less of the battery power.

Of course you can spend less or more money depending on your budget. The biggest drain will be the recorder but the cost of that really depends on your needs. I think edirol have just released a new recorder that might be a bit cheaper than mine. Of course you could always use a laptop, but it's not practical for most SFX recording.

I'm in the same position as you leiavoia. I've been priceing hard disk recorders for the field and the multi track/ multi input ones are 10 grand and up. Yikes. As much as I'd like to have a few mics set up recording to individual tracks and for 5.1 I just can't swing that kind of money. Instead I'm using my mini disc with a shotgun mic. I just picked up a small 3 channel mini mixer with phantom power that runs on two 9 volts as well as a two channel phantom power supply that runs on batteries as well. It's quick and dirty and all in all I think I spent under $500 on everything. I'm also making another rig that relies on Ac power but has a small mixer, dat machine and mic pre's set up in a rack so I can use a few mics at the same time. Again not very expensive to do, It's all in a bigger box and needs power but is still pretty portable.

I think the minidisc and shotgun mic method works well. I travel with mine all the time and within a min you can be capturing the sound. From there you take it home and drive it into your computer and off you go.

Dunno about for game sounds, but this plus Seinheiser Mic is excellent for band practice!!! Plus it fits in a pocket.

PXR4

I'm liking the minidisc + mic idea. I'm not looking to spend thousands because i'm not *that* serious about it. I just want to go out and record sounds for my game because it's something fun to do.

I looked into the minidisc technology and while it's really cool, i don't care for the proprietary compression codec. I use Linux almost exclusively and would prefer to do everything in linux (rebooting stinks). Getting the info from the minidisc would require plugging it into the PC and hitting RECORD in some program. That's *okay* but it seems like i end up taking a hit in 2 places: compression on record, loss of signal in transfer to PC, and final compression to ogg/mp3 (if needed).

I would like to have a system that records straight to WAV and dumps onto my PC. A recorder with flash memory would be really slick. I don't need a lot of space. Is there such a thing?

@ Sonic Valley:

What brand of minidisk + mic are you using?

Thanks for everyone's advice BTW. I know absolutely nothing when it comes to these things.

I'm using a sony recorder, can't remember the model, it's in my car. I'm also using an AT835b shotgun. If you're looking at recording to wav on location with a hard disc recorder it's gonna cost you. I'd love to be able to record 24bit wav in the feild but not without spending alot of cash I don't have.

I'm happy with the minidisc combo for now. Ya it's a compressed format and then it has to be loaded into the computer but I can get really good clean recordings and by doing a few quick things like EQ and and volume boosting in the end it sounds fine. I'm not too worried about analog transfers and whatnot as the final result works great with little time and effort involved.

If you're happy using Minidisc you should check out the new Hi-MD recorders which can record uncompressed WAVs.

I don't go anywhere without my Tascam Portable DAT. :)

My lovely mics for outdoor recording are Oktava MC012 (matched stereo-pair).
They need +48v phantom power but it is not big problem.