SD552 as a recorder
 

Hi,
Please advise if SD 552 Production Mixer after 1.10 Firmware update can be used as a professional recorder for high end documentary film production

I'm not an enduser but a lot of my ENG sound men have this mixer and use them complementary with my 5D/7D productions. So without any timecode syncing (we use Plural Eyes). From what I hear and know it's working okay, 2 audio tracks, proper quality as we know from Sounddevices. One of my guys is used to the 7-- range of field recorders and sees big differences but we can live with that. Another soundguy made a mistake when using it the first time; When routing to AES it did record only one of the 2 AES tracks so we only had boom... What exactly do you want to do with it?

The 552 is a - M I X E R - . It's internal recorder was NOT included to replace a 702 or 722. Whether it would work for you, depends on needs and expectations.

I write the Audio Assist column for HD Video Pro Magazine. A few issues back, I wrote about and tested the SD 552 and interviewed the nice people at Sound Devices about it. They put the recorder into the mixer to merely serve as a backup unit. The same as you see pro sound mixers using a Zaxcom Deva as their main recorder and then you see that they have an SD 702 or 744 sitting on a shelf on the cart. Simply backup in case your recorder crashes. They will be introducing this feature into other products eventually. The SD card recording mechanism is good and does not add a lot of additional expense to the unit.

Basically, if you have no money, the recorder in the 552 is decent, much better than something like a Zoom H4N, but lacks much of the functionality of a dedicated recorder. If you have some budget and can afford it, a 702T or a 744 paired with the 552 as the front end would be a superior way to go.

Dan

Thanks
 

Thanks everybody.I think I will have to buy the 702T.There is no escape.
Ramji