By load signs do you mean the battery indicator on the screen with the 3 bars? If so, mine goes to 2 pretty fast but stays there for a long time. I've used the same batteries for a 2 day shoot and the indicator stayed on 2 bars the whole time. You should be fine. I'd say have a backup set just to be sure.

@Meierhans is right. This is indeed the case because the meters try to determine battery level by measuring voltage drop rather than current output. In the DR-40 menu there is actually a setting for choosing the battery type but I think the meter still assumes 1.5 volt and that is why they stay at half full for quite a while using rechargeable batteries. @AKED how did it go?

@fosterchen I feel like a tool. I never switched over the settings to NiMh! Funny. Thanks for the info. I've only been using it for 8 months!

Thanks. It all went fine. In the beginnig I was not really sure, if I would need it, but it was an excellent choice. Thanks Vitaliy, for convincing me to get one.

Regarding the batteries, you were right. I have no clue about the technical stuff, but indicators the never moved from 2 bars before I recharged them and yes, I switched to Ni-Mh. So all that went fine.

During the press conference I could connect directly to the sound mixer of the congress hall, so I had the original signal that they send to the boxes. I has a XLR to 2.5" cable, so I tried to recoird the sound with the GH2, but luckily I tested it before and the sound was way over the top.

I put an XLR cable into the Tascam and the same. Then I realized, that the mixer gave a line out and not a mike signal (I am not a sound man, so for me that was good thinking. For a sound man he would probably only say: "of course it is line out....") Luckily, I read a bit in the maual and had a good look at the Tascam before and I remembered, that oyu can switch it to Line in and there it was, a beautiful clean, alomost noise free sound. You can hear it here:

For the interview an wanted to use a Shure for the answers and an electret head mike with the 48V phantom power for the questions, but it did not work. A LOT of noise, loose connection and almost no signal. So I ordered a dynamic haed mike, which arrived on the day of the interview, unfortunately I was gone already.

So I decided, it was more impoortant to get the clean answers than the clean questions, I put an external mike on my GH2 and put the Shure mike in to the Tascam for the answers.

The sourrounding noise was really loud during my questions, so once I have asked, I turnded the level of that channel to 0 during the editing so only the Tascam sound is to be heared during the answers, and again, it worked like a charm.

See and hear here:

At home I tried the dynamic head mike and it wold have worked beautifully. But, too late.

Anyway, thanks for the help here and thanks to Vitaliy for all of his support.

Dieter

@vicharris, I found that if I keep the battery setting on alkaline, the NiMH rechargables last longer as indicated on the meter...hopefully it doesn't slowly damage the recorder somehow internally, but the longer lasting helps on full day shoots!

Also I was wondering if it would be better to record in BWF format for better syncing in post. I found that the 48kh 16bit Wav files tend to be off by a couple frames maybe 15 mins. into it. Maybe the metadata in the BWF keeps it locked at 29.97? (don't know if 24p works fine)

I am trying to use the GH2 (Pasadena Pulse Audio/Flow Motion 2.02) with a Tascam DR-40.

I am using an Audio Technica with XLR phantom power attached to the DR-40, and the DR-40 Attached to the GH2.

I noticed there are 4 levels on the GH2:

Level 1: Level 2: Level 3: Level 4:

What is the best level for recording dialog?

What settings will work best for getting crisp, clear sound with very little noise?

@Mckinise

How did you attach DR-40 to GH2?

I need a help if you can, please. Today I have the Panasonic GH1 with no audio control. In a few day I ll buy the new GH3 with audio control . I have the Rode Video Mic Pro . I wish to pick the dr 40 to use it as the main audio recorder sending the audio directly to the camera via 3.5 plug . But I dont know if this will be better than using only the Rode Videomic Pro. What do you think ? The zoom dr 40 mics are good enough to use directly to the camera ? This way I can avoid post syncing . THanks

Sph1nxster , did you try lowering your line out level on the DR-40?

Just wanted to mention to those considering this recorder.....

The DR-40 makes a horible "helicopter noise" when you are recording if you have an XLR mic like the m66 senhiesser(for example) attached as soon as you hit record.... Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but my workaround is to get the dr-40 into "standby" mode...then you can get a cleaner signal(no helicopter)into the Gh2 (I am using the sescom cable btw) but you cant record to both simultaniously without "the copter of death"...as I call it.....

My experience is that whether its on battery or phantom this helicopter of death WILL NOT go away...

even with the newest firmware on the dr-40-

I wish I had just saved up more and got a zoom....

Yes its worth it...I use this one but I am Gh2 still...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004VIOZSK/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The helicopter sound is the result of using unbalanced input. DR-40 is designed to be used with balanced mics. However, there is a work-around to get rid of that bug. When you start recording, you begin to hear the chop-chop interference, which must be due to some sort of internal clocking getting active (timecode clock?). Then, you press the MENU button. The moment you see menu appears (and timecode disappears), you get a clean signal. The recording still goes on, but you just do not see the timecode. Nevertheless, the moment you press MENU again, chop-chop comes back with the appearance of timecode.

Try and see for yourself. I assume Tascam never assumed that unbalanced mics will be used in XLR ports. A future firmware may (or may not, depending on the nature of the bug) correct this but so far I either used balanced mics with no chop-chop or used unbalanced ones with the MENU trick.

Alternatively, you can buy a $15 or so unbalanced-balanced converter and use your unbalanced mics on the Dr-40 with no problem.

Also, instead of the overpriced Sescom cable, buy a $8 KOSS VC-20 volume controller to attenuate the line-out output to mic-level. It also protects the camera's mic port.