I'm looking for some advice on the best way to record my DJ sets when playing out without a computer. Something like the TASCAM or Zoom portable audio recorders is what I am considering. Anyone have experience with these? How is the audio quality if recording from the booth with the condenser mic? How well do they pick up noise from the crowd? Any other suggestions are appreciated! Thanks :)
You don't use the built in mic on the portable digital recorder. Most of them have a line input jack. So you will go from your mixer output, Booth or tape out if you have it, and run a couple of wires to the line input on the digital recorder. You may have to go into the setup of the digital recorder and tell it to switch from mic input, to line input. Then just set the levels, and you are good to go. On my mixer, I have XLR and RCA main output. I don't use the RCA jacks, since i use the XLR jacks for my power speakers. So I use the RCA jacks and run those to the digital recorder. It really doesn't matter which digital recorder you get, the all record excellent audio. On the more expensive ones, you are paying for more buttons, and for more expensive mic preamps. Since you are not using the mic preamps, you can get a cheaper digital recorder. Find one that records in the format you want. I usually record in 24/96 FLAC format. You can convert that to MP3 later.
I use a Zoom h4n, which I think works extremely well, can't say enough good things about it (quality is top notch). I have it connected to my mixers (djim 900) 'record out'. I've never used it to pick up noise from the crowd, I'd imagine that it would do just fine, if that's what you are trying to do. I did use it to record lectures at school occasionally (large lecture halls for 300-500 students), and it could pick up a pen dropping in the back of the hall.
I know a few podcasters that use the Zoom models H4, H5, or H6. They get pretty good recordings out of those.
I use a Zoom H2N and it works just fine. I use an RCA - 1/8" cable and go straight into the recorder from the mixer. The recorder also has several different recording formats to choose from.