I am a complete newbie where portable recording is concerned, so please be patient and gentle with me

I am looking to buy a mobile audio and video recording rig that I can travel with and my budget is around 3000 $/€ but could go higher if I can make payments on it. I mostly want to be sure it is pristine, highest quality audio recordings or whats the point to waste this money. Is it possible?

I am more concerned with the audio side of this because I know video cameras can cost from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars, so unless the audio and video come in one, like a camera with mic, mini storage cards, type of thing, to fit my budget, I will keep that separate. Also I already own a Canon EOS-M which is older, but still fun to play with and can get nice images, that cost me about 1000 dollars with the lenses I got anyway.

What gear do I need?

In my head and looking around my studio now, interface, mic, headphones and recording program along with storage, so also need a laptop? I assume. But then I think of the guys I see on documentary films who are walking around with a mic, headphones and backpack bag on them, no laptop in sight. Maybe its off camera because I wonder how they check the recordings on the spot to be sure its a good take.

I dont want to ask any ai biased sales bs, so thanks guys for your suggestions !

 

I'm not an expert on the matter but there's a few things i've seen and/or done:

First, it depends on what kind of videos you're recording, wether it's a stationary camera, if you have a crew with you, or if you're moving around on your own and how many sources are you recording at any given time.

Typically you would have a field recorder which is kind of a battery powered all-in-one recorder (some even include internal mics), so no need for a laptop unless you're doing the editing on the road too. You'll need batteries and storage though, probably in the shape of a micro SSDs or XDSC.

From there you have a lot of choices. If all you're doing is recording yourself talking you could get a handheld field recorder, which as the name implies you can hold in your hands as a regular mic and record and monitor on the same thing, it's also a fairly cheap option (some go for around $200). You could also get a lavalier mic and pair it with it if you want something more discrete and hands free, you can even get wireless stuff. It's also a good idea to record with at least two systems (i.e. field recorder + camera mic), if anything just to have a backup which is going to be very important if you can't re-shoot. Larger field recorders you can carry on a bag or attach to camera stands, but that's not really necessary unless you're using multiple sources, they're also more expensive obviously.

As for audio quality, mic technique is essential as always, get the mic as close as possible if you want to record a specific source, further away if you want to record ambience, or a shotgun mic if you you want to record a specific source but you can't get too close for some reason (these can do everything really but are a bit more tricky to handle and could require assistance too). Also get some kind of wind protection for the mic so you don't get noise from that when recording outdoors (that goes for any type of mic).

There's a few things to consider regarding the audio quality of the recorder itself, but for most scenarios you just need to worry about not clipping and how easy a specific recorder makes it for you to not clip, 32-bit float recorders are currently the easiest i think because you don't need to set the gain manually, at least the ones i've seen. internal noise may also be an issue if you're recording quiet stuff on a quiet place, but there's plenty of demos of field recorders around, you can judge wether the noise of a specific model is acceptable or not. There's also build quality of course, you don't want to get something that's going to stop working the seccond you drop it, reviews can help you with that.

there's also smartphone based stuff, but haven't used that.

Can't really recomment anything specific since i've only done these type of recordings a few times and in rather controlled ambients with gear i don't remember, but hopefully it helps a little.

TL;DR: What you need is a field recorder in a format that suits your needs (external mic may or not be necessary) plus wind protection. You also want to have backups, lots of batteries and storage, and when recording use the right mic technique and avoid clipping.

 

For video, this one is simply incredible and used by many content creators or even for Netflix: https://www.dji.com/uk/osmo-pocket-3?backup_page=index&target=gb

You can connect BT microphones and record them in sync for speech. I'm sure you have already seen them in different videos: https://www.dji.com/uk/mic-2

For stereo audio, it depends on the situation and possibilities, an ORTF, AB or XY setup with discrete microphones connected to a field recorder, a field recorder with in-built mics...