This is my latest “essential” bit of sound recording kit. The Sound Devices 552 is the “mixer with a record button” I’ve been wanting for a long time. No bigger than a standard location mixer it adds a recorder which records stereo files to an SD card. Files can also be timecode stamped and the recorder can be set to run automatically on seeing turning code. In addition to this there are 5 microphone inputs and a very useful amount of outputs. Wireless links to camera, plus a wired feed elsewhere, timecoded back up files, iso outputs to another recorder and headphone feed for the director – all no problem for this mixer.

New Firmware for the Sound Devices 552 mixer is now available from http://www.sounddevices.com/download/552-firmware.htm

The Sound Devices 552 Mixer firmware revision 1.4 provides the following new features and changes:

• fix – Improved transport control preventing semi-lockup conditions with some SD cards.
• new – Save and load user settings to internal memory.

The firmware is updated by downloading the update, putting it on an SD card and loading this into the mixer. Several previous updates have been made since the mixer was first released so it may be worth checking to see how up to date you are. Previous updates fixed problems using certain types of SD cards as well as adding some new functions.