Field recording for use with Eurorack (Morphagene) and iOS, Radiophonic/Natlab style

Since I’m charmed by the works of Natlab, Radiophonic Workshop and Hainbach I’m considering to buy a fieldrecorder for use with my Eurorack (Make Noise Morphagene) and iOS apps. Recording “natural” sounds outside, homemade percussion etc. etc. My eye fell on the Tascam DR-40X which for the price seems to do what I want. Would this be a good choice or are there other/better options within this price category and if so then why?

I am using a Olympus LS-P4. While it is not perfect it can go anywhere, has decent audio quality and supports FLAC. Got mine 2nd hand for like 75 EUR. While handling can be fiddly depending on what you do with it I would choose it again due to its miniature size.

I've used MD as my field 2-track of choice for decades now. Very small, inobtrusive, but solid performance. At present, both the portable and the studio MD deck are both Sony units.

But that's not the whole deal there...the big performance kicker with my MD use are these fantastic, tiny omnis that I use as a binaural pair, clipping them to my glasses earpieces so that they have a proper "head" for spatialization. By doing that, you get a recording that PRECISELY gives you the directional cues as you heard them in the field on headphones, and with a little M/S tweaking, you can translate that nicely to normal stereo. https://www.microphonemadness.com/mm-bsm-6-micro-binaural-stereo-microphones-w-shure-premium-holding-clips.html are the very model...I got mine in 2005, and the design works so well it's still unchanged 15+ years later! Even if you get a different field recorder, I'd still look into those mics if I were you...

makes note to dig my Sony Mini Disk out of the attic, and the binaural mics :) One of my MD is broken and will only Play, the other will record full 44.1 / 16bit .wav too, I really must fine them!

Though I think the answer is YES, the Tascam DR-40X will do the job nicely.

Sho'nuff. I've had my similar TASCAM DR-680 mkii out for a tad of field testing...works like a charm. Now, if you have something along those lines, where there's proper XLR I/O on the machine, THEN go with some better mics. That's when the real fun starts, because there's so damn many ways to employ mics in the field as well as a seemingly-equal amount of mics to fit those uses.

F'rinstance, this: https://www.amazon.com/Microphone-CVM-VM20-Professional-Smartphone-Camcorder/dp/B08NFT8DYB/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=comica+microphone&qid=1627696273&sr=8-6 That's no ordinary mic..."shotguns" are used for distant pickups, since they have a very tight hypercardioid pattern off the front. So, let's say you've got four tracks to play with, and you're out in nature. For that, you'd want four mics: two are for a normal stereo X-Y pickup pattern with omni mics, and then you can use two shotguns and aim them wherever you want as your "leads"...but the nice thing about those shotguns is that you can be several feet from your audio source and STILL grab it pretty well. Been hearing a lot of good things about those Comicas, too...

I've been listening some binaural recordings for the last couple of weeks and it got me interested. Browsing the internet for information on mics I landed on the Sennheiser Ambeo Smart Headset which seem to be discounted at 50€ at the moment.

It seems like it works with iOS devices only, but since Bietfriek mentioned the iOS apps I guess this could also be an option, and for that price I'm considering getting a pair myself. I'm not sure what are the advantages of using a recording device instead of a smartphone with this kind of mics, maybe I'm missing something but this seems like a good place to start experimenting with field recording.