Gemini DRP-1 Rackmount Recorder

The Gemini DRP-1 recorder has some major issues. It will record sound and it does a good job when the flaws don't get in the way. It's simple to use (when the flaws don't get in the way). Here's the flaws found so far: 1) The recording level meter. It doesn't always work. Sometimes no level is seen at all, but most of the time the level is about 1-2 seconds behind the sound being recorded. The recording meters range is about -20 to peak. So if the sound is currently quiet it's hard to know what the level is as it doesn't appear at all. The meter is so slow that you will never see quick peaks. These will distort but you may never see the level for it. 2) The Recording level adjustment. The digital adjustment wheel adjusts the gain digitally. It really trims the gain off the analog signal. When used during a recording each "click" of the wheel is a very coarse adjustment (3-5 db). Adjusting the wheel produces a "pop" in the recording. Using it in a recording can be disastrous to the recording. 3) Undocumented "Features" AGC (Automatic Gain Control). My recorder currently has the Volume control set for AGC. However there is no AGC in any of the manuals I have found. There are no controls that I know of for enabling or disabling the AGC. It's like they didn't get this feature working good and simply left it hidden. Well it's on for my recorder and it causes the audio to sound very bad. It's like a very badly configured gate that turns the audio up when it detects sound and turns the level down when it gets quiet. Only it's cutting sound off that I want to keep in the final recording. It also introduces pops and other artifacts into the recording. We don't know how this "feature" was enabled and we don't know how to disable it. Edit - I found a fix to this. A review of a different model of this recorder gave a method to turn off the AGC. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/review/R9JBN0MGB60V5/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R9JBN0MGB60V5 Noise Gate The recorder has a noise gate that defaults to "ON" each time the unit is turned on. To turn it off. Remove the SD Card, then press and hold the Record button. 4) The documentation is wrong about the companies website. And I cannot find any firmware updates on their sites. I have a help request in. We will see if they will help me. At this point I would not recommend this product. It does work but it's flaws counter the simplicity of recording audio.