Edirol R-1: could this be the Holy Grail in mp3-recording?

claudine · Post by **claudine** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 6:13 am

http://www.edirol.com/products/info/r1.html

Edirol R-1 - just read about it on a forum. Seems to be very interesting, just the thing that I had been waiting for. According to this website, it can make high-quality recordings in mp3-format. What do you think - will this be the sessioneer's favourite gadget?

lixnaw · Post by **lixnaw** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 6:36 am

these thing always keep on improving, but it sure looks handy enough, worth a chance,
but you might have to pay 25% income tax in Lucilinburhuc when you import from outside europe.
maybe it's best to wait 'till they sell it in germany.

colomon · Post by **colomon** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 8:06 am

It looks pretty limited from a session perspective -- it costs a lot ($440 street, $550 list) and can only record two hours (at 64 kb MP3) without swapping memory, if I read it correctly. (Maybe for more money you can get more memory?) And the high quality recording is going to be wasted on a session, anyway.

Looks to me like this is targeted at professional recording projects -- it's got that typical high quality, high price, limited duration profile.

lixnaw · Post by **lixnaw** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 8:20 am

colomon wrote:It looks pretty limited from a session perspective -- it costs a lot ($440 street, $550 list) and can only record two hours (at 64 kb MP3)

it sure is 2 hours of 24-bit/44.1kHz WAV recording,
http://www.synthtopia.com/news/04_09/Ed ... order.html

pizak · Post by **pizak** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 9:32 am

So two hours on a 64Mb means 8hrs on a 256Mb.

It also does 1hr with NO COMPRESSION on a 1Gb.

Probably a good medium would be a 256Mb compactflash card ($45) used at 128mb compression (CD quality) giving you 4hrs recording time. Its only the $440 street price thats a problem!)

Paul

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 10:19 am

It's beginning to look good. I'm still waiting for a $200 device with swapable hard drives, WAV recording and a good interface. Throw in a little qwerty keyboard and i'll buy it!

Eliezer · Post by **Eliezer** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 11:35 am

Then again, a Sharp minidisc is just about perfect

for this application and costs half as much.

And a decent cassette recorder will do everthing you want except for computer editing. So you play the tape into the computer while you're washing dishes. Big deal.

Darwin · Post by **Darwin** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 12:39 pm

glauber wrote:It's beginning to look good. I'm still waiting for a $200 device with swapable hard drives, WAV recording and a good interface. Throw in a little qwerty keyboard and i'll buy it!

No reason why it shouldn't include an 8-megapixel CCD and a 4x zoom lens, eh?

BillChin · Post by **BillChin** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 1:35 pm

There are always trade offs. Price, portability, sound quality, capacity, size of files, ease of use, ability to export files are some of the items on my list. A mic can help with sound quality, and also add to the cost.

For my needs the sweet spot was a Sony voice recorder. I read an excellent write up by Michael Eskin and bought one.
Scorecard:
portability A+ (tiny--fits in shirt pocket with mic!)
price B ($80 refurb, newer model retails for $150)
capacity B (two hours at medium resolution, newer unit does 4 hours)
sound quality B (using external mic)
interface B (USB to transfer files--a must have for my needs)

Portability is at the top of my list. I carry my Sony virtually everywhere and I can record unobtrusively where a bigger unit will stick out. Most people that see the Sony think it is a cell phone. The Sony records in DVF format, with a conversion to WAV (and then another utility to MP3). Sound quality approximates AM radio.
+ Bill

Bill Reeder · Post by **Bill Reeder** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 1:42 pm

I'm still loving my iRiver iHP-120 after 2 - 3 months of ownership.

colomon · Post by **colomon** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 2:20 pm

Bill Reeder wrote:I'm still loving my iRiver iHP-120 after 2 - 3 months of ownership.

Same here. Biggest problem is I'm recording more stuff than I have time to listen to...

Bill Reeder · Post by **Bill Reeder** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 4:54 pm

Same problem - 94 cds on it so far - but I''m playing it nearly 8 hours a day at work. I'd really been feeling bad about not listening as intensely as I used to and the device has certainly remedied that problem. It did a fine job of recording sessions and workshop at the North Hero Pipers Gathering.

NicoMoreno · Post by **NicoMoreno** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 6:17 pm

I was wondering if anyone had those...

So what are the pros and cons of the iRiver?

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Sat Oct 09, 2004 8:48 pm

Darwin wrote:
glauber wrote:It's beginning to look good. I'm still waiting for a $200 device with swapable hard drives, WAV recording and a good interface. Throw in a little qwerty keyboard and i'll buy it!
No reason why it shouldn't include an 8-megapixel CCD and a 4x zoom lens, eh?

What are you anyhow, some kind of photographer?

I'm sticking to Sharp minidisc for now, BTW. It's like a cassette recorder for nerds.

colomon · Post by **colomon** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 6:30 am

NicoMoreno wrote:So what are the pros and cons of the iRiver?

Pros:
--Small and light
--Can record 2+ hours straight (up to 5 hours if you're willing to reduce sound quality a lot, about 1 hour at WAV format)
--20 GB hard drive means it can hold tons of music -- mine has got 11 days of music festival, several sessions, and 10-20 albums, and I've only used up about half the available space
--when plugged into computer, is an external hard drive (which has saved my bacon doing real work once)
--as a result, downloading music and reorganizing the files on it is easy (if you've got a computer handy)
--nice sound quality
--as a bonus can be used as a portable MP3 player

Cons:
--occasional tiny audio dropouts means recordings will not be pristine (fine for sessions and audience recordings, not so fine for directly dumping albums to iRiver or professional recording)
--built-in rechargable battery means you need to occasionally return to a power outlet. (Looks like you can do maybe six hours of recording without recharging -- exact length will depend on MP3 recording quality)
--files cannot be easily organized without a computer handy. Until you use a computer to do something with them, recordings are just stored voice001, voice002, voice003, etc, without even a useful time stamp.
--user interface is a bit awkward
--recording level controls are very awkward, the recording level is not metered, and the level cannot be adjusted on the fly
--internal mic not terribly good (but small external mic included is fine)
--recording takes time to start -- at best a couple of seconds, at worst maybe 15 seconds (if you have to boot the machine from scratch)

In practice, I ended up working out the following schedule for using it at Goderich: 1) Record a day's worth of classes. 2) Recharge during the 2-3 hours off at dinner time. 3) Record the evening's concerts and maybe a session. 4) Recharge while sleeping. 5) In the morning, hook it up to my laptop, move the previous day's recordings to a directory indicting the date they were made, and copy them to the laptop. This worked very well for me.

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Edirol R-1: could this be the Holy Grail in mp3-recording?

Edirol R-1: could this be the Holy Grail in mp3-recording?

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