digital recorders

[Liney Bear]

Hey folks -

All this recent talk of recording clips has got me all excited about getting a digital recorder so that I can get feedback from my fellow Chiffers about my playing. So, what are you guys using? I was looking at the Sony IC Recorder. Does anyone have one or recommend something else? Also, how tough is it to convert a wav. file to an mp3?

thanks in advance!
Gordon

[SMarsalis]

Go with an mp3 with a built in voice recorder instead. I've got a Cowon X5 - the recorder is great, but their customer support is horrible, and battery problems are an issue. So, I recommend you instead investigate the Creative Labs Zen Vision or similar from iRiver.

Speaking only from experience with the Cowon and an Olympus digital voice recorder I was using before, the quality of recording is much better on the mp3 player, I don't have to deal with file conversion, the interface is much easier, the file sizes are much better, and the hard drive is huge. Plus you have an mp3 player to listen to all your great ITM recordings. If you already have an ipod you can buy a plug-in recorder, but I don't know how the quality is.

[BrendanB]

Take a look at the Edirol. The sound quality is amazing and it's really light and portable. If I had to do it over again, this is what I would get.

http://www.rolandus.com/products/produc ... jectId=757

[ChrisCracknell]

I have the Edirol R1 -predecessor of the R-09 - and have been exceptionaly satisfied with it.

It is bigger and bulkier than the R-09, uses more batteries and uses bulky, expensive compact flash format memory cards, needs to be turned off before plugging in the external power supply, etc... So I can only assume that the R-09 (which fixes all of these points) is a better device. I have read that the R-09 does not have the same range of built in effects, but since I don't use them anyway, this would not bother me. Doing it again, an R-09 is what I would buy.

The best point about the R1 are the inbuilt microphones. Since the device has no moving parts, there are few background noises to disturb them and their quality is very good. Excellent for field work. Maybe one of the competing devices (e.g. Marantz?) would be more suitable if you were looking for a recorder to plug into a PA setup to record a band gig, but the R1 can do this too, just plug the mixer output into the line in on the R1.

I place it on the table in the middle of a session and leave it on for the whole session on external power, recording at it's best MP3 quality. With a 1Gb card, it could do over 12 hours at this quality... If it is sitting on something soft, e.g. the carrying pouch that comes with it, then it is relatively insulated against people knocking the table. Afterwards, I chop the MP3 file up on my PC and throw most of it away, keeping only the tunes that I am interested in. Strangely, Transcribe! has proved to be the best tool for doing this chopping, although I need to convert the output back to MP3 once it has chopped.

Alternatively I have placed it on a table several metres from the group, and tried to get a better balanced version of the sound. Don't place it in front of a banjo player if you can avoid it.

I have also used it at home, simply propped up on the music stand and play... Works great. Here I often playback the device directly through my stereo system since I am mainly trying to get honest impressions of how my playing sounds. Playback through headphones would be an option too.

The playback mode has a A->B loop function and the ability to play at half speed. It would be nice to have a wider range of playback speeds available, but you can't have everything.

When recording, it is important to set the input level to something that is loud enough, but doesn't overload the device. There is an optional limiter built in, but it is still better to avoid the music being too loud for the device's range. This usually involves me sitting in front of the device and asking everyone to play as loudly as they can for a note or two... If I was really paying attention to the device(i.e. not playing myself), then I would fairly constantly monitor the input level and adjust according to the individual pieces being played - but I rarely do this.

Hope this helps.

Chris.

[Martin Milner]

My system for the last three years has been to record on a iRiver HP-140, and then cut the clips up using Goldwave on my PC. I've recorded thousands of hours of stuff with the HP-140, and apart from the silly looking "billy big button" on the front, it's suited my needs very well.

Unfortunately the HP-140 is no longer made, and the products that have replaced it aren't getting glowing reviews on Amazon.

You'll need some form of editing software whatever system you use to record with - Goldwave can be tried free, is very simple to use, and isn't very expensive to upgrade to the full version when your demo version stops working.

[Martin Milner]

My system for the last three years has been to record on a iRiver HP-140, and then cut the clips up using Goldwave on my PC. I've recorded thousands of hours of stuff with the HP-140, and apart from the silly looking "billy big button" on the front, it's suited my needs very well.

Unfortunately the HP-140 is no longer made, and the products that have replaced it aren't getting glowing reviews on Amazon.

You'll need some form of editing software whatever system you use to record with - Goldwave can be tried free, is very simple to use, and isn't very expensive to upgrade to the full version when your demo version stops working.

[Harry]

Gordon,

What do you need to do?

I need to record sound clips to send as MP3s, I just do this with a laptop, mic and Audacity sound editor freeware.

The program saves the ceol as an Audacity file but can convert to MP3 if you download the free lame file library.

Not great for sessions though I would have thought, but the quality is as good as one of those Edirol yokes.

Regards,

H.

[Cathy Wilde]

After futzing around with minidisc (required iMic interface to transfer to computer, special disks and a a fair amount of patience) and iRiver (wouldn't talk to my Mac), my beloved and I gave each other half an Edirol R-09 for Christmas. It's fantastic, though you'll want the 1 GB memory chip; fortunately they're a lot cheaper than they used to be. I think the Edirols are less expensive now, too.

Consider rechargeable batteries as well; the Edirol seems to go through the batteries (although maybe it's because I'm always recording sessions and things that are three or four hours long).

Anyway, I can't get over how good the sound quality is, even at lo-res mp3, or how easy it is to transfer stuff to your hard drive.

At home, I use the computer setup like Harry describes. I've used Audacity several years now, but am just starting to experiment with Apple's Garage Band and having fun with that as well.

[River Otter]

I have been using the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 and my reaction to it is rather mixed. I purchased it through Amazon's electronics subsidiary Electronica Direct. After two days of use it died during the recommended firmware update. So, I called the M-Audio support line and described the problem and they suggested I send it back to Electronica Direct for an exchange, which I did with a little hassle and about $15 shipping. So, a week later I had a replacement which only lasted one day before it died. I called M-Audio support again and had them put me on the phone with the person they let you talk to when you cuss a lot and described the problem again. This time I sent it back to M-Audio for repair/replacement and they paid the shipping. Two months after my initial purchase I had a fully functional digital recorder. M-Audio suggested that they may have had a bad batch that got shipped to Electronica Direct in bulk, so I got two bad recorders because I drew twice from the same well. OK, whatever.

But now that it works, it works pretty well. The sound quality is very good, in fact, not being an audiophile I would say it's amazing, even recording from the little 1/8" stereo mic that comes with it. You also have the option of recording from regular mics with two 1/4" jack inputs. The navigation buttons and screen display are easy to use. You can record in wav or mp3 format and drag and drop files from the recorder directly to your computer without the need of any additional interface software. The battery is completely internal and recharges through the USB which comes with an adapter for plugging into AC. So far the battery has lasted through about three hours of continuous recording without running dry. My only complaint now that I have a good one is that when recording in mp3 format it tends to skip some which wouldn't be a problem if I was recording a speech or an interview, but since I'm recording music it's rather annoying. I haven't had this problem when recording to wav format, but with a 2 gig compact flash card and my preferred quality settings I only have room for about 2 hours of wav recording and our sessions tend to go on a bit longer than that.

All that being said, I don't recommend buying one from Amazon or Electronica Direct, but they are available elsewhere and so far it has suited my purposes well enough and wasn't as expensive as others I looked at. BTW it didn't come with the 2 gig Compact Flash card; it came with, I believe, a 64MB card which is puny.

That's my experience; make of it what you will.

[chas]

After futzing around with minidisc (required iMic interface to transfer to computer, special disks and a a fair amount of patience) and iRiver (wouldn't talk to my Mac),

Wouldn't talk to your Mac? I've used an iRiver IHP for a few years with four different Macs (G3 running OS8.6 thru G5 running 10.4) and never had a problem. I even use it as a storage device for transporting big files to and from work. I suspect either the USB cable or one of the connections was bad.

[Martin Milner]

M-Audio suggested that they may have had a bad batch that got shipped to Electronica Direct in bulk, so I got two bad recorders because I drew twice from the same well. OK, whatever.

Isn't that's what quality control was invented for - to catch and eliminate bad batches?

[River Otter]

M-Audio suggested that they may have had a bad batch that got shipped to Electronica Direct in bulk, so I got two bad recorders because I drew twice from the same well. OK, whatever.

Isn't that's what quality control was invented for - to catch and eliminate bad batches?

What a novel concept. We can control the quality. Brilliant!!

[dow]

If you've got a phone or PDA that runs Windows Mobile, there's a program called VITO Audionotes CLick Here that works very well and allows you to record in either .wav or .mp3 formats in three different sound quality levels. I used it last year to record all of my classes at Augusta on my cell phone. It costs about $20, I believe. If you're interested in hearing samples, PM me and I'll point you to a couple.

[jim stone]

If I can ask a really bonehead question, what's
the minimum I need to record a clip? I have a toshiba
laptop and an olympus digital voice recorder with
an internal mike. I need the Dick and Jane version,
if you will be so kind; not what I do best.

[dow]

If I can ask a really bonehead question, what's
the minimum I need to record a clip? I have a toshiba
laptop and an olympus digital voice recorder with
an internal mike. I need the Dick and Jane version,
if you will be so kind; not what I do best.

Hey Jim,

Not boneheaded at all. If your laptop has a built-in mic, then you can even use that, although the sound quality may not be the best. Or you can plug in a simple PC microphone into the mic. jack on your computer. Download a copy of Audacity. It's free, and should do all you (or I) will ever need as far as home recording. From there, you can go up as far as you want and can afford. As I indicated above, I use my cell phone for recording, but I use Audacity on the computer to clean up the recordings, slow them down, break them apart to learn different parts, etc.