Looking For Digital Recorder

Poststructural Pub
1

I just purchased an Olympus Digital Voice Recorder hoping that I could record my whistle playing while away from the computer. The problem is, despite it being “digital”, is that it sounds like a cheap recording. Does anyone know of a compact digital recording device that I can use to record my whistle playing and then download on to the pc (windows)? I need something that sounds as good as if I was recording directly into the computer. Thanks.

Will O’Ban

2

The sony minidisc is a good one I think. There was a recent thread on these so you might find more info doing a search. As someone pointed out you can only download (upload?) in real time with the sony so I guess that’s a downside. Sorry I’m being a little vague but try the search or others will probably be more helpful here. The sony is good though sound-wise and you can edit out tracks etc. For awhile I was also using mine to record a 4 hour college radio show of bluegrass and while listening back I could add track marks and then easily delete tracks I didn’t want. --I don’t know if there’s any help for your Olympus except maybe the choice of mic. will make a difference. -mike

3

Look up the discussion of the iRiver. I have one, it records direct to MP3, and transfer is over USB, so it takes maybe 30 sec or a minute to transfer an hour’s worth of recording.

4

if i had to buy a new digital recorder, no doubt i’d choose the Edirol-1 http://www.whistleanddrum.com/category.aspx?categoryID=75

but i’m kinda hoping my old one will last 'till they combine the features of pitch control and good slowdown options with it.

5

The three options in the prior replies are good ones. The voice recorders suffer from low bit rate and limited memory. Those without a mic jack tend to have poor sound quality. I’ll summarize the other three options:

Sony Minidisc less than $100 used off Ebay, mic helps

  • pros - high quality sound, cheap media
  • con - no easy way to transfer to computer (the newer HiFiMD solves this problem but cost goes up to around $200)

IRiver - most people here opt for the harddisk models $250 to $350

  • pros - good sound quality, large storage capacity, MP3 recording
  • cons - takes 10+ seconds to boot up, clumsy user interface to delete tunes, harddrive based devices tend to be less durable than others. The flash memory IRivers are cheaper and probably more durable, but there are few first hand reports on these models.

The Edirol seems like it has it all, but it comes with a retail price tag of $400+.

So a lot depends on your budget and the features most important to you. I use a Sony voice recorder with ECM mic. It suffers from low bit rate and limited storage. However, always on, tiny size and USB transfer at $110 (with mic) were worth the trade offs to me. There is no way I could justify $300 or more for this kind of device.

  • Bill
6

Thanks, all for the input and suggestions. As Mike suggested, I also did a search of some previous threads on this topic and found some other useful info. The minidisc seems like it would give good quality, but the downloading seems to be a problem. The Edirol seems like the best machine on the market, but for $400 +, I have to agree with Bill and can’t justify the price for what I want to do with it. Based on everything that I read, the i-River seemed like it would fill the bill.

I went out tonight and bought the i-River IFP 890. Price was $130 USD from Best Buy. It has 256 mb of flash memory (just hope I shouldn’t have gotten more memory). Bill was right in his comments about the clumsy user interface – it’ll take some getting used to. It allows recordings with the internal mic of up to 44 khz. I recorded the whistle and the sound quality seemed pretty accurate. Anyway, it seems to do what I want, at a reasonable price, so I’m a happy camper.

Thanks again.

Will O’Ban