Ipod Voice Recorder?

[Animaterra]

My school district is authorizing me to get an Ipod for school use, and I'm wondering about the voice recorder that can be used with it: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebO...nMore=T9635LL/A

Has anyone here tried it? What works for you?

[Chris Timson]

My school district is authorizing me to get an Ipod for school use

Is that so, when the kids are getting unbearable, you just put the earphones on and shut them out? Cracking good idea if true!

 

Chris

[Guest]

I do have the Griffin iTalk for my iPod, but never use it.

 

It's great for recording talking/lectures etc, but lousy for recording music, which ends up sounding muffled and muddy. I'd be happy to send you a small demo file of music recorded with the iTalk if that helps.

 

What do you plan to be using it for?

 

Cheers

Morgana

Edited December 3, 2005 by Morgana

[RatFace]

I was considering getting one of these recently (but didn't get around to it):

 

IRiver recorder/player

 

The line-in is intended for (analogue) recording of music - so the quality should be fine/good with an external mic. If any product narrows down its recording abilities to "voice" you can be fairly sure the quality will be pretty poor...

[Cream-T]

I've got the iRiver H140 - not bad, but you can't check and adjust your recording level while recording - it's a pain in the neck. The user interface is also not great. Most recently, the H140 has let me down big style, by crashing completely during recording a gig (with permission of the artists) and taking the file database index with it (not the files, luckily). I'm not happy with it at the moment.

 

I have decided to save up for a dedicated recording device, there's quite a few very good ones around.

[Jim Stetson]

The iPod probably isn't a good idea if you really are interested in recording. There are much better and less expensive options out there. I'm an Apple fan and prefer iPod for everything except recording. Apple has chosen to leave the recording feature out of the iPod and there is really no way for third parties to create add-ons that come anywhere near the recording capabilities you will find in the best mp3 players from iRiver and Cowon (iAudio). I don't know if you are interested in recording in music or voice, but if it's music you want, you would do far better with something like the iRiver, Cowon or even the Olympus line of digital recorders.

 

Jim

[Animaterra]

Thanks for all the good advice. The primary reason I want an Ipod is so that I can (legally of course) download songs or mix them up from cds for use in my music classroom. You can get an attachment so you can listen from your stereo (one of my colleagues at school is already doing this).

 

A secondary benefit will be to record instantly my students' singing- "Wow, that was great! Want to hear how you sounded?" - not for archval purposes, nor to preserve them for all time.

 

For this purpose it sounds as though the Griffin will do just fine.

[richard]

Hello

 

for recording music and vioce or anything with very good quality I have had very good results with a mini disc recorder. I can upload it to computer and put it on CD later if I need. I have recorded some great concerts (using a decent microphone) and the results are great. To me they sound "high quality".

 

Richard

[JimLucas]

A secondary benefit will be to record instantly my students' singing- "Wow, that was great! Want to hear how you sounded?"

But then you don't want something with such poor recording quality that even the best voice will sound distorted.

[Guest]

I agree with Jim's comment. I recorded a session of really talented musicians on the iTalk, and the sound quality was so poor it didn't do them justice at all.

 

I'm also a big fan of the minidisc recorder, which I used very successfully at the Arran Concertina Event this year (gratuitous plug )

 

RE music to your class from your iPod, I bought a great little speaker system for AUD$25 (approx UDS$18/GBP 11) on ebay and was really surprised at just how good quality it sounded.

 

Hope this helps,

Cheers

Morgana

[Perry Werner]

Howdy:

 

I've been using my iPod with the Griffin i-Talk for about three months now to record my lessons.

 

Quality is questionable, no it's actually pretty lousy. Only good for educational purposes and reference.

 

Also, in addition to utilizing i-Talk, I use an small external Sony microphone which I think is essential for my purposes. i-Talk does have a mini-plug jack on the top for this purpose.

 

I first attempted to record with the i-Talk alone but quickly realized that the i-Pod with i-Talk had to almost be on top of myself and my very able instructor in order to he "heard".

 

I hooked up the external mic at my next lesson which improved the sound quality drastically, as I was able to bring the mic much closer to the instruments and us, which was necessary due to the set up of the lessons. Otherwise, my iPod would have to sit on the edge of the table where the lessons take place and would no doubt eventually end up on the floor. The set up is not great, but workable and more convenient than the cassette recorder I used to use and later my Mac Powerbook with Garage Band.

 

You might want to try this (the laptop) set up, as the sound quality with the Power Book is pretty decent and also has the microphone built in with no need for an external. The only reason I use the iPod rather than the Power Book is convenience. It's obviously a lot easier to pack and drag around an iPod with a mic.

 

Also, the cassette recorder finally gave in and I got tired of dealing with faulty cassettes.

 

Bottom line is, is that whether you use the i-Talk alone or use an external mic, the sound source has to be almost on top of the device (or the device on top of the sound source) in order to get a somewhat usuable recording.

 

These recordings are usuable, but again, only for reference.

 

Sound quality is low level and somewhat muffled, but listenable.

 

Okay for my purposes and it does pretty much what I think Apple intended the recording ability for the iPod to be used for, which I believe was for voice memos only. Using i-Talk for voice memos means almost putting the darn thing in your mouth to be heard, so you can see the problem here.

 

By the way, for archiving purposes, I later burn the lesson files to CD after they show up in iTunes, mostly because I am obsessive about keeping records (no pun intended) of my progress.

 

I have on occasion gone back to listen to a portion of a past lesson but this is rare.

 

Have fun,

Perry Werner

[Bruce McCaskey]

I note your original posting specifically mentions an iPod being authorized, but perhaps you won't object to some perspective on alternatives.

 

If you'd be happy with fairly good quality (as you suggest), some folks really like "digital voice" recorders, and a few have very useful slowdown-without-pitch-change features. I suggest you take a look at this site from Michael Eskin for his perspective on various recorders. Although he posted a photo of a recorder with a non-english display, the ones you find in your local store will feature english text.

 

Of course, if you want a large capacity unit with an easy download interface to commercial sites, iPods and other such mp3 units might be the way to go, but for live recording quality and capability I'd still lean towards a minidisk unit or one of the others Michael mentions. By the way, he has a full feature website that's well worth a visit for anyone that has an interest in Irish music and lives in the Southern California region.

 

For my own usage, I use an iPod for personal music storage and listening, and a Sony mindisk for making live recordings. Those that I really like end up on the iPod, typically after a little editing to adjust volume and so forth.

Edited December 6, 2005 by Bruce McCaskey