Recording Devices..............again Please!

[Perry Werner]

Howdy:

Now that NESI has ended, I'm still somewhat in the dark about all the little recording devices I observed in use while there.

For some reason my non-technical mind can't decipher what's what.

I'd love to have something small that can fit in my concertina case andhas excellent sound quality.

It would also be great to be able to load it into my computer and use one of the slowdown (speedup?) programs that are availabale for free on the web.

Is MP3 the way to go? Mini Disc?. Cassette recorder? Reel to Reel?

Specific devices mentioned would be helpful.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome.

 

Thanks,

Perry Werner

[Henk van Aalten]

For some reason my non-technical mind can't decipher what's what.

I'd love to have something small that can fit in my concertina case andhas excellent sound quality.

It would also be great to be able to load it into my computer and use one of the slowdown (speedup?) programs that are availabale for free on the web.

Is MP3 the way to go?

Hi Perry,

 

When you are looking for high quality sound recording, you have (as far as I know) the choice between:

- The Edirol stuff

- Zoom H4 or the Zoom H2 stuff

 

All the mini-disk and related stuff are (more or less) outdated....

[David Barnert]

Is MP3 the way to go? Mini Disc?. Cassette recorder? Reel to Reel?

Hey, Perry.

 

Don't be so quick to give up on wax cylinders.

[bill_mchale]

For some reason my non-technical mind can't decipher what's what.

I'd love to have something small that can fit in my concertina case andhas excellent sound quality.

It would also be great to be able to load it into my computer and use one of the slowdown (speedup?) programs that are availabale for free on the web.

Is MP3 the way to go?

Hi Perry,

 

When you are looking for high quality sound recording, you have (as far as I know) the choice between:

- The Edirol stuff

- Zoom H4 or the Zoom H2 stuff

 

All the mini-disk and related stuff are (more or less) outdated....

 

I wouldn't be so quick to write off the mini-disk stuff, at least not the Hi-MD stuff, which can be used to make excellent recordings. That being said, the new Solid State recorders are getting to a point in both price and performance, where it is hard to justify using anything else. The only real downside any of these have over tape-recorders is the lack of a built in speaker, you either need earphones or an external speaker. For those who want a built in speaker (handy for lessons and what have you) the digital voice recorders are a very good option. Though they don't have removable media, they can usually easily download their data to your computer.

 

--

Bill

[Perry Werner]

Is MP3 the way to go? Mini Disc?. Cassette recorder? Reel to Reel?

Hey, Perry.

 

Don't be so quick to give up on wax cylinders.

 

Dave:

I did'nt give up on them. I figured out a way to add a wick to them and have been using them as a light source.

 

Perry

[bill_mchale]

Is MP3 the way to go? Mini Disc?. Cassette recorder? Reel to Reel?

Hey, Perry.

 

Don't be so quick to give up on wax cylinders.

 

Dave:

I did'nt give up on them. I figured out a way to add a wick to them and have been using them as a light source.

 

Perry

 

 

Hey, I am not willing to give up on player pianos yet... this whole recording thing is just a fad .

 

--

Bill

[Dieppe]

Is MP3 the way to go? Mini Disc?. Cassette recorder? Reel to Reel?

Hey, Perry.

 

Don't be so quick to give up on wax cylinders.

 

I wouldn't! Here's one for sale on eBay! I wonder how one would go about converting that to mp3?

[frogspawn]

When you are looking for high quality sound recording, you have (as far as I know) the choice between:

- The Edirol stuff

- Zoom H4 or the Zoom H2 stuff

 

All the mini-disk and related stuff are (more or less) outdated....

 

The Zoom H2 looks like a good buy - I ordered one yesterday on Ebay (best price).

 

MiniDisks made good recordings, but with the first generation models you had to transfer them in real time. The second generation models were, I understand, hamstrung by DRM.

 

The only drawback with the H2 is that it isn't USB 2.0 so I'll be getting a USB 2.0 SD card reader. I don't know if it comes with any editing software but I've just got a copy of WavePad (free) which is a very simple and no-nonsense program for trimming and dividing tracks. It will even selectively boost volume.

 

Richard

[chris]

hi

Audacity seems to work OK with a zoom H4 I guess it will work with zoom H2

have fun

chris

[Chris Timson]

I've just got back from a holiday in Switzerland, during the course of which we went to a Swiss folk festival. We took part in an "orchestre ad hoc" workshop that led to a performance at a bal the following day.I took my trusty Edirol R-9 to the bal, stuck it up the back of the stage, set it going and forgot about it. This morning I downloaded the recording (about 1 1/2 hours, 110 Mb at 192 kb/sec) and started it playing. I am listening to it right now as I write this. It sounds great!

 

I can't speak for the Zoom machines, but I promise you the Edirol does the business. It's a very well thought out, easy to use, quality piece of kit. I wouldn't be without it.

 

Chris

 

PS I agree about Audacity. That's a very good piece of software and free to boot. You will need the Lame mp3 codec as well if you want to work in mp3 as well as wav, but that's free too.

[bill_mchale]

MiniDisks made good recordings, but with the first generation models you had to transfer them in real time. The second generation models were, I understand, hamstrung by DRM.

 

Orignally sonicstage limited the number of times you could upload tracks that you recorded yourself. It was not built into the player, but rather the software. Now you can upload as much as you like from the minidisc. The biggest problem (As far as I am concerned) is that the minidisc ties you to sonicstage which ties you mostly to Windows or in the very latest models, to Windows or Macs. In the long run, I ultimately prefer a format that can be treated as a drive and uploaded in linux, Windows, Mac OSX, etc..

 

--

Bill

[Tootler]

MiniDisks made good recordings, but with the first generation models you had to transfer them in real time. The second generation models were, I understand, hamstrung by DRM.

 

Orignally sonicstage limited the number of times you could upload tracks that you recorded yourself. It was not built into the player, but rather the software. Now you can upload as much as you like from the minidisc. The biggest problem (As far as I am concerned) is that the minidisc ties you to sonicstage which ties you mostly to Windows or in the very latest models, to Windows or Macs. In the long run, I ultimately prefer a format that can be treated as a drive and uploaded in linux, Windows, Mac OSX, etc..

 

--

Bill

 

I had a first generation minidisk and t was excellent for its time even though you had to load everything in real time. On that basis I bought another one about two years ago and I was really disappointed. Not only did you have the problem of the limit on the number of times you could upload tracks you had recorded yourself, but once you had uploaded them there was nothing you could do with them except play them. The tracks were were in Sony's proprietary format and you could neither edit them natively or convert them to a more "standard" format and edit them except by transferring them in real time - in effect re-recording the tracks on the to PC.

 

I agree with the comment about them being hamstrung by DRM, because the instruction book that came with the minidisk was shot through with paranoia about DRM and as a result they tried to prevent you doing anything that they might consider copyright infringement, even with your own files. In other ways the minidisk was very good. I bought a very neat stereo mic that plugged directly into the mic socket, so no trailing leads, the quality of the recordings was very good and the HD minidisk held a lot of recordings.

 

Because of the software limitations which I found intensely annoying, I abandoned the minidisk and bought a R09 which, although expensive is an excellent device and records in both wav and mp3 and uses widely available SD cards to store the recordings, so it is easy to transfer your recordings to whatever your preferred platform is and edit them using your favourite software, Audacity in my case.

 

Geoff

[Theodore Kloba]

Don't be so quick to give up on wax cylinders.

I wonder how one would go about converting that to mp3?

This was discussed last year; conversion is being done by these folks: Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project. (Hint: Go there and search for "Concertina"!)

[spindizzy]

[

I agree with the comment about them being hamstrung by DRM, because the instruction book that came with the minidisk was shot through with paranoia about DRM and as a result they tried to prevent you doing anything that they might consider copyright infringement, even with your own files. In other ways the minidisk was very good. I bought a very neat stereo mic that plugged directly into the mic socket, so no trailing leads, the quality of the recordings was very good and the HD minidisk held a lot of recordings.

 

Because of the software limitations which I found intensely annoying, I abandoned the minidisk and bought a R09 which, although expensive is an excellent device and records in both wav and mp3 and uses widely available SD cards to store the recordings, so it is easy to transfer your recordings to whatever your preferred platform is and edit them using your favourite software, Audacity in my case.

 

Sony finally gave up on a lot of the DRM stuff (there's still some in the system for copying digital media ie a digital copy of a CD, but microphone recordings are unrestricted. Also there's export to WAV in the package.

 

However I suspect all this came too late to save the minidisk format and the new flash card devices seem to be much more robust and easier to use (especially the interface to computer), I'm probably going to change from MD to Zoom or Edirol when I can find the dosh :-)

[richard]

Hello

 

One invaluable ability my minidisc has is to be able to make "track marks".

 

Do any of the the newer, flash drive or hard drive recorders have the "track mark" feature? This makes all the difference in recording workshops and anything so you can locate them later, and just pare down the recording to what you want before uploading into the computer.

 

Richard

[Chris Timson]

Do any of the the newer, flash drive or hard drive recorders have the "track mark" feature? This makes all the difference in recording workshops and anything so you can locate them later, and just pare down the recording to what you want before uploading into the computer.

Co-incidentally Roland have just added this functionality to the R-09 in a recent firmware update. If the device is recording, pressing the A-B button splits the recording at that point. That was the only bit of minidisc functionality that I missed, so I'm quite pleased about that. The same update adds support for up to 8 Gb SDHC cards and the ability to turn off the bright red record light. The R-09 just gets better.

 

Chris

[Perry Werner]

Howdy:

Still have'nt made a purchase yet. I guess I'm looking for a definitive answer / recommendation for the best buy out there.

Do most of these devices offer the slow down feature?

And if so, does it change pitch?

Thanks,

Perry Werner

[frogspawn]

Howdy:

Still have'nt made a purchase yet. I guess I'm looking for a definitive answer / recommendation for the best buy out there.

Do most of these devices offer the slow down feature?

And if so, does it change pitch?

Thanks,

Perry Werner

 

I'm very pleased with my Zoom H2 which is, I think, better *value* than the Edirol. You can split tracks on the device itself and I found this much better than trying to manipulate large imported files on my PC. It also renames them very logically. Once split I transfer them via a card reader and then use Amazing Slowdowner on the PC which maintains the pitch.

 

Richard