Seeking an Audio Recorder
Posted October 22nd, 2007 @ 07:43pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I may be involved soon in an enterprise that involves interviewing people, in person, and posting high-quality AAC or MP3 files online for others to download.
Video may be involved at a later time, but not at first.
I'm looking for a portable, stand-alone video recorder that can record fairly high quality audio. I don't have a price range in mind, but if you quote something with a comma in it, I'm not interested. 🙂
I don't care how it works - little microphones you clip to shirts, a USB stand mic, whatever - I just want to start with fairly high quality audio sans hissing or noise.
So, what are my options?
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Posted 22 Oct 2007 at 9:00pm #
this may be obvious, but what you really need to invest a large portion of the money in is a good mic. after you have a good mic (or a few good lapel mics) the audio recorder can be mediocre... an iTalk that hooks up to a iPod can sound really very good if paired with good mics.
Good microphones will make much more of a difference than the recording device will, until you start looking at recorders with commas in their prices. 🙂
Posted 22 Oct 2007 at 9:24pm #
[quote comment="43913"]this may be obvious, but what you really need to invest a large portion of the money in is a good mic.[/quote]
I know… somewhat poorly worded on my part, but I still need recommendations for a portable digital audio recorder that can hook up to good microphones. The mic(s) can come later - I have to get a good recorder so I know what my mic options are, you see? 🙂
Posted 22 Oct 2007 at 11:38pm #
My brother got some tips from people who work in radio shows, and the consensus seemed to be that this: http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.aspx?ObjectId=757&ParentId=109
was an affordable, very decent quality, portable little device.
i have only briefly seen it myself and honestly havent listened to what comes out of it, but he seems to be very happy with it (doing the occasional interview work) and everyone at his job recommended it. It's got a good stereo mic built in and you can plug in external mic later. It records to SD cards in various formats( ithink uncompressed and mp3, various qualities).
the price is around 300 400 bucks apparently.
HTH
Posted 23 Oct 2007 at 7:29am #
Marantz makes very good pro digital recorders, their smallest is the PMB660. Its most relevant feature is it has 2 XLR mic inputs (it also has an 1/8" line in jack). XLR is still the standard for professional microphones.
Posted 23 Oct 2007 at 9:49am #
Check out the Samson Zoom H2 and H4 recorders. They are getting rave reviews/ I ordered the H2, but they delivered to wrong address. Aarrgghhh. Can't wait to record outside sounds etc.
Posted 25 Oct 2007 at 12:13pm #
I use an Olympus VN-240 for my interviewing activities. It's a decent little DVR (that's digital voice recorder), but you'll have to use an audio cable to record the audio off of it, as it doesn't directly download to the computer. But it works fine for my purposes.
Posted 31 Oct 2007 at 2:14pm #
I use my iPod with Belkin TuneTalk Stereo for voice recording and the quality is quite good. I know some people have had skipping problems with it but I never have and I've had mine for over a year and use it at least weekly. One thing is it is a battery hog.
I've also used the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96. Very simple to use, very simple, but really rugged and great quality sound.
I fully agree with the statement that the microphone makes all the difference. You don't have to go hog wild, but if you get something a little better than average you'll be very happy.