An economic recording device
kenyabob (303 points) | Sun, 2005-11-27 16:08Christmas is near, and this year I am asking Santa for something, but I don't know what it is and I was wondering if you guys could help.
What I want is some kind of recording device. I want to record audio of friends, of sounds around San Francisco, or of other things I encounter everyday. Ultimately, the record has to be able to interface with the computer. It also has to be pretty nice on the quality side and also pretty sensitive, so I don't have to hold the damn thing up to the person's face to grab the sound, I just need to be in the room with them.
My question is, what is the next step for audio recording after those 80 dollar Olympus recorders you pick up at Best Buy. What's a little more developed but not too much more expensive?
Any help or if you know a website that deals with such an area, send your ideas on down...
you could pick up this one.
I researched the hell out of audio recording equipment when podcasting was heating up, and I would stay away from the iTalk for it's piss poor quality and lack of features.
I ended up buying a Sony MiniDisk player/Recorder and an AudoTechnica Pro 24 Mic. Be warned about the MiniDisk player's lack of compatibility with Macs. Sony does not support them at all, and there is no way to do a batch capture (or any digital capture). I was using it for a project where we were using a Windows system, so everything worked very well.
I ended up switching out my mic to a non portable mic setup (USB to preamp to mic) that sounds absolutely amazing. If you want to PM me I will send you some audio samples and the specific specs (I don't have them in front of me).
Best of luck.
I am assuming that your link was to the Griffin iTalk. Has anyone had any luck with that? It seems as if that might be up the same alley as the Olympus.
That sounds more along the lines of what I am looking for, but I wonder if that doesn't all add up to a bit much. I can get the mic, which looks sweet by the way, for about 80 or so. I wonder what would be the cheapest recording device I could plug it into without losing too much quality. Is it really only MiniDisc?
I own a Panasonic RR-US360 Handheld Digital Voice Recorder and it is pretty good for its price: $50 - $84.
I don't know if something like this is what you are looking for...
--designer wannabe--
... he'd look at this pro device:
http://m-audio.com/products/en_us/MicroTrack2496-main.html
$499 !