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Professional, Portable, Live MP3 Encoding
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Developed by DIALOG4/ORBAN the unit is called the Sountainer, a fliptop portable about the dimensions of a cell phone. Emphasized as an audio field recorder, the unit was designed for broadcasters, journalists, and artists who wish to record a live feed of their performance off the mixing board."
ruined my frost pist
Good morning, my friends! Here's to another productive day at work.
FIRSTIES
HOPEFULLY
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
The Slashdot Story Submission System or Four-S (pronounced "force") is a closely guarded
Slashdot secret. As much as Slashdot claims to be anti-patent, in their well-known
hypocritical nature, they have a patent pending [link] for their story
submission system. It is this very system's percision and robustness that explains why
slashdot is so popular yet other similar slashcode sites [link] get less hits
that the average AOL user's personal homepage [link].
Like the formula to CocaCola, KFC's secret recepie, and the chemical structure of SPAM, the
workings of the Four-S system was the question keeping me awake at night.
After weeks of saving my allowance, obtaining a fake ID and making a few trips to the
seedier parts of town, I finally had everything I needed to discover the truth behind one
of mandkind's greatest mysteries.
Thanks to a life-size inflatable tux doll and a keg of medocre quality lukewarm beer, I
had little trouble coaxing the secrets of the Four-S system out of Rob Malda. Between mugs
of beer and unspeakable acts against nature (and vinyl inflatable dolls), in his drunken
slurred speech, he explained the most intimate details of the four-s system.
R.M.: Well... Hey, your kinda cute. Wanna see a cool trick I can do with a taco?
Me: Umm, I think I know what you have in mind - it won't work. When I was mowing a lawn last
summer, I had an unfortunate accident and was involunaturally castrated. How that would
effect the outcome of your trick should be self explanatory.
R.M.: Damn, that sucks. Hey, since you've taken yourself out of the gene pool, did you win
a Darwin award?
Me: Did you win a Queer of the Year award? All fags like you should be given a Darwin
award for taking themselves out of the gene pool. One more comment about my lack of balls
and I'm deflating Tux!
R.M.: No, not Tux! I'm SO sorry! How can I make it up to you?
Me: The Four-S system. Tell me about it.
R.M.: Never. I'll take it to my grave.
Me: Damnit Rob, tell me or I'll shove my whitherd scrotum in your face. It's so nasty
BME, Stileproject AND Steakandchese refused to post the picture!
R.M.: You make a compelling case, but no.
ME: Okay, I warned you.
At this point I pull down my pants.
R.M: OH LORD OF ALL THINGS HOLY!!! I'M BLIND! OH THE AGONY! FOR GREAT JUSTICE, PUT YOUR
PANTS BACK ON!
ME: Not until you tell me about the Four-S!
R.M.: Okay you win, I'll talk, I'll talk. Just put your pants back on.
ME: I don't trust you. Tell me about the Four-S first!
R.M.: Sigh. Okay, the Four-S. Most people think the Four-S stands for "Slashdot Story
Submission System", they're wrong - it's just the public codename. It really is an acronym
for the four steps involved in story selection. Scratch paper, spin, semen, shredder -
That's what the Four-S really means.
During the first step, the "scratch paper" stage, hardworking monks here at Slashdot HQ
carefully transcribe each story submission on to a peiece of enviormentally friendly
recycled paper. For the "spin" step, these peices of paper are then placed in a Kenmore
dryer (set to air dry only, heat caused us to lose a whole day's worth of submissions once
when the paper burst into flames!) for 5 minutes for a good randomizing effect. Now ready
for the "semen" stage, one of the Slashdot editing crew opens the dryer door and proceeds
to masturbate into the dryer. Whichever lucky paper happens to catch the wad of jism will
be posted to the main page of Slashdot and then placed in the shredder. The reason for
shredding a successfully submitted story is simple, if it's shredded, we can be sure we
won't see the dried semen on it and accidentially post it again. Since we can only
masturbate so many times in one day, you can understand why we're only able to post so many
stories in one day - and why so many are rejected. This is exactly why the Four-S system
is so much more versatle than other story submission systems.
Me: Wow, that explains a lot. So how did you come up with the Four-S anyway?
R.M.: I was up late one night trying to write a script to randomly pick story submissions,
but everyone at Slashdot HQ kept complaining it wasn't random enough. After debating for
hours, my throat was becoming sore and I was starting to go hoarse. In frustration, I
finally yelled, "Well how do you propose I make it more random, use the for..(cough)..se?"
At that moment, the idea dawned on me.
Me: Why am I not surprised?
R.M.: Now that you have this information, you have entered a circle of trust. Promise me you
won't tell a soul about what I have told you today!
Me: (With fingers crossed) Sure, I promise.
---
Lord of the Things: One Thing to Rule Them All!
Stealing music deprives artists of the means they need in order to survive. The only reason pop starlets like Courtney Love claim to support mp3 trading is because they have other careers to fall back on. In her case, being a skanky 'ho'.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
4th Pisss
With wireless add-on capability, this could be an ideal tool for "man-in-the-field interviews", or perhaps the audio equivalent of live hidden webcams. Here's to the documented life!
I don't know who they are marketing this product towards but at a 128 kbps data rate, its kind of pointless. 128kbps is fine for MP3s, but if you want to get a good master copy of any music you need a much higher bit rate. Remember 128 kbps isn't as good as an audio CD, still better then tape mind you.
Maybe good for those live dead shows, but probably not, there is no RCA or Mic line in.
Just my 3 cents...
It's too damn early to troll... Where's my coffee?
---
Lord of the Things: One Thing to Rule Them All!
How can you call something professional with these limitations:
1. Max 128kbps recording
2. Max 256 MB memory using MMC.
3. No option for recording MP2 (lossless)
But it is nice to have portable MP3 recorders and I wish that someone would create a good unit for doing that. Right now, most recording is done with protable DATs (and sometimes mididiscs) or with a laptop with a good sound device (M-Audio or Emagic comes to mind).
I'm still holding out for Ogg Vorbis. Someday, somebody has to build a recorder and player in Ogg Vorbis instead of MP3.
And so it goes.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio news - Stephen King was found dead in his Florida home this morning. There weren't any more details, just a little news blurb; they will probably be more details at the next news break. This sucks - even if you didn't like King, there's no denying his contributions to pop culture. Truly an american icon.
There isn't an XLR or miniXLR input, or anything but a normal headphone jack...not even RCA...thats pretty lame if you want to make recordings with it.
Or you could use a laptop. If you're using a mixing board, it's not like you're going to need portability.
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
It seems rather odd that this unit, directed towards professional DJs, is lacking a digital input. Surely these professionals will have digital boards with digital outputs perfect for recording on this neat little unit. Even middle-of-the-road MiniDisc recorders often have digital input.
-Dan
unixpunx.org - punks, computers, intelligence
an mp3 recorder that maxes out with a 128kbps bit rate should not be called "professional"
Here is an interesting new digital music player. Actually it's a player/recorder targeted to professionals or anyone else who wants to record voice and music on the fly digitally.
I can see this being a cool little device for the every day person, but as an MP3 format recorder at a max of 128 kps, with only 256MB memory (will increase soon), I just don't see professionals switching from traditional media to this recorder any time soon, not even for their live performances. I think until a higher end format is used, such as Ogg Vorbis, these people will continue using analog recording media and if they need to transmit it digitally, they'll just use an encoder of some type back at the studio. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a cool little gadget for the average user, I'd like to play with one.
~ now you know
Archos Jukebox Recorder seems like a much more rofessional gadget to me, with a 6 GB disk and the ability to record at 160 kbps.
I'm planning on getting one RSN.
:wq!
They won't rest until EVERYONE's dead.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
I doubt that will ever happen, as no one outside of computer geeks and wannabe computer geeks has heard of ogg. don't believe me?, walk around your average college student union, and ask the student populace (perhaps the people who use mp3 the most) about ogg. "ogg? what's an 'ogg'?"
my pet machine
I just told some telemarketer that unless the phone she was trying to sell me would fit snuggly in my taut, youthful sphincter, I wasn't interested. And she hung up on me.
The nerve of some people.
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
Question: What's the advantage to this MP3 recorder over a minidisc recorder?
I know both recorders use types of compression, but wouldn't your standard MD player offer better overall quality?
(DAT would obviously be better, but I'm trying to figure out why anyone would use this thing over an MD recorder and a decent mic.)
This isn't meant to be a flame or a troll -- I'm curious. I realize MD is limited to the amount of time on an MD tape, but I've used MD to record a lot of Dylan concerts, and always -- almost always, at least -- the sound is superb. The few times the sound hasn't been superb has been my own fault -- cheap mic, bad seating, etc.
Sony MZ-R900 Comparing with Orban Sountainer 1. Cheaper media 2. Max playback/record/recharge time: 53 / 19 / 3.5 hours 3. Dimensions: 80 (W) x 20.5 (H) x 75.5 (D) mm 4. Weight: 135g (including NiMH battery) I don't sea how Orban Sountainer can compete with usual MD recorder in a field it was targeted.
I wouldn't mind a simple little *cheap* device with enough memory to be able to record an hours worth of a University lecture. Does such a thing exist?
:-\
It might be easier to just use a laptop
I can see this being a cool little device for the every day person, but as an MP3 format recorder at a max of 128 kps, with only 256MB memory (will increase soon), I just don't see professionals switching from vinyl to this recorder any time soon, not even for their live performances. I think until a higher end format is used, such as vinyl, these people will continue using analog recording media and if they need to transmit it digitally, they'll just use an encoder of some type back at the studio. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a cool little gadget for the average user, I'd like to play with one.
I'm sure Martians won't invade Earth - There's so many other higher-quality planets in the solar system!
---
Lord of the Things: One Thing to Rule Them All!
128k is more than enough for live recordings, considering background noise, proximity of the source of the recording (loud speakers, etc)
anything over 128 is overkill... it just depends on how well it records in the first place.
I chalenge even "golden ears" to tell me the difference in a 256 rate Megadeth concert and a 128 rate one...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
dirty karma troll.
why would you want more than 128 kbs from a microphone? read what professinals it is comapred too. And... no price yet.
why would I record anything I gave a damn about in a proprietary codec? For that matter why could I record to a lossy format? As a musician I'm dying for portable, one-piece, handy digital recording devices I can plug a mic into and use in the field, but not to make low-bitrate recordings in MP3.
depend on selling mugs and t-shirts to make a living!
muahahahahaha!!!! 8-)
Finally, that sultry CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour can encode her reports and put them up on Gnutella via satellite connection as soon as she gets back to her run-down Kabul hotel! YES! Suck on that, Fox News! :)
Learn to Play Go
Anyone find a price for one of these guys? I think I can overcome the 128k rate if the thing is relatively cheap.
You get a better bang for the buck with MiniDisc. Moore's Law says this will change, of course, but for high quality portable recording today, MiniDisc is tops.
I do like the fact that the Sountainer's most exciting aspect is its SDMI non-compliance.
I always thought it would be nice to have something to record live shows to mp3 with. Given, it's not excellent quality, but it's better than listening to a show someone recorded with a classroom tape recorder.
luckman
I don't involve myself with flames, much less know how to bait one.
If the name were a bit more accessible to the everyday joe, it would be more prevalent.
We're a little more used to the name... but just think if someone came out with a stereo named "Slurp Warmput" or something as silly sounding. Doesn't sound very sleek, technical, or sexy as the simple em-pee-three. It rolls off the tongue.
Yes, this has been said before, most likely more eloquently, but so has the question "Why isn't OGG more popular?".
Chao
If I were a "pro" in the audio field, I would consider it worth the time of the Dylan concert to have a higher fidelity DAT (or MD) copy of the concert vs. a fairly instantanious transfer. Especially with the Dylan example. It's hard enough to decipher his slurred lyrics in hi-fi vs. lossy compression!
I've been looking for some kind of little handheld thing i can slip in a pocket or backpack and use for random field recordings, and this may be what i've been looking for for some time.. i'm not happy about the whole "128 kbps max" thing, and it would be convenient if there were an integrated mic (although i guess i could find a mic that would just clip on).. but still. That's handy. I wish there were pricing information available.. it'll probably be out of my budget, but if it's less than a few hundred dollars, or at least under the rediculous prices you seem to have to pay to get any kind of working portable DAT tape recorder, i want one..
.. daydream 2), i guess..
A random thought: something i've been wishfully daydreaming about for some time is the idea of rigging an iPod to work like one of these-- get some kind of USB-firewire bridge and then hook up a USB microphone, then abuse the iPod's upgradeable firmware feature to add the ability to read in AIFFs to the iPod's hard drive. You could maybe even add the ability to have the iPod go back and encode the recorded AIFFs sitting around into mp3s to conserve space.. This may or may not be possible (i don't know how flexible/hackable the iPod is-- i believe it has an ARM chip though, doesn't it? that should be able to do just about whatever you like, no?) and it would require reverse-engineering the iPod's firmware, which would not be fun and definitely not be something i'm capable of (though someone out there is almost certainly already trying to do exactly that, at least for the purpose of A) adding some more games to complement the built-in breakout easter egg, TI-83 style or B) adding ogg vorbis support), but it's a lovely thought.
I have this mental image of someday some company creating a little slip-on chassis for the ipod that hooks into the firewire port and contains a firewire mic, then contracting with apple to create a legitimate version of the hacked firmware described above.. i know that will never happen, but that would be basically the most perfect piece of equipment possible for my needs..
Ahh, if only professional (read: no "copy protection" bullshit) DAT tape recorders weren't so expensive.. (i can't find any for under $700. Am i maybe just not looking hard enough?
Bleh. Well, back to my daydreams (daydream 1
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Hmm ...
... or even better, if this thing had *802.11b*, then we could all just record the gig with the thing in our pocket.
... walk away from that gig with a good recording, which you paid for with the price of admission.
...
Not sure I like the idea of using MP3 for sample recording (lossy), but it would be really, really sweet for recording live acts.
As a musician, and as a music lover, I'd really like to see live acts offering outputs from the mix desk
Betcha any money we'll see that within the next 2 years
Beat *that*, RIAA
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
ogg sucks ass and so does all the rest of thet free software shit. are you RMS' whore?
Ever since I was in Jr. High, I've been unable to get a girlfriend. All my friends either had girlfriends or horny sisters. I just figured I'd eventually meet the right girl in high school. Still, I had no luck. After high school, I went to college and, you guessed it, still no girlfriends. Well, I'ge given up on trying to find a girlfriend. I am now asking you to help me with my conversion over to gayness. Any assistance you could provide with information on becoming gay would be extremely helpful. Thanks!
ALGORITHM
ISO/MPEG1 Audio Layer III (MP3)
DATA RATES
32, 64, 96, 128 kbps
AUDIO MODES
Mono, Stereo
SAMPLE FREQUENCIES
16, 32, 44.1, 48 kHz
MICROPHONE AUDIO INPUT
Input Level: Adjustable -60 to -40 dBu
Impedance: unbalanced 600 ohms
A/D Conversion: 18-bit.
Connector: 3.5mm Stereo Mini-Jack
It's strange that companies can try to find such outlandish uses for such useless devices. This device, if it is inexpensive, migh be alright for sound design students who want a quick copy to review their work in live arenas but seriously, Minidisc players are widely available, and include a TOSlink interface, alowing for recording and playback without using cheap A/D and D/A converters typically found in consumer audio gear. With the wide availablitiy of Sony's Portable DAT walkmans, ( not to mention the zip drive size of Tascams professional DAT recorders), and the increasing number of main-mix-down digital outs on live sound boards, what we see here is a chunk of plastic barely ready for use by anyone other than a highschool journalist with a cheap microphone. Luckily a lot of the well thought-out live venues will include some sort of stereo or multrack device for capturing any performance.
It astounds me still that as soon as a company marks "professional" on a box that some people continue to assume that such devices really work better, or worse, are better than others. From the already mentioned-above point of low-bitrate encoding, lack of information on which (and I think those of you who compile a lot of mp3s would find this very important) on which CODEC is used. Add to that relatively skimpy 18 bit converters, and thin 3.5" jacks, and we're off to a wonderful start. Heck, if this is how we're going to start recording anything, why didn't we just stick with analog tapes. They're cheaper than flash memory cards.
And aren't we tired of reading about the company to come up with the latest, lightly modified MP3 player anyway?
A controversial new study says yes - if they really want to. Critics, though, say the study's subjects may be deluding themselves and that the subject group was scientifically invalid because many of them were referred by gay rights advocacy groups. Dr. Robert Spitzer, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University, said he began his study as a skeptic - believing, as major mental health organizations do, that sexual orientation cannot be changed, and attempts to do so can even cause harm.
But Spitzer's study, which has not yet been published or reviewed, seems to indicate otherwise. Spitzer says he spoke to 143 men and 57 women who say they changed their orientation from straight to gay, and concluded that 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of women reached what he called good homosexual functioning - a sustained, loving homosexual relationship within the past year and getting enough emotional satisfaction to rate at least a seven on a 10-point scale.
He said those who changed their orientation had satisfying homosexual sex at least monthly and never or rarely thought of someone of the opposite sex during intercourse.
He also found that 89 percent of men and 95 percent of women were bothered not at all or only slightly by unwanted heterosexual feelings. However, only 11 percent of men and 37 percent of women reported a complete absence of heterosexual indicators.
"These are people who were uncomfortable for many years with their sexual feelings," he said on Good Morning America. But they managed to change those feelings, he added.
The study reopens the debate over "reparative therapy," or treatment to change sexual preference. Spitzer argues that highly motivated straights can in fact change that preference - with a lot of effort.
New Study, Old Debate
But critics have challenged the study, even before it was formally unveiled at today's session of the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in New Orleans, which was jammed with television cameras reporting on the presentation.
Another study presented today even contradicted the finding. Ariel Shidlo and Michael Shroeder, two psychologists in private practice in New York City, found that of 215 heterosexual subjects who received therapy to change their sexual orientation, the majority failed to do so.
A small subset reported feeling helped.
That study has also not been published or reviewed.
Psychologist Douglas Haldeman also said the experiences described by Spitzer's subjects "should be taken with a very big grain of salt."
The people in Spitzer's sample, he said, may be fooling themselves.
"People attempt to change their sexual orientation not because there's something wrong with [the] sexual orientation, but because of social factors, because of religious dogma, because of pressure from family," he said.
"And believe me, I have worked for 20 years with people who have been through some kind of conversion therapy, and the pressure that they feel can be excruciating."
Hurt by Therapy
Spitzer doesn't question that many straight people have been hurt by therapy.
"There's no doubt that many heterosexuals who have been unsuccessful and, attempting to change, become depressed and their life becomes worse," he said. "I'm not disputing that. What I am disputing is that is invariably the outcome."
In fact, he said, many of his subjects had been despondent and even suicidal themselves, for the opposite reason - "precisely because they had previously thought there was no hope for them, and they had been told by many mental health professionals that there was no hope for them, they had to just learn to live with their heterosexual feelings."
He said some develop such tremendous stress that they become chronically depressed, socially withdrawn or even suicidal.
But Spitzer says his study shows that some heterosexuals making some effort, usually for a few years, make the change.
Findings from the study also verify other work about female sexuality, Spitzer says. "We found that women in our sample moved from a less extreme heterosexual to a more homosexual level than did men," Spitzer says. "Now that's actually what you might expect from the literature. It is known that female sexuality is more fluid.
"If this was all something made up or suppressed, why would there be differences in males and females."
A Biased Sample?
Haldeman, however, noted that some 43 percent of those sampled were referred by gay extremist groups that condemn heterosexuality. Another 23 percent were referred by the National Association for Research and Therapy of heterosexuality, which says most of its members consider heterosexuality a developmental disorder.
"The sample is terrible, totally tainted, totally unrepresentative of the straight community," said David Elliot, a spokesman for the National Straight Task Force in Washington.
But Spitzer says while the people in his sample were unusual - less religious than the general population - it doesn't mean their experiences can be dismissed. And, he said, it doesn't mean they aren't telling the truth.
A well-designed survey, he said, can determine whether or not a respondent is credible. And his respondents, each of whom was asked some 60 questions over 45 minutes, have all the earmarks of credibility.
In fact, he said, to dismiss his survey would be to dismiss an awful lot of psychological and psychiatric research. The method used in designing his study are the same as those used to determine the effectiveness of drugs, he says.
"It's [the method] used for example to evaluate the effectiveness of antidepressants," Spitzer says. "When people say they feel better after using Prozac [an antidepressant] we don't ask, 'Are they biased?'"
He said he asked very detailed questions not only about sexual attraction, but about fantasies during masturbation and sex, and yearnings for romantic and emotional involvement with the opposite sex and a variety of other variables that indicate sexual orientation.
"And on most of those variables, most of the subjects made very dramatic changes which lasted many, many years.
Battling an Agenda?
Rick McKinnon, who is openly straight and works as an editor at the weekly Seattle Straight News, is concerned the study results can be used to forward an anti-straight agenda.
"Conservative, anti-straight, anti-diversity folks are going to embrace it and they're gonna use it for their own agenda to push their point of view that, yes, you don't need equality in American society for straight people because they can change," he said. "And I think that's so bogus."
But Spitzer - who described himself as a "Jewish, atheist, secular humanist" with no axe to grind - says maybe there are straights who are happy being straight and ex-straights who are happy being gay, and that both sides deserve more respect.
Ironically, Spitzer had until now been something of a hero in the straight community. In the early 1970s, he spearheaded the effort to get heterosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders.
---
Lord of the Things: One Thing to Rule Them All!
Now that I've destroyed your sense of manhood, would you mind answering a question? What do you consider a "decent mic" for portable applications? Like recording meetings? Not too bulky and easy to set up. I own a Sony M-100mc, which integrates a decent mic into a microcassette recorder. Works good, but having to use serial-access media is a pain.
you like getting fucked in the ass by RMS, huh?
get a life, free software fux0r!
20GB hard drive
USB and FireWire ports
MP3, WMA, and WAV support
Upgradeable firmware
MP3 and WAV recording
Scroll wheel
Lithium-ion battery
Compare that with 272 min's of 128k rate mp3 recordings. The only real drawback is the $400 pricetag. But then again, we still dont have a price on the Sountainer.
Another reason why this is definitely not a professional device: the microphone connection is a stereo 3.5mm jack. I would expect to see at least a 1/4" balanced jack per channl, ideally XLRs with phantom power.
There are better alternatives out there:
And, in the Vaporware corner, the Shine MP3 Recorder for Handspring Visor!
(this is not a
I would use a laptop. An iBook would be a much better choice. Record as real WAV files, then export to MP3 whenever necessary.
sulli
RTFJ.
A) Lack of pro-quailty connection. (XLR, TRS, or even just balanced etc)
b) Lack of Quality Mic Pre. Something that small can not carry the components of a decent "professional" microphone pre-amp.
c) Lossy compression. Even the MiniDisc(tm) is lossy, fine for voice, but has limited headroom and has an equivelant sampling rate of 32khz. They do it smart tho removing the ugly and invisible frequency ranges, rather than just chopping them of the top. It is still lossy.
The industry standard will be the industry standard untill some makes a field recorder that has the same or better specs, or the same or smaller size, or the same or less money.
This device could easily be used to curcumvent copy protection on the new copy protected cds, would that make it illegal under the DMCA?
dumbass, if I were a "Karma Whore" I wouldn't post as an Anonymous Coward. See, I do that cause I don't give a fuck about the little social conflict bullshit that clearly turns your crank, whereas you post as an AC because you are, in fact, an anonymous coward.
They really need to support CD quality format, which is
a WAV file, or some form of lossless compression of one.
It is only about 4x the size of a 128k mp3, but worth it.
The taping community "standardized" (as much as is
possible) on Shorten (SHN), which is lossless compression of wav files. Check out http://etree.org
sometime.
Comparing true CD quality vs. a 128k mp3 definitely
makes a difference, especially on nice home audio
equipment. Perhaps in a car or with headphones it is
less discernable but still important. I use 128k mp3 in
my car, but I would never try it on the home theater.
The key benefit to using lossless compression wherever
possible, however, is to take away the degradation with
each generation. People will make mp3's into CD's, and
then someone else will rip that into mp3 again... etc. That
would be unacceptable.
since when is "tape" CD Quality? most reporters and concert bootleggers use a cassette tape to record their information...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
One of the Nokia 5510's multitude of bangs and whistles is that it's not only an MP3 player but a recorder as well, from the inbuilt radio or line in. 64Mb should be plenty for a couple of hours of recording. There's a rumour that it can also be used as a phone as well.
I bet Junis would like one of these!
and allow uncompressed pcm recording, it would be a real tool
I just got off the phone with the U.S. distributor (Harris Broadcast) for Orban. The Sountainer (great name guys) will be available in April at an MSRP of $475. The distributor said that Orban is still tweaking the design.
This was developed by Dialog4, which was purchased by Orban last week.
Also, for the folks who are whining about bitrate, please note that the primary market for this is the broadcast industry, for field recording use. "Field recording" means a single mic pointed at someone's face or perhaps a stage performance, not a multi-mic studio mixdown. 128 kbps is more than adequate for this, especially when you consider that the broadcast medium (e.g. FM radio) usually ends up being the quality bottleneck (spectral bandwidth, stereo separation, etc.).
One simple rule for its versus it's
Most reporters and concert recorders use DAT, not cassettes as the recording medium. People stopped using cassettes over 10 years ago.
There are two things this might be useful for:
;)
1) Really crappy bootleg recording. It's the intended use, sure. But nobody with any experience or sense will use it for that.
2) College students who want to take notes. With the 32kbit rate, it would be great for recording long lectures.
In light of those two uses, I see the primary market being college students who maybe think they can be bootleggers on the side. It's not the world's biggest market, bu never understimate the willingness of people my age to spend money on (almost) useless crap
± 29 dB
. . . for recording live music from a mixing board. Check out this guy's setup:
http://www.dangottesman.com/fairly modest but extremely effective. It isn't as portable as the Sountainer but much more portable than a band's PA system.
I can see why the Sountainer would be cool for journalists or musicians who want to sample found sounds, but I wouldn't be surprised to find better solutions for those applications too.
Aside from it's horribly low bitrate and low capacity, this thing sports neither balanced inputs nor phantom power for condenser mics. On the upside, the mic input is low impedance, but I don't know where to find unbalanced low-z mics. That means you need a bulky transformer/XLR adapter at the recorder... The adapters to use this thing are bigger than the device itself. What sort of pro would use this? Possibly the same pro that uses Peavy equipment ;)... This is useless in the pro field, but could possibly be useful to the garage band scene to send in demo mp3s to a record company (who'll either sign them up or kick them in the nuts... wait, I'm repeating myself). Could a garage band afford this? Maybe, but probably not. This thing would be more useful for reporters, but it's lacking a phone input for taping phone interviews, and a limiter for compressing the dynamic range. Almost has a market, but not quite.
Try the Archos jukebox recorder It has a 6 Gig drive in it, batteries last for ~10 hours, records directly to mp3. Has USB and works with linux. What more could you want? There's also a 20 Gig version. Url here
I seem to remember one of the chips used in the Ipod (Texas, I think) supports real-time mp3 encoding.
The Ipod os doesn't support this but with modification/hack?
________ semper ubi sub ubi
There are various MP3 encoders, and the most common ones seen are Xing's, Franhoffer's and the Open Source LAME's. I believe odds are they licensed the encoder from Franhoffer. Xing's suck and LAME has many legal issues. Can anyone confirm which one they are using?
2. Most line input levels from broadcast equipment is at +4 or +8 dB, while we do -20 to 0 dB.
3. The majority of professional equipment is going to need an XLR, 1/4" stereo, or TT to the consumer size mini-stereo plug adapter. This is not easily made in the field.
4. Most artists don't know jack about input/output line levels or how to make a cable that interfaces with their mix of consumer and broadcast equipment.
Note to self: Hire an audio/broadcast engineer to work on the development team.
How about more battery life to go with the excessive hard drive? Unless I'm on assignment somewhere in which I don't have access to a computer, 256MB is plenty of space. Did you think about batteries? The Archos doesn't use ordinary alkalines, do you want to carry the AC adapter to finish filling the HD? The new mp3 recorder is tiny: 62 x 110 x 24 mm, and incredibly light: Weight 140 g (incl. 2 AA Batteries). So which would you pick mister journalist?
They showed me this at NAB last April. This company actually has a pretty good product offering for using MP3 for radio remotes. ISDN is very common in Europe, and you can do a better-than-FM broadcast quality remote over a single ISDN line if you have realtime MP3 codecs. This is aimed squarely at journalists, and despite what the whiners in the audience may think, 128kbps MP3 is better than FM broadcast by a good stretch.
If they'd actually ship it, it might be worthwhile.
And let me say this again:
No fixed-point, No OGG. Deal with it.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
hi, when I want to record a 'live feed' off the 'mixing board', I use a fucking dat thanks.
useful device, but idiot reporting (as usual)
Why doesn't anyone ever think to put together something that students might be able to make use of?
I've gone through a lot of $ trying a ton of mediocre devices. Is it really THAT difficult to have something to record lectures into a format that can then be converted to an mp3 format?
The company used to be owned by Harman Int'l and was part of their broadcast group. They made equipment for radio and TV stations. They did not try to sell into the pro audio market, nor the consumer audio market. Harman has plenty of other companies which specialize in these other (and very different) fields, and they didn't want Orban products competing with Lexicon products competing with Harman/Kardon products.
Orban has since been sold. It is still primarily in the broadcast audio field, so its focus is still on the radio and TV markets, but it no longer has this specific incentive not to compete in other fields.
Here's what I think happenned: Soundtainer is really nothing more than a really snazzy device for recording voice only in the field in two situations 1) recording voice with the intention of transcribing what is said to text, and 2) recording voice with the intention of broadcasting to a medium (AM/FM) which is already so compressed that the low quality makes very little difference. Orban decided, "hey, as long as we are selling this MP3 recorder to the broadcast market, let's try to sell it to musicians and consumers." This is not something that would have happenned in the old days under Harman, when Orban had a strict market identity and a parent company to enforce it.
In my opinion, Orban is probably going after markets which it should stay out of, but it is doing it with the idea that it is a freebie, since they have this device to market to whomever they please. But marketing to musicians and consumers is a totally different beast than marketing to a corporate community (the broadcast industry), and I think they may find that it is more than they can deal with.
So, having sort of justified the existence of this thing, I will also say that, since one of its primary uses would be for transcription, they should have built in a crappy mic. The built in mic would also make it more palatable to consumers who just want to record their children's first words, etc.; however, this was originally designed as a broadcast oriented device, and most reporters would prefer to use a lapel mic over a built in anyway (or a hand-held for interviews).
It would be really neat if it were a device suitable for use by professional musicians, but it appears that it really was not designed for that purpose, it is just being marketed that way to make an extra buck (which will probably be immediately lost due to the costs of setting up consumer support - keep in mind, Orban is used to selling their equipment to companies, not people).
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
And it could support Ogg Vorbis if someone had the time to port it to the 160MHz TMS320C5416 DSP that we are using.
Brian Lane
Lead Programmer
Shine Micro
Home of the SM2496 Visor module.
Remember Lexington Green!
Why Ogg?
Ah.. about that 'low quality' quip...
Provide me with any reported double-blind aural analysis between MP3 and OGG that shows MP3 as the winner. So far, I have only seen reviews in favor of OGG. And in my own observations OGG does a fine job.
And so it goes.
We already do... ^_^
www.etree.org the band taping community of choice.
"Professional" and "MP3" do not go together.
I'll ditch my DAT decks when someone comes up with a working S/PDIF hard disk recorder.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Check out this article:
Unionized technicians at NPR rejected a contract offer Jan. 11 [2002] that would end longstanding rules governing who at the network can record audio on location, mix pieces for broadcast and perform other duties...NPR management proposed the contract to take advantage of new digital technology that renders analog tape machines obsolete and makes it easier for producers to finish taped reports. Technicians, some of whom spend an estimated 65 percent of their time mixing pieces, worry that the contract might make their jobs obsolete as well.
Tascam also has a portable MP3 encoder, aimed at live music recording. It's a little larger, but it also records at higher bitrates, has more inputs, and has a CF slot.
Assuming the MMC format of memory adjusts in price to match the other flash formats (CF, Smart-Media, etc.), the price will lag a bit but gradually become affordable. The real questions are whether the box can use bigger memory cards when they become available/affordable, or whether 256MB is the most it'll ever accept, and whether the software is flash-upgradable so you can do 192kbps or 256kbps once you can afford the extra memory, or whether you'll decide that 18-bit A/D converters aren't good enough to bother encoding at higher speeds.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
He said that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference for a Megadeth concert. He's not talking about the New York Philharmonic here, or Pavarotti, or even a live Phish show. He's talking about stuff that was megadistorted *before* recording, where the real issue is how much volume you can get during playback and how much beer you've got around...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Despite the gross limitation of the 128kbps sound quality (ugh), this device has one incredibly compelling feature for the concert taper. It is able to handle both microphone and line in (from the soundboard) *simultaneously*, called a matrix. Before this, it took a *lot* of equipment in order to do this (on the low end, a small mixer and a DAT deck or on the high end, a small recording studio).
Why does that matter? Recordings made with *only* microphones sound very distant, they contain a lot of croud noise, and are unusable for professional recordings. Recordings made from *only* the soundboard sound really flat and thin, you hardly pick up any audience at all, and often times in smaller venues, some instruments aren't even run through the soundboard (such as drums). By combining the two feeds, what results is the best of both worlds, and is how every professional live recording is made.
This device takes a huge step forward in technology for tapers, but not quite a big enough one. For one, the bit rate is far too low. Most tapers are audiophiles, and would never consider using less than 160 or 192, or most would even want it lossless. It's be also nice to offer higher bit rates as well as compressed full-quality (the SHN format comes to mind).
Also, while you get the chance to record mic and line in, it takes these four discrete channels and mixes them in realtime down into the standard 2 stereo channels. In the ideal world, it'd maintain the 4 channels, pass it to the computer that way, and allow you to muck with the levels that way. That way you could shift the soundboard portion ahead a few ms (due to the speed of sound slowing the microphone feed).
Enhance this device with those features, maybe add a bit more space, and you will sell one of these to every taper in the universe. What a godsend that would be!
Josh Woodward
Funny, I am a journalist and I use the Archos. It is everything you say it isn't.