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USB Audio Recorders?
arunmehta asks: "We're setting up short-range mono FM radio stations in Indian villages. We're currently recommending minidisk recorders to tape and edit (mostly voice) -- does anyone have a better idea? In some stations, we will also implement radio-surfing, so there will be a PC available, and so would like some USB-type connectivity that allows bidirectional transfer of digital audio at speeds higher than real-time. Suggestions for a recorder?"
For Mac users, the Griffin Powerwave has the following features:
RCA input and outputs, 1/8" inputs and outputs, built in USB hub and DSP, digital audio amplifier.
Wintel folks will want to check out the Telex device. Edirol UA-1A (44.1 kHz only), Edirol UA-3, GriffiniMic, Opcode DAT-/SonicPort (optical), Onkyo MSE-U33(HB), Onkyo SE-U55 and Roland-ED UA-30.
How many of these have drivers for Linux is anybody's guess.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
It does not say they are editing LIVE feeds, what (I assume) they need is a method of transfering sound data faste the 1x. In other words it can't take 10 minute to transport 10 minutes of audio.
101010b 2Ah 52o
Most audio equipment transfers at 1:1, as I'm sure you've noticed. I went shopping for portable audio recording equipment, and ended up with a Roland/Edirol UA-5.
I already had a laptop and plenty of drive space, and the UA-5 has some very nice preamps and ADCs for the price, as well as being quite small and tough. 24/96 for a very reasonable price.
If you do go this route, I'd recommend one of the modified units, or a competitor, that has simulaneous digital outs when recording for backup to another medium, such as DAT.
Minidiscs were out, because of the short record time at higher quality, and the lack of digital outs short of the large home decks. The size/battery life were nice, but the DRM lost them a customer.
There is a lively laptop-taping group at yahoo groups.
You may be interested in the newer HD-based MP3 players.. Nomad Jukebox 3 has a 20-gig drive, and an optical input, and can record to mp3 or wave, as well as an analog in, and supports firewire for fast transfers. I've never used one, so YMMV. It claims 22 hours battery life with a second battery, but I'd take that with an external battery pack (salt not required).
Or for lower-quality, but cheap and portable, look at dictation tape machines, as you mentioned voice content. Many can 'squeal' at higher rates, and you can correct for this by adjusting your sample rate.
There are much higher-end units out there, but they don't seem ideal for rough field conditions, and are overkill for a short-range mono station.
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
MiniDisc is an excellent format for Amatuer-Semi Pro Use in this capicity. Some of Sony's new portables have usb built in and transfer at least 4x. Most recorders have optical ins, which when combined with the appropriate out allow you to fill a disc at 1x without interaction. I have used MD for years as a theatrical sound designer and I can not say enough good things about it. I build my shows on the pc and burn them to minidisc so that I can edit on the spot.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
I did days of research on USB digital recorders. I came to the conclusion that the Sony ICD-BP100 (now ICD-BP150) was the best. It is very expensive, $150.00. It does not have Windows XP certified drivers, which means that it crashes Windows XP when trying to hibernate if the unit is plugged in.
However, the sound quality is excellent. There is provision to save to
Recording directly to a computer doesn't work well, because of the intense radio frequency interference associated with the fast components inside the computer. USB microphones may help with this, but they are half the price of a digital recorder.
OK, having spent this much time, I might as well explain why these guys need something more flexible than tape recorders.. These are not pre-programmed stations. There's no centeral person (a DJ or a news producer or whatever) deciding what should go out. There's two-way communication going on here -- the system is a kind of ulta-low-bandwidith web browser.
Extremely poor rural people will use this system to retrieve valuable information -- crop prices, weather reports, what have you -- from the internet. They can't use conventional internet access because there's no rural network infrastructure in India, because these users couldn't afford to access it if there were, and because the info is mostly unavailable in the local language. (India has something like 800 local dialects.) So they're retrieving and translating internet info as people request it.
Maybe this project was more comprehensible to me because of I've read about other south-asian internet access projects, and because I know something of the practical difficulties of translating huge gobs of text. Still, I think the web sites linked to did a pretty good job of explaining what the project is about.
Sony's MZ-N1 Minidisc Recorder might be what you're looking for. I have one and I love it. It can record audio data coming through the USB port of a computer at 32X realtime while in MDLP4 mode(which means that one regular 74 minute MD lasts 4 times as long).
MDLP4 sounds indistuingishable from MP3 audio, but if that's not good enough, MDLP2 touts speeds of 16X and regular recording (highest quality) records at 8X. It can also upload just as fast, and even though you currently have to import it from Japan, the software installs itself in English.
WARNING: DO NOT LET DR. MARIO TOUCH YOUR GENITALS. HE IS NOT A REAL DOCTOR.
I worked at a radio station in Oxford, UK, for a couple of years. We had Minidisk gear, and we found that all of it (but particularly portable players) was fragile, and prone to breakdown and failure at awkward moments.
We used it because there was nothing better; but in the environment you are talking about, this is definitely not appropriate technology.
Gerv