Portable Digital Voice Recorders for a Singer?

Geek Singer asks: "I've had classical singing lessons for a while now and managed to advance to a level where hearing my own lessons is important for developing my skills. Here in Europe many singers use MiniDisc recorders. As a geek I think that MD recorders are DRM-encumbered, clumsy, slow and obsolete. Especially moving the recordings into my computer can get very troublesome due to nasty restrictions cast by Sony. For these reasons I need to have something else than a MD recorder. There are various portable MP3 players that have a voice recording capability, but I've found none that have all the properties I need: low price, good recording quality, line-in recording, excellent battery life, a good interface, support for Linux or Mac OS X and enough space for tens of hours of decent quality voice recordings or a slot for an exchangeable memory card. I've already checked numerous manufacturers including iRiver. Their players are great, except that the HD-models are too expensive and the flash-based models don't have a memory card slot. What portable digital voice recorders do you suggest?"

Comments

Go with MiniDisc

[DaRat]

There was a very good talk at the recent UPA conference on this very topic. The speaker, an ex sound engineer, concluded that the best recording devices were MiniDisc recorders when sound quality, media flexibility, portability, size, and cost were all considered. He had high hopes that the new MiniDisc format Hi-MD would improve recording capacity and file transfer speed beyond existing recorders.

The main issue with the IC recorders was with regards to poor recording quality. I know that the local public radio uses MiniDisc recorders for their recording needs.

Re:Go with MiniDisc

[ottawanker]

Use HiMD, and you don't have to worry about anything like that anymore.

The new Hi-MD players are packed with extra features that add convenience and utility to the digital music experience. For example, with the new upload function musicians or note-taking students can use the mic-in feature on several of the models to make a self-recording on the device and transfer the content back to the PC. When connected to the PC, Hi-MD recorders act as an external drive enabling users to store and transfer such data files as presentations, digital images and spreadsheets on the discs. Since the USB will feed power to the unit when connected to a PC, there is no need to worry about draining battery life when transferring to the Hi-MD device.

I have no troubles with MD

[Marillion]

I have used my Sony MD to record performance events many, many times. My M-Audio soundcard with optical input is very happy to ignore any DRM that might be in the optical S/PDIF data stream. The only real downside is the ATRAC is a lossey compression system. From there, I save the file, burn to CD convert to MP3, whatever.

On another note, I recently saw another sound designer use an Archos unit to record a grand piano. I provided the mics and mixer, he preferred to use his own recorder rather than my MD.

Fostex MR-8

[blunte]

Fostex MR-8

I got one for the same reason. It's very lovely, very feature rich, and still pretty simple to use. The only downside is the size (compared to an iPod). It's the same size as a 12" laptop, but thicker. With the manufacturer bag, it's easily portable (with mic, cable, and AC power supply). Of course it also runs on AA batteries, but it's hungry.

I first tried the iPod with the iTalk, but it couldn't auto-adjust the recording level quickly enough to keep from clipping horribly (a nasty digital trash clip) from piano and higher pitch voice.

Musician's Friend sells it for a good price, and they also sell some kits that include it, a mic, balanced cable, headphones, and other accessories. Just make sure you buy a Fostex certified memory card if you want to upgrade beyond the card they provide. It needs good, fast cards to do multi-track work.

The downside of nearly every computer...

[rusty0101]

... is noise.

Yes there are silent pc's available. You can even find them with shielded sound cards. They are not going to be under $300 however, unless you want to build your own, including building your own shielding around that sound card. If you are using a PC with a hard drive, you have a power supply fan, the processor fan, the hard drive, and possibly both a video card fan and a bios fan that are all going to introduce background noise into your recordings.

Most laptops today have a fan in them, and I don't know anyone interested in computers today who would consider the internal microphone of a laptop for any recording beyond very rare sampling.

Before you suggest using an external mic and headphones, remember that there really isn't a laptop out there with a shielded audio system in it. As a result it is invariably going to pick up electrical noise from components within the computer.

The last option I would consider is a USB based sound system. Not because I don't trust the quality, but because of the fact that once you add the price of one to your computer, (laptop or otherwise) you could have picked up a profesional grade digital recorder, and been done with it.

One other thing to take into consideration is the 'setup' and 'teardown' time involved. If you go to a teacher, paying for a 50 min lesson, you are not going to want to spend a significant portion of those 50 min setting up a computer or laptop to start recording your lesson, and your instructor is not going to be pleased if your setup and teardown (especially if you are carrying around mics and stands) eats into some other student's lesson time. Likewise for practice rooms if you need to practice, and can not live with an electronic keyboard in your dorm, appartment or other living arangements.

If you do go with an MD recorder, and a mic, with an optical connection to a PC that allows you to transfer cleanly, I recomend pre-testing your equipment, or at least finding out if all will work within the return time of whomever you are buying the stuff from. My own MD recorder has a very hit or miss pattern with the various mics I have tried with it. At best I can recognize my voice with the volume cranked all the way up. Occasionally I may even be able to recognize what I was saying at the time. Fortunately I don't need to record with it, as I have other options available. (none of them direct to digital, but my erquirements are not as high.)

I wish you better luck.

-Rusty

Re:Isn't 36 hours enough?

[ksheff]

Recording to wav is better if you want to listen to something w/o any compression artifacts. I would be willing to buy something with the capabilities of a Nomad Jukebox 3, but just in a smaller form factor. I've had one for about 1.5 years and it's great for recording concerts.

Re:Korg PXR-4

[xanderwilson]

Also look at the Zoom PS series (both the discontinued 02 and the newer, smaller 04 model). I tested out the Korg for a few days and really didn't like it. Musician's Friend doesn't carry the Zooms but they're available at most other online music retailers, but I've really liked everything from Zoom that I've used and/or bought. Very easy to use, well-priced, and generally feature-packed. Visit http://www.2090.org/zoom/bbs/index.php for more info from the user community, or go directly to the Zoom.co.jp site for the horse's mouth.

That said, MD, while annoying with its DRM and inability to transfer digitally to the computer, does have a lot of uses. When comparing it to your other options, consider it a kick-ass alternative to a microcassette recorder or other portable cassette recorder. There's only the realtime, analog-out to the computer, but the recording quality is much better than most other options out there.

Alex.