Hand-held digital recorders

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Has anyone tried the Olympus WS-300M 256 MB Digital Voice Recorder and Music Player?
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David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

There is also this Sony unit
click

What is conspicuously missing is ANY references to bandwidth,
only time of recording and media types.

I listened to the steel show recording, and while enjoyable musically,
I could hear almost no cycmbals, I would say from mic placement.
But that makes it really impossible to judge the machine for quality.
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Real happiness has no strings attached.
But pedal steels have many!

Gordy Hall · From: Fairfax, CA.

bOb said "people are saying that it doesn't work with a Mac. I can't imagine why it wouldn't."

Macs are about 10% of the computers in use in the world. They have proprietary files that are not playable on the vast majority of PCs. Companies have to pay special Mac fees to get it to work with the Mac operating system.

I can guarantee that is why so many devices do not work with Macs. It's not worth it to the companies.

Gordy

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

My Mac plays standard MP3 files no problem. It's those proprietary Windows formats (like WMV) that it has trouble with.

Jerry Gleason · From: Eugene, Oregon, USA

It's not the file format that's the problem. It's having the device recognized by the system. Apparently the Macintosh Core Audio driver doesn't support a direct connnection to this Sony gadget. If it records to some kind of removable media, like an SD card, you could get around that by using an external card reader that would then mount to the Mac like a disk, but this thing looks like the memory is internal, and wants to see it's own software when it connects to a computer. It looks like the only way this would work with a Mac is if it's an Intel Mac running Windows.

Windows Media files are not a problem on the Mac, if you don't mind installing the Mac version of Windows Media Player.

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

I picked up a Zoom H4 in Bangkok this week.

After a bout with bad low quality media SD cards,
I lost a whole night of jazz because of card errors
I exchanged them for 2 gig Kensington cards,
end of problems. The exchange was good,
but I REALLY wish they had showed me the good cards
and not JUST flogged the cheapies with great mark-up...

I DID test them for very short recordings... BUT
over 3-5 minutes they developed errors
AND would not be erasable either.

1) get top quality cards and test them with 5 minute +
recordings and erasures in the store to be sure they work well.

2) the thing sounds just fine 44.1 16 bit,
but if you listen when you switch it to 24 bit
your REALLY HEAR the sound open up greatly.

48 24 about the same.

I did record a band in practice in my drum room today
with 96k 24 bit, it blew the band away.
My choice of hand-picked cymbals and a decent Sonar kit.
Guitar through my 1960 Champ amp,
5 string bass in a small 100w bass amp.
Lead vocal through my Peavey Transfex Steel amp,
for practice purposes.

My Protools is still only 44.1 and 48 24,
so it had to down sample from 96,
but it sounded awesome like that.
The band was gob smacked.

I had just walked in held it up as they did a song.
When they took a break I played it back to them;
jaws dropped.

2) watch out for low battery message.
Stop recording and switch off install new batt.
or add aux power wall wart.
it seems to save data during shut down,
so if it can't file info is lost.
I haven't yet tried plugging in aux power while it was on...
Should be OK.

I lost a track of me playing A Night In Tunnesia
with a GREAT jazz band because it went low battery.

3) the C414 mic emulator was real nice,
have yet to try the U87, but I imagine not bad either.
SM-58 emulator is no doubt for close vocal recording only.

I recorded a top shelf blues R n B band in a packed room.
It sounded JUST like where I was sitting.
I recomended adding 2 speakers to the overhead
of the front of stage because the mains are way
left and right.
This was reflected clearly in the recording.

I recorded the jazz band with a trumpet, upright bass,
and electric piano, female vocalist, and a
super drummer or 3 on a marginal club kit...
Trumpet was mostly acoustic, you really heard the player clearly.
The bass was not so balance in the room,
that was reproduced as it was also.

4) if you have the luxury of wasting a tune,
then the auto level search is cool.
If the band is playing then it finds the peaks,
during pre-record, adds some headroom and then
you can hit record.

Otherwise use the, switch for sensitivity and then
the software level control from the menue.
I wish it was a bit easier to set levels.
Especially if the unit isn't completely seated
in the holder after a battery or card change.
But at least they don't change between takes or pauses.

5) USB to Mac went totally seamlessly.
It sees the memory card as a card reader would be seen.
The files can be huge, but it loads about as fast
as can be expected. A gig a byte in about 15 minutes.

I have yet to try using it as a audio interface,
but it can apparently.

I have yet to use my good Earthworks mics,
but assume they will improve the sound.
The onboard mics do a fine job.
Good for most things no problem.

6) The support frame it comes with will screw onto a standard camera tripod.
I picked up a 6 inch flexible legged table tripod
and recorded the jazz just placing it on top of the
popcorn machine on the bar. Could aim it as I liked.
And the R n B on a table, dead front and center of the club.

It also puts it in a nice, readable angle,
placed on the desktop for USB transfers etc.

Also many people think;
a) it looks cool
b) it's a strange video recorder
c) looks like a Taser

The people with some clue about recording
just stare and shake their heads and smile.

All in all a great replacement for the Sony mini disk
and my trusty D8 Porta DAT Walkman that I can't get fixed
because it's too old... THANKS SONY.

The learning H4 curve ain't too bad,
but I suggest trying it out on non-critical program BEFORE you do something you REALLY want.
I never tried the 4 track and effects mixing yet.
Don't really need to.
But I can see recording acoustic music out doors,
and branching 2 headphones and adding 2 more tracks.
While CAMPING etc. 2 friends equal a band.

In the right situation I can easily see doing a whole live album
with just this unit and a workstation to master it a bit.
A touch of reverb and maybe some C4 eq / compression as needed.
Bluegrass, out door jazz etc.
Of course ya gotta PLAY well too.. Smile

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DLD, Chili farmer. Plus bananas and papaya too.

Real happiness has no strings attached.
But pedal steels have many!

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Ok guys, I know this thread is long but I'll add my 75 cents Smile

I just bought a Boss BR-600. B0b there's no doubt that it would be overkill for what you want but number 1. it's hand held (about the size of a small paperback book) 2. it's battery operated. 3. you can record many many hours on a 1 gb compact flash card which you can buy for 19.99 tiger direct. It comes with a 128 mb card which might be enough for most folks. 4. it's USB so you can dump wav files or import them at will. 5. It's able to record 8 tracks so if you record a live band in stereo and they want more there are 6 more tracks to overdub on. 7. It has some of the best effects that Roland has to offer right on board including Vocal pitch correction and a whole slew of mastering effects.

I bought it to have fun with and record live bands while out and about. It even has two pretty high quality Microphones built in like the zoom h-4.

I've already recorded a few things and sent them to Sonar to add to my other tracks and could not tell any fidelity difference between the two recorders when I recorded in the highest bit rate possible on the BR-600. There are several different levels of recording quality to save disk space.

For me it's just a toy and not that expensive when you think about it. 349.00 list but I got mine for 299.00 at GC.

Oh yeah I forgot all the COSOM effects like Bass emulation as well as many different guitar amps. As you can tell I love it but it might be to big for your uses. It is quite a bit bigger than the zoom. I think it's about 7" wide and 5" deep and less than an inch thick.

Bob

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

May I ask about the BR 600..?

It is my undestanding that it records in Boss's formats, LV-1, LV-2 and HI Fi..which is the same formats as my very old BR-8 which I have not used in a few years but refuse to part with.

The recorded files can be uploaded to the PC and then converted to wave with the Boss Wave converter software.

Is this correct or does the BR600 actually record in a wave format ?

It's not really that big of a deal as long as there is no sonic quality loss in the conversion.

I am thinking that this little notebook sized unit is exceptional but I am also thinking that the flexibilty of not recording in MP3 or Wave keeps it out of the list of contenders for small LIVE recorders. I still may get one anyway...I just spent $100 on a small drum machine and I am thinking for a bit more I can get the BR600 with a Drum machine ( I need the pads) and a whole lot more.

Are the drums programmable ? Can the pads be assigned ?

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Hey Tony, here's the way the book explains it. When you record it in the highest quality which the manual calls MT2 and there are 2 more levels to save room on the 600 well anyway when you hook it up USB and drag it to your computer drive it stays in that format for backup but if you want to export it as a wav or aiff file you can and the choices are. 8bit 44.1 or 16 bit 44.1 wav or aiff files. Now there may be some other choices like 11, 22 bit but I didn't read that far because I'd always want 16 bit 44.1 wav file. As far as I could tell you can do it for a mono track or a stereo track.

Of course after you export it as a 16 bit 44.1 wav file you can then use it in your DAW.

As I get further along I'll email you with the specs.

It does mention that you can swap files between the older as well as the newer BR series recorders but I'll have to read more on that for ya. I'm pretty sure it mentioned the BR-900 cd, BR-864, BR-532 but that's about as far as I got. I'm sure it will import the new little one everyone is talking about in it's native format. Of course it will import anything that is a 8 or 16 bit 44.1 wav file. So I can't imagine it being any more compatible.

Well as I learn more about it I'll keep you posted. I mostly bought it just to have fun but I think I'll be able to use it in many different ways as time goes along. I especially want to use it to record live bands here in town and maybe get them a good demo for them.

Right now it will accept a 1 gb card but the ad says they are working on using much larger compact cards like up to 8 gb. The 1 gb card I bought will record over 520 minutes across 1 track so divide that by 8 and you see you probably can get a little over an hour across 8 tracks in the highest quality before you have to backup and make more room. I think I told you I got my 1gb card for 20 bucks so if I get to using this thing as much as I think I will I'll buy 7 or 8 cards or wait until they upgrade the OS and it can use an 8gb card.

Bob

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Hi Tony, in my long winded reply to your post I left out the most importand questions you asked. This is what I know so far. It has 12 touch sensitive pads and I think 12 different kits and I'm pretty sure you can mix and choose what snare or any other drum part you want with any kit.

I do know you can record your own patterns or change any of theirs in just about any way you want.

So to tell you the truth I think I got my moneys worth out of it just for the drum machine. I think it has 3 velocity sensitive levels per each pad.

Here's a few more things I've learned. You can load GM drum files and it will play them back and you can also load drum sample loops if you want to use real drums. Like myself I have about 12 to 15 CD's full of Stereo drum loops that I could load and replace the drum sounds on the drum machine. I probably wont't because their samples sound great although some of the cymbals sound a little chopped off due to not being looped which I like but you'll never notice that in the mix.

Give me a little more time and I'll report back to you. I don't know why I'm so darned excited about this little machine I have sonar 6.2.1 that will preform circles around this toy but there's something about being able to put it in your gig bag and go to a gig and record high quality live band demos all night long.

In my past I have been lucky enought to play with some monster players/groups I guess they let me play just to carry all the heavy equipment LOL but anyway if I had this machine back then I could have recorded some great memories. The way it was I recorded quite a few with my sony mini Walkman cassette recorder (which by the way cost more new than this did) and they didn't turn out to bad but they would have been soooo much cleaner and better if I had this little unit. Plus I could have come home and mastered the final stereo track making it sound even better.

Bob

Joe Harwell · From: "I've never been bad." ........ Many, LA

Here's the one I bought for my daughter for Christmas.

Of course I had to try it out. I had the first generation SansDisk. It recorded but I blowed the mic out by getting it to close(?) to my amp?

But the C240. It really sounded great using the internal mic. Really captured the depth/detail of the steel. No comparision to the old. Lots of storage. Long play/recording from battery. Will take a SD card. And has a proprietary package to convert video for viewing.

Got mine(hers) from Circuit City online. Good service, etc. Got'em now for 70.00. I paid 125.00 at Christmas.
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"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak & the strong; because, someday in life you will have been all of these".

John Daugherty · From: Rolla, Missouri, USA

What I want to know is ...... How ya gonna hold that handheld recorder and play steel guitar ???? Laughing

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Joe Harwell · From: "I've never been bad." ........ Many, LA

Neck lanyard or a noose depending on the gig/audience<gr>!!
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Joe in LA

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak & the strong; because, someday in life you will have been all of these".

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Joe Harwell · From: "I've never been bad." ........ Many, LA

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

I picked up a Creative Zen Nano yesterday. About $75 at CompUSA.

This is an MP3 player, but the thing that sold me on it is a stereo audio input jack. You run a little wire from any device with a mini headphone jack, and it will record the source and encode it as mp3. You can later transfer the mp3 file to your PC if you want, and then burn it to CD from there.

The Zen Nano includes a tiny microphone for voice recording and an FM radio tuner. You can record mp3 files from the radio, too. It also includes PC software, ear-bud headphones, and an armband to wear it when you jog (as if!).

I recorded/encoded the audio from my Mac as I played YouTube clips and it worked really pretty well. I get better sounding mp3 encoding from Pyro (on my PC), but this isn't bad.

While there's no Mac software, it shows up like any other USB drive when I plug it into the USB port of my Powerbook. I can basically control its file system from the Mac. Good enough!

The Windows software that came with it isn't very interesting to me. People who just listen might like the music organizer and the iTunes-like online service. I have no real use for them.
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b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

This is it: <center>

click here for Creative's web page about it.
</center>
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erik · Posted 1 Apr 2007 4:51 pm

b0b, I've got the newer Zen V. I thought about getting the Zen 1g for the FM recording but assumed it recorded in low quality wav like my older Creative MuVu. Can you tell me what bit rate the zen records FM broadcast at? That player is the only one left that records FM direct. I assume a complaint was made to Creative and they discontinued the option.
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Joe Harwell · From: "I've never been bad." ........ Many, LA

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

I have used the Zoom H4 for several different recordings
and it just amazes the players on playback.

Quite satified with it, just wish the wind screen
wasn't so easy to lose.
_________________
DLD, Chili farmer. Plus bananas and papaya too.

Real happiness has no strings attached.
But pedal steels have many!

Ernest Cawby · From: Lake City, Florida, USA, R.I.P.

Bob try an ILO at $68.00 less than 2" x 2" and will record all day, records 1 channel put it into Sound Forge and convert to 2 channels,It has a built in slot for a SD card 1 gig in and 1 gig ex. it will record all day.

ernie

Bill Hatcher · From: Atlanta Ga. USA

Buddy of mine has an Iriver piece that fits in your shirt pocket and records several hours on a AA battery. That thing is amazing. I forget the model (maybe 899 or 799), but they sell for about $80 on Ebay. That model is no longer made but you can find them.

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

I took the Zen Nano to rehearsal last night. The "Voice Recorder" function creates a mono .WAV file from the internal microphone. It sounds like it might be an 8k sample rate - not much high end.

It works fine until you hit a certain volume level, and then it makes nasty noises. My guess is that the tiny microphone's diaphram is hitting the back wall or something.

For my acoustic living room rehearsals, the voice recorder should work fine. For on stage, I can use the line in jack running from my PA headhone mix. One way the other, this little gadget might just fill my needs. Smile

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David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

b0b equally likely is it is hitting digital distortion.

People using these as dictaphones are notorious for popping PS and woofing with their breath,
which are both very high preasure levels for a mic diaprarm.
So that would be expected for short term blasts.

Is there no mic input trim control?
_________________
DLD, Chili farmer. Plus bananas and papaya too.

Real happiness has no strings attached.
But pedal steels have many!

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