iTalk any good??

[mental-escher]

Does anyone have experience with the iTalk thingus for the iPod that allows for recording directly to the iPod?? I was curious if this was good enough to do "on the move" recording (anywhere away from my computer) particularly for voice. Big concern is noise, and of course I would imagine an external mic is a must from what I've read. I ask becasue is seems like a very affordable solution for "on the move" recording. And since the iPod is one way (iTunes -> iPod) how does one get the recording out of the iPod- by going from headphone jack to audio in of computer and basically re-recording it that way??

[F7sound]

From my experiences, the iTalk is pretty lo-fi. The iPod makes some internal machine noise from it's hard drive which is picked up by the iTalk.

The iTalk works by making files in the "Voice Recordings" folder which is created on the iPod. There is a delay time from when you hit "record" to the time the actual recording begins. I've missed a few things that way and haven't figured out how to compensate for the problem.

When you connect the iPod to iTunes, iTunes recognizes the new voice recording files and asks if you want to download them. You can, or you can drag them directly to your desktop or computer drive(s). Those files can be imported into an audio editor (like Pro Tools, which I use) and then edited.

The audio quality of the iTalk is pretty lo-fi (8kHz, 16bit). The 16 bit is OK, but the 8kHz is made strictly for voice recording. It does fine for that, but distorts, at close range and exhibits aliasing of the higher frequencies which sound harsh. You can compensate by EQ at around 10k or so, doing a cut of a few dB.

I'm not too thrilled with the iTalk. I'm thrilled with the idea, however, this generation of iTalk is just a little below the quality I'd like. They should have it record at 44.1kHz. The iPod can certainly handle that.


Michael Oster
F7 Sound and Vision
http://www.F7sound.com
my podcasts - http://www.F7sound.com/podcasts.htm
my blog - http://michaeloster.blogspot.com

[mental-escher]

Thanks for the info!

[thumper369]

You can do a dual boot on your ipod which will give you much higher recording ability
I am looking for the link I will post it when I find it.

[thumper369]

here you go, up to 96khz

http://ipod.hackaday.com/entry/1234000147025394/

[F7sound]

here you go, up to 96khz

http://ipod.hackaday.com/entry/1234000147025394/

Very interesting. Have you installed this on your iPod and have you had any problems with it?


Michael Oster
F7 Sound and Vision
http://www.F7sound.com
my podcasts - http://www.F7sound.com/podcasts.htm
my blog - http://michaeloster.blogspot.com

[thumper369]

Very interesting. Have you installed this on your iPod and have you had any problems with it?


I have a 4th Gen and they are not done with it yet, so no I have not tried yet. But The guy form Hack-a-day had. They talked about it in one of the early engadgit podcasts.

[F7sound]

I did a little snooping myself and saw that there were some problems, but the posts were very interesting. I also have a 4th gen iPod so I'm out.

It's not too big of a deal for me to record to the iPod since I got an iRiver 899, which does a great job especially for podcasts. But it's interesting that Apple has "crippled" their iPods to record so poorly.


Michael Oster
F7 Sound and Vision
http://www.F7sound.com
my podcasts - http://www.F7sound.com/podcasts.htm
my blog - http://michaeloster.blogspot.com

[mental-escher]

I have the 4th gen one too, so I'll have to use my much bulker Archos 20G mp3 player/recorder/HD (which does allow you to choose any sample rate up to raw wav), but the iPod hack looked cool- hopefully those guys can get it working for the 4th gen iPod too!

cb

[gozar]

I know Dawn and Drew used one for a show a couple of weeks ago. The quality was pretty crappy, in fact, I couldn't make it through the entire show it was so annoying.

Anyway, I just picked up an iRiver 795, and the quality on it is very good, so that might be something to look at.

[yaz]

you sure the show was annoying because of the audio quality or was it just the content?