Hand recorders for interviews

[solkung]

Can anyone give me an idea on a good hand held recorder. I would like to use this for interviews. I would also be using this for spoken notes to myself while driving or walking. What are people using and what is easy to load into Audacity with a good quality?

[ElNacho]

iriver 700-800! i dont no personally but i no uhhhhh i just do okay dont question me lol

[tabulator32]

I use an Olympus DS-2 with a Shure mic plugged into it for "on-the-street" interviews and one of those $14.95 Radio Shack adaptor thingies plugged into it for phone interviews.

[tabulator32]

'Just listened to your latest show. Good luck in S.D. and pet the cat!
8)

Take care and good luck with your show!

[Will-Casel]

I agree with Nacho about the iRiver. I use the iFP-790(256MB). Easy to transfer to your computer and into Audacity. Plus it fits conveniently in your pocket.

However, I just plopped down $399 for the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 (http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/11/30/m-audio-microtrack-review.html) (detailed O'Reilly review). I plan on doing more "professional" interviews in the new year and wanted something compact, robust, and giggle-proof if I show up to interview the CEO of some book publishing company.

Make no mistake, the iRiver worked/works great for me and I will probably continue to use it for certain occasions, but I'm ready for an upgrade. (ok, maybe its just an excuse to buy more stuff) :P

Will

[monkey_one]

I agree with Nacho about the iRiver. I use the iFP-790(256MB). Easy to transfer to your computer and into Audacity. Plus it fits conveniently in your pocket.

However, I just plopped down $399 for the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 (http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/11/30/m-audio-microtrack-review.html) (detailed O'Reilly review). I plan on doing more "professional" interviews in the new year and wanted something compact, robust, and giggle-proof if I show up to interview the CEO of some book publishing company.

Make no mistake, the iRiver worked/works great for me and I will probably continue to use it for certain occasions, but I'm ready for an upgrade. (ok, maybe its just an excuse to buy more stuff) :P

Will
man im jealous i want one actually i was also noticing some marantz portables that looked cool too

[tsidock]

Can anyone give me an idea on a good hand held recorder.
- I would like to use this for interviews.
-I would also be using this for spoken notes to myself while driving or walking. What are people using and what
-is easy to load into Audacity with a good quality?

Since no one has responded yet, I will give you my thoughts.
Nearly everyone starts and often remins using the iRiver. Thye reason for this is that the iRiver is very affordable, easy to use, very high fidelity and creates a standard mp3 file.

I do not however believe it is quite the ideal solution for note taking, especially while driving. It is certainly true that some podcasters record shows while driving, they usually do not turn it on and off like a voice note recorder allows with a simple push to talk button.

There are other devices that record, including those in the voice recorder catagory. Most are limited to various degrees in their ability to record a wide range of frequencys or dynamic range.

Perhaps there are will be other suggestions from others.
tom

[bazookajoeshow]

My show is all about interviews so you can imagine I had the same questions as you.

I started off using a battered tape recorder and a RadioShack mic nad had loads of fun digitizing the interviews so I could edit them. What fun! I then got one of those digital recorders that are used for recording lectures and such. After a week of using it I ditched it because it sounded so muffled. I then spent some extra cahs and got myself an iRiver IFP899 and I'm quite happy with it. Even it's built-in mic isn't too bad but I used oe of those squid dual lapel mics. Very handy.

If you really want to do it up right, I'd get a Marantz recorder. Andrew from Exit50 uses it if you want an idea of how good they sound. Or listen to my interview with Tony and Gary from the Morning Stories podcast.

Hope some of this helps.

Bazooka Joe


Can anyone give me an idea on a good hand held recorder. I would like to use this for interviews. I would also be using this for spoken notes to myself while driving or walking. What are people using and what is easy to load into Audacity with a good quality?

[kinkysex]

...nd one of those $14.95 Radio Shack adaptor thingies plugged into it for phone interviews.

Could I get the name of this 'thing', please? I think I'd like one.

[tsidock]

There's only about a hundred dollars between the Marantz PMD660, the Edirol R1 and the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 recorder. These are the standard high end and share many features the pros require while having important technical differences. I haven't done any interviews, but use and Edirol R1 for recording my podcats. The Marantz may well be the better choice for this task but the Edirol gets many reviews for its built in microphones which may important to you.

You should check these 3 units out. My show workflow is Mixer to Edirol as 16 bit wav, download to PC, Convert to 96kbps mp3. add tags and upload. Needless to say it works well.

Tom

[tabulator32]

...nd one of those $14.95 Radio Shack adaptor thingies plugged into it for phone interviews.

Could I get the name of this 'thing', please? I think I'd like one.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2104040&cp=2032052.2032075.2032077.2032094&parentPage=family

There are numerous variations of this. This is just the one from Radio Shack.

You put it "inline" on your phone and a third wire goes into your eigtht-inch mic jack on your recorder.

[SteveRunner]

There's an interesting review in the January 18th version of Radio World (page 28) It's a microphone with a built in flash recorder.

The HHB DRM85 FlashMic is an omnidirectional condenser microphone (a version of the Sennheiser K-series capsule) with a recorder built into it's base. It has a Gig-byte of mem (about 3 hours of high quality uncompressed audio), but it can record 18 hours of 128 Kbps MPEG-1...the battery life is around six hours off a pair of "AA" batteries.

The thing is VERY pricey: the MSRP is set for $1,400.00 but it is a cool idea.

[tsidock]

That sounds like a great idea, perhaps we will see some affordable knock-offs of that idea soon!

Tom

[Will-Casel]

That would be cool, but it definitely beg curious looks and questions from the interviewee

Imagine doing an interview and pulling out your mic with no cables attached! :lol:

Will

[yippie]

There's an interesting review in the January 18th version of Radio World (page 28) It's a microphone with a built in flash recorder.

The HHB DRM85 FlashMic is an omnidirectional condenser microphone (a version of the Sennheiser K-series capsule) with a recorder built into it's base. It has a Gig-byte of mem (about 3 hours of high quality uncompressed audio), but it can record 18 hours of 128 Kbps MPEG-1...the battery life is around six hours off a pair of "AA" batteries.

The thing is VERY pricey: the MSRP is set for $1,400.00 but it is a cool idea.

Seen this too! Here is a link to the details and a brochure you can download.

http://www.hhb.co.uk/hhb/int/press/press_detail.asp?ID=336

[Steve Pinder]

I use an iRiver 899 with stereo clip mics when traveling for a quick sit-down interview.
In my Studio, I use MXL990.

I have to say that the 155.00 investment in the iRiver was well worth it.
I spent another 60.00 on a good set of stereo clip-on mics.

Hope this helped.

Steve Pinder
www.karatekast.com

[theperfectsong]

I'm seeing more and more discussion about upgrading to units like Marantz PMD660, the Edirol R1 and the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96, which I think is a natural trend as we all strive to improve sound quality and content. I've been thinking along the same lines. I'd be really interested in seeing some posts by podcasters who use any of the above to get their thoughts and feelings about the equipment.
NPR always has quality sound. Does anyone know what equipment their reporters use?

[kinkysex]

units like Marantz PMD660

I use it and love it. It's small enough for me and the best investment I've made, so far.

Here's what I use with it.

www.kinkysexradio.com/tech.htm

[tsidock]

It depends on your budget. Marantz just upgraded the pre-amps on one of their units. That was the only complaint some user had. I went with the Edirol because It had cleaner reviews on the built in mics (which, so far I have not used except to test. They are very clean). Our show is recorded with an AKG Perception 200 and Nady 800 Condensor mic. Fed through a Behringer 1204FX mixer through a db266XL compressor/gate/limiter through an Aphex204 exciter and then into an Edirol R1 recorder as 16bit wave. The show then goes to a PC where I run through dbPowerAmp to convert to 41.1/16bit/96kbps mp3. No post processing at all. I believe the Edirol has really made the difference as I rely on the single line VU meter to get the levels spot on.

If you check out our EXPO shows for a comparison. We used 2 Behringer 1800 dynamic mics a Y connector and an iRiver 890. We used Sony Acid 4.0 to stitch segments together as we had no mixer. I guess my point is, that you will be hard pressed to tell which was done with $150 worth of gear and which was done with $2000+ worth of gear. Although in practice I would never go back.

The Marantz may well be a Hummer but the Edirol is still a sporty Beamer, while the iRiver is a good value Hundai Sonata.

Hope I wasn't to far off base here, but it is all really subjective and I feel that none of them are bad choices for any use.

Tom

[kickasspodcast]

To original question-

Go with the iriver series of portable players. They do a **** good job and you don't have to worry about them. You also don't have to sit it down on a table to use it. That M-Audio is pimp however. You can spend loads of money and just recompress it to an mp3. Yippee! Who cares. I honestly have heard podcasts with people who use the Edirol or Marantz or some 10,000 dollar setup and it doesn't even make that big of a difference when they compress it down to an mp3. Of course the better your sound is to begin with, the more you can compress it. The iriver will offer you the most function of anything I know (for the price).

and...
while the iRiver is a good value Hundai Sonata
This is just not true. Does the marantz or edirol have a built-in tuner? Are they even mp3 players? Sure, buy an Edirol "Hummer" R-1. Enjoy the missing lack of XLR adapters and the included 64mb card its good for 137 minutes (MP3, 64 kbps mode). Yippee! Of course its a much better overall system, its nearly 3x the price it ought to be. You also have to worry about what happens to it. Im sure you can get a bigger card or some adapters to use real mics but saying its oh so much better leaves out alot.

The Edirol and the Marantz are of course superior, you get what you pay for. However the iriver is a priceless tool for podcasters, not to be misunderestimated. ;) The beauty of the iriver is that it can do alot more than you ever expect, plus its tweakable as hell and they are sturdy little (basically waterproof) devices. Gems they are...

Lets not scare anyone off with audiophilic geekiness, you obviously can sound **** good with a ifp and its affordable easy and encouraging to new podcasters.

Hope I wasn't to far off base here, but it is all really subjective and I feel that none of them are bad choices for any use.
Informative for sure, thanks for ending it like this, so true.

Jack

You can get 256mb irivers that work great for under 50 bucks. Its great to see the tech + quality get so much better and cheaper!

[Slone]

I just purchased the Marantz PMD660 and I am totally happy! I suggest also picking up a good dynamic mic to go along with it!

Very solid, Light, includes two XLR jacks... and so much more! I'm covering a major event in March and today I finally had a chance to take it out and play reporter testing in all kinds of settings. It's GOLD!

I want to suggest Mark Jenson of www.podsqod.com for the review as well personal feedback. Knows his stuff!

Cheers and good luck,
Slone

[cc_chapman]

However, I just plopped down $399 for the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 (http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/11/30/m-audio-microtrack-review.html) (detailed O'Reilly review). I plan on doing more "professional" interviews in the new year and wanted something compact, robust, and giggle-proof if I show up to interview the CEO of some book publishing company.

Have you used this yet? I'd very much like to know how it works out and what the sound quality is. I've been looking for an updated portable as well.

[tsidock]

To original question-


and...
while the iRiver is a good value Hundai Sonata
This is just not true. Does the marantz or edirol have a built-in tuner? Are they even mp3 players? Sure, buy an Edirol "Hummer" R-1. Enjoy the missing lack of XLR adapters and the included 64mb card its good for 137 minutes (MP3, 64 kbps mode). Yippee! Of course its a much better overall system, its nearly 3x the price it ought to be. You also have to worry about what happens to it. Im sure you can get a bigger card or some adapters to use real mics but saying its oh so much better leaves out alot.

The Edirol and the Marantz are of course superior, you get what you pay for. However the iriver is a priceless tool for podcasters, not to be misunderestimated. ;) The beauty of the iriver is that it can do alot more than you ever expect, plus its tweakable as hell and they are sturdy little (basically waterproof) devices. Gems they are...

Lets not scare anyone off with audiophilic geekiness, you obviously can sound d*mn good with a ifp and its affordable easy and encouraging to new podcasters.

Hope I wasn't to far off base here, but it is all really subjective and I feel that none of them are bad choices for any use.
Informative for sure, thanks for ending it like this, so true.

Jack

You can get 256mb irivers that work great for under 50 bucks. Its great to see the tech + quality get so much better and cheaper!


I think you put the cherry on my comment, I believe you should exhaust the potential of the iRiver before moving on. For me the only reason I have the Edirol is the VU meter, it is truely a huge help when recording a live multi input show.

BTW - My hyundai sonata and Tiburon both have FM. :D
Tom

[tsidock]

However, I just plopped down $399 for the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 (http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/11/30/m-audio-microtrack-review.html) (detailed O'Reilly review). I plan on doing more "professional" interviews in the new year and wanted something compact, robust, and giggle-proof if I show up to interview the CEO of some book publishing company.

Have you used this yet? I'd very much like to know how it works out and what the sound quality is. I've been looking for an updated portable as well.

CC-
Patchett and I will be comparing the Marantz,Edirol and Microtrack next week. I think he already has become partial. One of us will let you know

Tom

[cc_chapman]

Drop me an e-mail, those are the three I'm looking looking into. All are withing the price range. I just want the best of the three.

[retrocrush]

My handheld ran out of batteries during an interview that I happened to be using a camcorder on, too. Out of desperation, I used the audio straight from the camcorder and guess what.... it sounded fantastic! I'm tempted to just camcorder all of my interviews now.

[tsidock]

My handheld ran out of batteries during an interview that I happened to be using a camcorder on, too. Out of desperation, I used the audio straight from the camcorder and guess what.... it sounded fantastic! I'm tempted to just camcorder all of my interviews now.

I have seen/heard excellent results from a pocket camera too! Any port in a storm, it's about the audio. As long as it's a digital file, heck as long as it is recorded!

Good save!

[AGuyandaGirl]

However, I just plopped down $399 for the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 (http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/11/30/m-audio-microtrack-review.html) (detailed O'Reilly review). I plan on doing more "professional" interviews in the new year and wanted something compact, robust, and giggle-proof if I show up to interview the CEO of some book publishing company.

Have you used this yet? I'd very much like to know how it works out and what the sound quality is. I've been looking for an updated portable as well.

CC-
Patchett and I will be comparing the Marantz,Edirol and Microtrack next week. I think he already has become partial. One of us will let you know

Tom

Question: Is anybody keeping their eyes on the new M-Audio Podcast factory deluxe that comes out in a couple of weeks?

What's in the Box
Podcast Factory Deluxe is a complete podcasting solution. Included in-box is an M-Audio(R) MobilePre USB audio interface, two Nova(R) condenser microphones with desktop stands, Ableton Live Lite 4 software to record audio and add a soundtrack to the recording and Red Square Podifier software to generate an RSS feed for posting to the web and user subscriptions. Podcast Factory Deluxe offers users a step-up in quality and functionality from the original Podcast Factory product. The Deluxe version offers an interface with phantom power for the two professional condenser microphones and two headphone outputs for recording interviews. Also, the MobilePre USB offers users a new feature that allows for routing of VOIP services through the driver in order to record phone interviews.

Pricing and Availability
M-Audio's podcasting products are available online at e-tailers such as amazon.com, and will be available at other major consumer electronics retailers in early 2006. M-Audio currently anticipates that Podcast Factory Deluxe will begin shipping in February 2006 with an MSRP of $299. M-Audio Podcast Factory is currently shipping with an MSRP of $179.

We are always looking for a good rig that the two of us can use on the road.

[chicagosn]

Cubscast (http://cubscast.com), one of the shows in our network, recently purchased a Microtrack 24/96 recorder. The O'Reilly review (linked earlier in this thread) is dead on. It's an awesome recorder, extremely easy to use and yielded some nice results even when the settings were to record directly to MP3@128kbps.

If you want to hear it in action, check out their live (http://cubscast.com/podcasts/cubscast009.mp3) broadcasts (http://cubscast.com/podcasts/cubscast010.mp3) from this month's Cubs Convention in Chicago.

For just under $400, it's an awesome addition to any podcast that would like to have live interview/recording capabilities. We plan to use it for interviews outside of Wrigley Field, the United Center, and various other venues this year.

Hope that helps.

[tmccay]

Hello fellow 'casters.

I bought an M-Audio Microtrack and love the thing! Yes, it is slightly more cumbersome than an iRiver but I feel the raw quality to be superior. (quiet insider info here) I work in the Hi-Fi and Media world and accidentally loaded a 50" plasma on top of the thing. I was concerned but it took the abuse (and the three mile drive) just fine.

My only issue with the device is alack of an on-board compressor/limiter when tracking. It has EQ for playback but most of us would rarely use it for such a task. Perhaps they should switch that off in firmware and keep me from having to ride the rec levels in high dynamic environments.

Anyway, I have clips from this device in every show (except 0.5).

That said, this box IS one heck of an audiophile portable playback device.

Cheers,

NOLA Trey

[goodbar]

You can get a edirol but it will run you $400 the next is what i have
tascam dr7 Great only 200 sound perfect if you use the onboard mic great and you can use a external mic also
the podcast answer man said so

[hectorio]

its crappy quality and u have to hold it-

there are skype recorders or also ways to record a cell phone call (http://recordiapro.com)
like recordiapro

[Fiskegrej]

I'm pretty happy about it

http://www.fiskegrej-online.dk

[dichthuattanviet]

You can get a edirol but it will run you $400 the next is what i have
tascam dr7 Great only 200 sound perfect if you use the onboard mic great and you can use a external mic also
the podcast answer man said so
------------
dich cong chung (http://dichcongchung.org) | cong ty dich thuat (http://congtydichthuat.org)

[peleperezxx]

Great article. Will definitely copy it to my blog.Thanks

[Acua]

I use an Olympus digital recorder to record my interviews and it picks up every word from across the room. All my interviews have been conducted indoor but I'm not sure how well it will perform outside when there is a wind factor.

[ProfessorKelly]

Good info here. We've only done a couple remotes (as afterthoughts) so have just used my iPhone. lol. Thinking about getting more serious about remotes so thanks for the thread.

[keydrocky]

Массовая испытание для СПАМ!!! Спааасибооо. Mass into for SPAM!!! Thaaanksss.

[ProfessorKelly]

Wow, sure alot of spam here.

[janarthanancomp]

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[janarthanancomp]

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[janarthanancomp]

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[janarthanancomp]

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[janarthanancomp]

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[RashmiP]

Why so many replies from the same person?
Hand recorders are convenient and easy to carry.