Topic: Need help what recorder would you recomend for a blind person?

[Church-Audio]

Hi I have quite a few customers that are blind. They are looking for a good quality recorder to use for general recording; they want a small recording device with 3.5 mm mic and or line inputs. Since they are blind, they don’t want all these hidden functions and sub menus. Anyone out there that can suggest something so I can tell my customers would be greatly appreciated.

I know its not something we with sight think about, but I know that within this group every possible recorder that can be used to record audio is being used by one or more of the members here.
 

Thanks



Chris Church

[Will_S]

I wonder if you could find an old Sony WM-D6 in decent condition for a good price.  All kinds of tactile feedback from that guy.  For digital recorders, I don't know...

Although, if you get an iRiver and install Rockbox, you can configure it in such a way that it automatically boots to the recording screen.  The initial installation and configuration would pretty much have to be done by someone sighted but once it's all set up, the buttons are far enough apart and easy enough to feel that it would be no problem for somone to start and stop recording and turn the unit on and off without seeing it.  And with the way the leather case is configured, it's even pretty easy to find the line-in jack by feel alone.

[guysonic]

Hi I have quite a few customers that are blind. They are looking for a good quality recorder to use for general recording; they want a small recording device with 3.5 mm mic and or line inputs. Since they are blind, they don’t want all these hidden functions and sub menus. Anyone out there that can suggest something so I can tell my customers would be greatly appreciated.

I know its not something we with sight think about, but I know that within this group every possible recorder that can be used to record audio is being used by one or more of the members here.

Thanks
Chris Church

Experience here with sightless recordist customers is these decks are usable:

1) Now vintage WM-D6C analog cassette

2) Now out-of-production, but still available used TCD-D100 or PCM-M1

3) Recent M-Audio Microtrack 24/96; menus do not wrap as with other digital decks, so menu navigation from-memory sequence of button clicks is practical.  Especially practical with newest firmware 1.3.3 or 1.4.0 that now insures only ONE increment/decrement with single navigation button push.  

see review at: www.sonicstudios.com/mt2496rv.htm

[Church-Audio]

Thanks Guy one thing I failed to mention was that my customers are looking for uploading via usb / firewire so they do not have to do analog transfer the MT sounds like a good recorder but the this explosion thing has good me worried, I am afraid to mention that recorder to my customers at least until we know what happened to the other guy on T.S that had his explode.

Chris Church
By the way I have said this before and I will say it again your mics have produced some of the best recordings I have ever heard for mics under $1000 a pair. Did you know there was an aids special with Bill Clinton on ABC or NBC about 2-3 weeks ago? And they were using DSM's on the choir?? I noticed the dsm head right away sounded great.

Hi I have quite a few customers that are blind. They are looking for a good quality recorder to use for general recording; they want a small recording device with 3.5 mm mic and or line inputs. Since they are blind, they don’t want all these hidden functions and sub menus. Anyone out there that can suggest something so I can tell my customers would be greatly appreciated.

I know its not something we with sight think about, but I know that within this group every possible recorder that can be used to record audio is being used by one or more of the members here.

Thanks
Chris Church

Experience here with sightless recordist customers is these decks are usable:

1) Now vintage WM-D6C analog cassette

2) Now out-of-production, but still available used TCD-D100 or PCM-M1

3) Recent M-Audio Microtrack 24/96; menus do not wrap as with other digital decks, so menu navigation from-memory sequence of button clicks is practical.  Especially practical with newest firmware 1.3.3 or 1.4.0 that now insures only ONE increment/decrement with single navigation button push.  

see review at: www.sonicstudios.com/mt2496rv.htm

[whatboutbob]

Chris,

You may like to point them in the direction of a rockboxed iriver H1xx.

Rockbox has voiced menus (ie an audio file is played back whenever a menu is selected, or it is audibly spelt), however unfortunately the recording screen has not yet been voiced.  There are however only a few options on that screen so they *may* be able to feel it out (I manage to do it for stealth recording anyways)

I've just confirmed with the Rockbox developers that it is possible for them to voice the recording screen in future, however it will interrupt monitoring (I wouldn't imagine this would be a big deal).  So hopefully the developers will look at that sooner rather than later.

If you'd like to give them a nudge, you may like to put in a feature request for it here: http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/index.php?type=1

Here's a bit more info on how it works anyways:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/VoiceHowto

Thanks for sending the preamp btw. Hope you had a nice w/e. :-)

edit; oh, and it transfers via USB.

[guysonic]

Thanks Guy one thing I failed to mention was that my customers are looking for uploading via usb / firewire so they do not have to do analog transfer the MT sounds like a good recorder but the this explosion thing has good me worried, I am afraid to mention that recorder to my customers at least until we know what happened to the other guy on T.S that had his explode.

Chris Church
By the way I have said this before and I will say it again your mics have produced some of the best recordings I have ever heard for mics under $1000 a pair. Did you know there was an aids special with Bill Clinton on ABC or NBC about 2-3 weeks ago? And they were using DSM's on the choir?? I noticed the dsm head right away sounded great.

Noticed, but did not read account of battery(?) inside deck exploding.  This had also happened to some replacement cell-phone batteries that were not manufactured to good specifications/QC methods.  Battery pressure gas-purge valve failure can cause explosion when battery is being overcharged to a fault.  So cause is likely two failures of battery and charger to function as needed.   Not likely to be a common occurance, but it does make one think about issues of quality control with this product.

Also did not view fund raiser event.   While it may have been LiteGUY baffled mic, more likely 'head-like' mic seen at this event to be Holophonics brand surround sound mic that uses 'football' shapped baffle with maybe as many as 6 omni DPA-4060 type mics (not a HRTF acoustic design).  This mic has found use with television crews covering sporting events and audience crowd sounds, but found only one or two instance of direct music coverage where get-it-all-with-one convenience, not optimum musical quality is prime motivation.

[Church-Audio]

No it was your mics I am 100% sure about it sounded great.

Chris Church

Thanks Guy one thing I failed to mention was that my customers are looking for uploading via usb / firewire so they do not have to do analog transfer the MT sounds like a good recorder but the this explosion thing has good me worried, I am afraid to mention that recorder to my customers at least until we know what happened to the other guy on T.S that had his explode.

Chris Church
By the way I have said this before and I will say it again your mics have produced some of the best recordings I have ever heard for mics under $1000 a pair. Did you know there was an aids special with Bill Clinton on ABC or NBC about 2-3 weeks ago? And they were using DSM's on the choir?? I noticed the dsm head right away sounded great.

Noticed, but did not read account of battery(?) inside deck exploding.  This had also happened to some replacement cell-phone batteries that were not manufactured to good specifications/QC methods.  Battery pressure gas-purge valve failure can cause explosion when battery is being overcharged to a fault.  So cause is likely two failures of battery and charger to function as needed.   Not likely to be a common occurance, but it does make one think about issues of quality control with this product.

Also did not view fund raiser event.   While it may have been LiteGUY baffled mic, more likely 'head-like' mic seen at this event to be Holophonics brand surround sound mic that uses 'football' shapped baffle with maybe as many as 6 omni DPA-4060 type mics (not a HRTF acoustic design).  This mic has found use with television crews covering sporting events and audience crowd sounds, but found only one or two instance of direct music coverage where get-it-all-with-one convenience, not optimum musical quality is prime motivation.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

http://www.abledata.com/abledata.cfm?pageid=19327&top=15282&trail=22,11436

[stuartprovine]

I'd recommend a 722 or 744, because in the last software revision they added optional beeps to denote recording on and off.  Plus the buttons are nicely laid out.

[dwissl]

There's a good recorder especially developed for blind people, the Plextalk PTR2: www.plextalk.com. It has a talking recording level control, it can speak the elapsed and remaining time while recording and one can upload the recorded files to a PC.

A good place for reviews of audio recorders from a blind perspective is www.blindcooltech.com.

[whatboutbob]

www.blindcooltech.com.

Mwaha...my first thought when i saw that site was 'that's ugliest damn website i've seen'.  Had to laugh at myself when I realised about 2 seconds later(yeah, I'm slow) I wasn't exactly their target market.

I notice rockbox gets a mention.

[Church-Audio]

Thanks for the advice my customers are looking for something a little higher end/high tech then a cassette deck.

http://www.abledata.com/abledata.cfm?pageid=19327&top=15282&trail=22,11436

[terrapinj]

I'd recommend a 722 or 744, because in the last software revision they added optional beeps to denote recording on and off.  Plus the buttons are nicely laid out.

and the limiters would be helpful in setting levels - although the meters are so bright i wouldn't be surprised if even a blind person could see them, i know some blind people can see/detect changes in lightness/darkness

[wbrisette]

I'd recommend a 722 or 744, because in the last software revision they added optional beeps to denote recording on and off.  Plus the buttons are nicely laid out.

From what I've seen of the menus and folks using them, I'm not sure they would be that easy to use for somebody with impaired sight.

I can tell you what NOT to use... a Deva. With all the menus and such being touch-screen driven, it's kind of hard to use even for people who have good sight (and not so nimble fingers... such as myself at times)...

Wayne

[tscales]

I did the mechanical design for this - just thought I'd throw it out there.

http://www.levelstar.com/