Topic: Journalist needs recorder help, pls!

[floete]

if i could find a portable cassette recorder as great as the pocket sized ones Sony made 15 years ago, I'd stick with cassettes. they had cue/review, built-in mics on the nose of the thing not on the body, you could visually see it was operational, the mics were actually stereo, and they were built like tanks. very little of this holds true for any small cassette recorder I can find today. my question is, for a journalist in the field, often doing interviews under confused, knock-about conditions, are there really any viable alternatives, either in the MD world or the MP3 world (where i'm currently pondering the Edirol R-09)?  my price range is up to around $400.
here's my list of what I'd hope for:
1/ reliabilty. with a cassette recorder, if a tape messes up, the machine stops, the record button pops out and you know it instantly. And short of dead batteries, that's about the only thing that usually messes up. but what about with MDs/MP3s? what it you bonk the thing? or get knocked about? can you tell instantly if something's gone wrong?  Can you lose 20 minutes of a recording and not even know it?  in 20 years on the job, I think I've had 5 cassette recorder failures in the field, and they cost me dearly.  with something new, i can't afford to do any worse than that and hopefully i'd do better.  possible?
2/ reasonably good built-in mics (or at least better than what's on the crappy sony I own). i often go in a blink from needing to be stealthy to being out in the open, so i can't have anything sticking out the front of my recorder, which i usually have hidden nearly out of sight under a notepad.
3/ mics in the front of the machine, not on the flats. as per above, i usually have my notepad covering the top of the thing, where most of the modern sony pressman-type tape recorders have their mics.  good for dictation, bad for me.
4/ easy cue & review while in play, for easy transcribing.
5/ instant on when you hit record.
6/ easy-to-flick pause button that goes instantly on and off.
actually, i guess, what i'm looking for is an MD/MP3 recorder that's exactly the same as the portable tape recorders of yore, not the pressmen of today.
   i posted this question on audiotstation and got a few responses but so far no suggestions have really been in the ballpark.
   any ideas?

[floete]

sheesh.  doofus me.  this should be in the recording-gear subsection.  can anyone tell me how to move it there?

[neutrino]

Although it would be somewhat expensive to buy one just for a note taker/ interview recorder, the R-09 would be excellent. The biggest plus of the R-09 for your situation is that the rec button has two red led's under it and illuminates brightly when recording, so you could tell from across the room that the R-09 is still recording. The R-09 can also go from off, to on and recording in a matter of a couple of seconds, and with the recorder already on, the unit starts recording almost immediately. The internal mics sound very good and are side-mounted as you preferred. The unit also runs for over five hours on just two AA batteries and is very light even with the batteries installed. You can easily run the R-09 from your shirt pocket, almost undetected. The R-09 also has an auto gain control for recording dictation or the such, which you may find useful. It would be an excellent choice for your purpose and could find itself even more useful for recording outside the work place... enjoy!
dB-

[shaggy]

Rockboxed iriver H120 (rockbox is an open sourced OS/firmware for many MP3 players).  I dunno how good the built in mic is, I think it is okay (the mic is on the side).  Only thing is, it records in WAV only for now.  Maybe as soon as some developer gets on it, a on the fly MP3 encoder will get comitted.  It has a preroll function, if the machine is on, it will preroll record for up to 30 seconds (record 30 seconds before the press of the record button).  You can set it to open to the record screen upon start up (takes 3-4 seconds).....hit record and you are rolling.  I do not know how much knocking around it can take, it is a HD based recorder....I suspect it can take some, but not a full on drop on the floor.  Used H120s are $100-130, they are not longer made.

www.rockbox.org

[floete]

hmmm.  the iriver is interesting but somehow the edirol is more interesting.
   anyone have an idea how it responds to being jostled around?
   has anyone had it fail on them in the field?  i.e. the unit is still good but it nonetheless flubbed this or that recording?
   clearly i'd have to use it with something like the body glove cover.  can somebody with the BG cover tell me if it can be modified so that the built-in mics are exposed?

   finally -- what are the prefered sources for buying the r-09, hopefully ones where i can return the unit if i don't like it, with no restocking fee, etc.

   thanks again!

[Mike R.]

Olympus makes a few fully digital voice recorders that might also work well for your application.  The r-09 probably has better audio quality, but I've heard some things from an olympus recorder that was pretty nice.

[neutrino]

can somebody with the BG cover tell me if it can be modified so that the built-in mics are exposed?

I use my R-09 with the Body Glove cellsuit cover and there is no need to modify it to have the mics exposed.
dB-

[floete]

wow, the edirol is sounding better and better.
   any recommendations on where to buy one on the web?

[olyrc]

hmmm.  the iriver is interesting but somehow the edirol is more interesting.
   anyone have an idea how it responds to being jostled around?
   has anyone had it fail on them in the field?  i.e. the unit is still good but it nonetheless flubbed this or that recording?
   clearly i'd have to use it with something like the body glove cover.  can somebody with the BG cover tell me if it can be modified so that the built-in mics are exposed?

   finally -- what are the prefered sources for buying the r-09, hopefully ones where i can return the unit if i don't like it, with no restocking fee, etc.

   thanks again!

http://www.cascademedia.net - not sure about restocking fee, but give Frank a jingle & ask.

Also, I've, um, jostled mine a bit while recording and drinking beer - no problems, but I was not using the internal mics, so YMMV.

[terrapinj]

can somebody with the BG cover tell me if it can be modified so that the built-in mics are exposed?

I use my R-09 with the Body Glove cellsuit cover and there is no need to modify it to have the mics exposed.
dB-

the only mods necessary to the BG case are freeing up a couple of r-09 switches, like hold, gain, power.
I only cut away the elastic around the hold button, and left the rest of the switches to braille.

Mike you've got an R-09?

[itook2much]

yep!
I bought it last week after turning my 722 into a pizza oven pulling a discrete jobber

Ooooh, that had to hurt!  Let's hear that story.

[Nick's Picks]

yea, "VERY HOT" and spinning drives = BOOM eventualy.

I like the no moving parts of a flash based recorder !

also, i'll 4th the r9 recomendation.  great deck.  solid, simple, and not too expensive.

[floete]

yes the r-09 seems like the ticket.  but then along comes the zoom h4.  actually, it's not here yet, but soon, i suppose.  might anyone here have an opinion as to how they compare, at least on paper.
  here's the zoom link: http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1901

my understand is it's going to be around $100 less than the edirol.  do both companies have similar reps re quality?

[Scuba Jeremy]

The specs on that Zoom look very interesting - 1/4 balanced inputs, AA battery capacity, 24/96 .... My only questions is how does it sound, and is it as easy to use as the R09? I love my R09, and the built in mics are fantastic for what they are. But yeah, the Zoom does make Sony's D1 look pretty.

Just the other night I ran into a situation where I figured I would just patch the board rather than set up mics. It was an acoustic duo, and I actually like the sound of the guitars and vocals mixed at the board in acoustic situations in noisy bars. The board op gave me a 1/8 connection that gave me great levels when the house music was on, but once the music started, the meters stopped dancing. I knew it was a bad patch, so I unplugged and walked out to the sweet spot, and hit record. At least I got 99% of the show. The guy working the board appologized for the bad patch, and actually, the recording wasn't bad.

Point is, the R09 is a wonderful, versatile recorder. I, too, highly reccomend the unit.