Not to belabor the point or come off as a stubborn old crotchety bastard, which I am, but a couple of responses and I'll STFU about this...
the newer recorders couldn't be ANY easier to use.
That’s beside the point. I never said the recorders were difficult to use.
You’re not thinking outside your own box. You have the same 2 recorders that you’ve used for years now. You’ve got your routine down solid, so you don't make this mistake.
In my case, I use an SD predominantly and you hit record ONCE and you’re rolling. My ‘system’ is down too and I'm used to hitting record one time. Then I go to a festival and I have 2 or 3 rigs going. I’m running between stages, so maybe I’m in a hurry. Not thinking through it I hit record ONCE and I’m in PRE-RECORD. It’s the middle of the day and the lights aren’t very visible and I assume I’m OK but I’m not. Understand?
Think back to the very first time you used a handheld with pre-record. Was it intuitive that you had to hit record twice? No! The button only says RECORD. It doesn’t say PRE-RECORD. You had to read the instructions or have someone tell you about the pre-record function or else you messed up your first recording.
Is this a big deal? No, it's not.
Sorry homie, but I don't see the downside to having one record/pause button on ur recorder.
I know most here are
used to pushing twice, but that doesn’t mean it’s intuitive. As you point out, it’s something that’s learned over time as you use your recorder. What about when you record once a year and forget? So, I completely disagree with your comment that there’s no downside to having an integrated record/pre-record function…the downside is that you mess up a recording now and then.
My entire point in bringing this up is if pre-record were a separate function from record, as on the Sound Devices machines, this would never happen to anyone…EVER. I’m stubborn, but I
still think that would be a better design than having them on the same button, mainly because I'm an experienced taper and I just messed up two recordings at Summercamp exactly for the reason I mention above.