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Many thanks for your thoughtful answer, Richard. I'm replying offlist.
I work in the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, and we get frequent questions about what to use for field recordings. That, and the fact that a great deal of field work is still being done on cassette, is what prompted my question. The Marantz PMD 430 is no longer made, so I've been looking at other available portables. I wasn't thinking about archiving to cassette (although, as we have learned, you could do worse!). The days of the cassette are surely numbered, but I've actually advised people currently making field recordings in that medium to stick with it for awhile while the market sort things out, rather than switch to formats with smaller user bases and even less certain futures, such as the Minidisc or the Flashcard. I've told people using DAT for field recordings to do the same thing, even though the DAT, like the cassette, doesn't have a great commercial future. Both formats are stable, and if you transfer them properly to something els!
e while keeping your original, you should be in good shape. At this year's ARSC, someone mentioned to me that they prefer cassette recorders to Minidiscs when they record group interviews, as the resolution of the Minidisc seems to be poor when it is confronted by several human voices at once. Portable hard drive recording is a good option, but the initial investment can be considerable if you buy everything all at once. The cassette porta studio seemed like a relatively inexpensive and versatile option--the Tascam 424 appears to sell for about $330.00, new. If you've been working on cassette, that might be a reasonable way to tread water, so to speak, while you save money and wait for one of these new formats to firmly establish itself.
We also receive lots of cassettes made by others here. Currently we're using the Tascam 122mkII for playback. At the moment, though, we don't have any four track cassette machines, so if we receive any such recordings as part of a collection (I'm sure this will happen, if it hasn't already), we'll need to get something. Are the Syncasets still being made? I don't see them on the Tascam website. Once again, many thanks.--MATT
Matthew Barton American Folklife Center The Library of Congress 101 Independence Ave., SE Washington, DC 20540-4610 phone: (202) 707-1733 fax: (202) 707-2076 email: mbarton@xxxxxxx |