Re: [ARSCLIST] Advise sought on portable recorders

[Karl Miller <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Nipper wrote:

> The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University is
> considering updating our portable recorders.  These machines will be used by
> staff and students to conduct interviews and gather oral history in the
> field.  Quality, cost, ruggedness, reliability and storage capacity is
> always a consideration but we'd like to get something that is also both user
> friendly and allows easy manipulation and transfer of data to a PC.
>
> Mini Disc is high on the list at present but the pocket "memory card" type
> voice recorder has also been suggested.
>
> Anyone care to weigh in with an opinion on either of these or possibly other
> alternatives?

My wife's son works at a Roland Dealer, so I would be in trouble if I
didn't mention the Roland CD-2...but that is really when you want to hand
someone a CD...especially good for teaching applications, but will also
record to a compact flash card. $695 but you can usually "call" for a
cheaper price.

While I don't know your requirements, you can get 36 hours of mono, no
moving parts, record about 90 minutes of WAV at 44.1 or 48, built-in mics
and fits in your hand...Marantz PMD660- $500, four hours of recording on
4 AA batteries...compact flash recorder

Minidisc...adds time to the process, plus I have had bad experiences with
the format...

As for the alternative...why transfer to a PC, when you can record on a
PC-a laptop. As for the learning curve... It took me about 2 hours to
teach a 70 year old how to record student performances (great sound quality
was not a major concern) with Protools running on a laptop...while she is a
smart lady...if a 70 year old with, minimal computer experience...ok, she is
also pretty good with photoshop...can do it, I would assume it wouldn't take
your staff very long to learn, plus, I would assume most staff could find
other uses for the laptop.

Karl