Re: Portable WAV recorder for line level (mic inputs not important)


rrstudio2@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Okay, if you call $350 a very little cost for something that doesn't
really work well, I guess you have more money than me to burn.

I've been using a Nomad Jukebox 3 going on 4 years now and I've been
very pleased with it. I bought it when it was still a new product and I
paid about $300 for it. Now they can be had for $125-150 from eBay
sellers, but since it has some mechanical buttons, a scroll wheel, and
a display on it, you have to be careful to get one that hasn't been
abused. I'd love it more if it had usable mic inputs, but the line
inputs, other than for the crappy mini phone jack, are better than I
had ever hoped for.

Buy one.

that price is quite high considering you can purchase some laptop
computers which you can use for recording, and everything else for like
$600.

Yes, but do you want to do that?

I still think companies are really missing the boat by not
including just simple line inputs on consumer level devices. How hard,
and how much cost would it add to an iPod to add a line in and have
some recording level meters show on the screen?

I don't know what's inside an iPod so I don't know how difficult it
would be to add a line input, but I can tell you that if they added a
line input but not a mic input, there would be a lot of disappointed
people. How many people who use iPods would ever use a line level input
anyway? Maybe to transfer their cassette or vinyl collection to the
iPod, but I suspect that most who would be inclined to do that would
rather transfer to a computer first, clean up the recordings, and then
transfer to the iPod the way they know how.

As far as meters on a screen go, again it's not very hard, but judging
by the number of people posting to rec.audio.pro who don't understand
metering, I suspect that it would be totally lost on the general
public. The Jukebox has on-screen meters, by the way, but they're
pretty useless. It also has a record level adjustment, which is OK for
turning the record level up if it's too low,, but not down if the input
level is too high. The control works, but if the meters hit the Clip
indication with the input gain at 0 dB, The input stage is clipping.
You can make the meters read lower, but that doesn't reduce the
clipping. Just try explaining that to the general public.

all I really wanted was something to record wave files from a
line input. I think companies are under estimating the use for this.

Maybe so. Go write to Apple - you and about a million of your friends.
And while you're at it, put in a good word for me. I'd like mic inputs
with XLR connectors. I don't mind if it's bigger.

You could bring it along, plug the outputs of a mixer into it, and
record a gig or practice session.

There are a lot of things that you could do that with. In fact, most
people who are doing it today are doing it with the computer that you
cited at the beginning of your post. But how many people have a mixer
they can plug into and a gig or a practice session that they want to
record? You may thing that there are a lot, but there aren't,
relatively speaking. The mass market industries make what the greatest
number of potential customers want. The boutique industries take care
of the rest of us, but since they deal with a much smaller customer
base, they can't take advantage of the mass production that makes your
$1,500 recorder cost only $300.

I don't think mic preamps should be
a requirement for recording devices because if you start needing a
device with preamps and things, you are probably already packing more
equipment (such as mics and cables)

And nobody does that? However, IF you have mic inputs, you could add
line inputs at virtually no additional cost. The reverse is not true.

I bet you will already have a
mixer with with and why not just use its line output?

Becaus it's something else to carry, and decent quality battery powered
mixers are quite expensive. I'd like to be able to record where there
isn't already a mixer. I can (and occasionally do) carry a 2-channel
mic preamp, but I'd rather not if I could get a recorder with one of
usable quality built in.

I personally
don't really see the great need for a small pocket size recording
device with great preamps.

Nor do I, but I'd be happy to have one the size of a large paperback
book. There is, however, a modestly strong market for pocket-sized
recorders with mic inputs (who said anything about great preamps? -
just usable preamps, something I don't consider those on the Jukebox
are). There are people who would go into a concert with such a recorder
and small mics hidden on their person and record whether or not they
had permission. Can you believe that people actually do such
things??!!!

Even the microtrack seems a little odd in
this respect...so you have this great mic, a large mic stand, and a
cable all attached to this deck of card sized recorder?

Frankly, I'd prefer a larger recorder. It's easier for me to use and it
won't easily slide off the table. But a recorder the size of a large
paperback book and a tall mic stand couldn't easily be hidden by the
stealth recordist. And I can assure you, there are more of them than
there are you or me.

I can maybe see wanting a
device that is the be all and end all of recorders. I think these
would be rather pricey, although I still think that once the price gets
around $400 you may as well get a laptop.

That's not a very good solution because, unless you're willing to
accept the low quality audio hardware built into a computer, it's not a
one-piece solution. You have the computer, an audio interface, the
software, and maybe a power supply. That's a lot of haywire, and a lot
of responsibility if you want a reliable system. I record stuff. I
don't build my own recorders.

I fully expect that more devices such as the m-audio microtrack are
going to be coming out and the prices are going to start dropping.

We'll see. I don't see a lot of them right now, and I see a few that
are considerably more expensive that are closer to what I want. I don't
see anything much cheaper that's closer to what you want.

Companies will look for ways to drop the cost, one of these being not
including good preamps.

Well, OK, Creative Labs did that. But companies like M-Audio already
know how to cut costs to the bone. They are counting on recovering
their engineering and manufacturing costs and making a profit based on
a fairly accurately (they hope) predicted number of sales. You aren't
going to see it drop $100 next year because sales were booming. What
you'll see is a new model with more features, at about the same price,
or maybe just slightly lower than the present model. Edirol has already
done this with the announcement of the R09 to replace their R1, which
hasn't even been out for two years yet. And just look at the "$1,000
laptop" market for another example of how this works.

I think mini-disk recorders will start to go
out and these cheap wave flash recorders will increase their market
share.

I don't think that's an unreasonable prediction. The Minidisk almost
died twice already. The thing keeping it alive now is the fact that
it's a less expensive removable media than flash memory. When you can
buy 2GB flash memory cards for $5, the Minidisk will be history. But
before that happens, I suspect that someone will come up with yet a
different medium and we'll be back near the top of the food chain
again.

PS: I have looked into a few creative jukebox's that had recording
functions, but didn't see any current models that had a wave recording
function. I think I had tried to find a Nomad???

There might be a Zen that records, but they may have all been dropped.
You'll have to go used. Get a Jukebox 3. Trim the body of the plug on
your input cable so that it fits all the way into the jack and go find
a mixer and a practice session to record.

.

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