(no subject)

[catsittingstill]

I returned the mp3 player today. I was going to swap it out for a new one, at the recommendation of the tech support person, who was pretty sure that the problem was a bad USB port on the player. Alas, Best Buy (an hour's drive away) didn't have any of that model of player left. I could get a more expensive version, with more memory, but only if I paid an extra hundred bucks. So I grumpily returned it for a refund, and came home playerless.

I'm still planning to write that review, but it will be briefer, and vaguer, and without the little mp3 snippits I was planning to include to give you a first-hand idea of how well it records.

Grump. Sorry. Grump, grump.

I'm still asking for one for Christmas, so fuller information may be available then.

Comments

Mp3 player

[zencuppa.livejournal.com]

So, which Mp3 player is it? I am considering asking for one, for Xmas as well :-)

Re: Mp3 player

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

My options are somewhat limited as I use a Mac computer and Mac compatibily in the mp3 player world is ...well, kind of half-hearted, at least among those that can record; and I want mine prinicpally for recording.

The iRiver players got good reviews and many of them would record (and one of the reviews said their onboard mic was surprisingly good); on their web site they said they were Mac compatible, and it turned out I could lay hands one one at Best Buy in West Knoxville about an hour's drive away. I got the iRiver iFP390T.

I want to think a little bit about the review--to get it all orderly and logical--but I'll be posting it fairly soon.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Cat, I did some homework on field recording and I found an extensive current discussion of the technology at the Vermont Folklife Center's web site. A lot of the stuff is pretty spendy--they are pros, after all--but there's some less-expensive stuff, good links and ideas, and--perhaps most important--names of the various sorts of equipment. The author is Andy Kolovos, and he might be willing to answer e-mail. On the equipment side, I note the M-Audio MobilePre, which is more like the device you wish the iMic was. It's still (says Kolovos) a bit noisy, but it is (for such equipment) moderately priced, and you might want to look into it. He also says (and I agree) "Using an external microphone is vital to making high-quality recordings," and even suggests some moderately-priced (for microphones) Radio Shack and Shure mics. Be prepared for sticker shock, but I think you might get closer to the kind of recordings you want using this type of equipment than the built-in mic of an mp3 recorder.

You might also see if you can get The Handbook of Field Recording on inter-library loan. I haven't seen the book myself, but it might be worth a look.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your effort on my behalf. The Vermont Folklife discussion of recording technology was very interesting. They seem to have a bigger budget than I do, and to be willing to haul more equipment around. But then, for them, recording is the whole point of the visit, and for me, recording is a side benefit--so that I can enjoy the music again later.

My thoughts on the matter are that most of the time I'll be recording at filk circles and filk concerts. Acres of metal chairs, crowded with living breathing people who cough, scoot their chairs, laugh, clap, greet their friends, knock over their drinks and generally behave in human, natural ways that would be frowned on in the recording studio. Given such a high noise floor, I'm not sure the absolute highest sound quality will really pay off that much. The mp3 recorders I've been looking at allow recording of CD or near-CD quality sound (as far as I can tell) and allow you to plug a (powered) external mic into the line in jack if you want. However the onboard mic means that you can use them before you've saved up enough for an external mic.

Also another thing I *really* want this piece of equipment for is the ability to move sound files easily into the computer. The only options they mention for that are the straight-to-CD recorder (which is an intriguing idea) and the record-to-laptop option. But recording to laptop involves hauling a lot of gear, on top of the lot I haul already.

The M-Audio Mobile Pre does sound like it might do what I was hoping the iMic would.

Anyway, thanks for the research. I did find the folklife article interesting even if most of the equipment it mentions is out of my reach, price-wise. Some of it is potentially in the ask-for-it-for-Christmas range, but after the disappointment of discovering that it's not possible to transfer music from the minidisc recorder into the computer, I'm not in any hurry to ask for a piece of equipment I haven't actually tested myself.