Home recording device for practising?

Subject: Home recording device for practising?
From: Jane of 'ull
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 05:42 AM

Can anyone recommend a cheap recording device that I can use at home when practising? So I can play it back and hear where I'm going wrong. I used to just use a microphone on a stand and record on cassette, so you can guess that was quite a while ago! Now I have a computer I thought there may be some more hi-tech options available?

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 05:51 AM

I can thoroughly recommend the Zoom H2. Your local branch of Maplin should have them in for about £150.00. It's at the bottom end of the digital recorder market but even so it's easy to use, has various microphone settings and returns pristine sound quality.

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 05:59 AM

All I use for this purpose is the small microphone that came with my computer and a piece of free downloadable software called AUDACITY.

cost: Precisely nothing.

You can do some basic editing with Audacity, and add tracks, remove them, export as MP3 files and various other things. I think that for a piece of freeware it's a brilliant application. For what I do, which sounds similar to what you're wanting to do, I've not come up against its limitations yet.

This morning I've just recorded a "four parter": I recorded me singing and playing guitar on a song on one track, then played the track back through headphones while a put a lead guitar part on it, played the thing back again and added some mandolin, then a 4th time to add some vocal harmonies, then mixed it all down to output as am MP3 file.

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Jane of 'ull
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 06:00 AM

Excellent, thanks Fred. I presume it's ok for recording singing too?

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 06:01 AM

ADD: a slightly better mic is next on my list. The one I've got is "adequate" but I'll buy a better one when I get around to it.

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Jane of 'ull
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 06:01 AM

Cross-posted - thanks Rob I will look up AUDACITY too - all sounds good.

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 06:06 AM

Zoom H1 is cheaper and smaller.
Otherwise, yes to Audacity and a built-in mic - if it's just for practice.

Paws

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 06:38 AM

Jane of 'ull. (Zoom H2) "I presume it's ok for recording singing too?"

Nothing better. I didn't know there was an H1 on the market. Definitely check it out.

Audacity. A very good piece of free software which mimics Cooledit. It's not as good as Cooledit obviously and it's a lot clunkier. But then you don't have to fork out astronomical amounts of dosh to download it.

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 07:00 AM

Cooledit can be downloaded very easily now with an activation code. Google is your best friend.

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: treewind
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 08:03 AM

If that's all you need it for, get a digital voice recorder like the Sony ICD PX312 - it can go up to 192k MP3 which is more than enough quality, and has 2Gb of storage which should give you hours of recording time.

It's got a USB connection and headphone outputs.

Good for almost everything except serious studio use and even cheaper than a Zoom H1. Mono only, but for stated application (and many others) that doesn't matter at all.

Bonzo3legs: Anything that Cooledit can do and Audacity cannot is irrelevant to the original poster's needs. No need for theft by any other name. Anyway, PC software is all very well, but you still need a mic and it's easier to put a device like a voice recorder or Zoom in the right place to get a decent recording - even a laptop with built in mic is not going to be as convenient.

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: bigchuck
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 10:02 AM

The Zoom H1 works extremely well for me. All of the small Zoom recorders Are high quality in my experience.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 10:28 AM

I use Audacity for when I record. Simple and easy, though I have a Shure SM57 and a cheap pop filter. Total cost is about £80, and it sounds rather clean.

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 10:47 AM

Audacity is great for recording from the BBC iplayer, especially the R3 HD stream, which can be recorded to wav and so not increasing the lossyness.

It's amazing how many people here adopt "a holier than thou" attitude.

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Jane of 'ull
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 11:55 AM

I think I will go with the cheaper option whenever I can!

Subject: RE: Home recording device for practising?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 12:38 PM

Good luck to you Jane.