Tech: Edirol Portable Digital Recorder

Subject: RE: Tech: Edirol Portable Digital Recorder
From:
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 04:50 PM

Sounds great, Judy. Thanks for giving us the update and another choice!

Subject: RE: Tech: Edirol Portable Digital Recorder
From: JudyB
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 04:43 PM

Well, we went with the Edirol, and it's been working well for us. So far I've recorded a voice lesson in our living room, a song swap at a friend's house, and a set at a festival (with the permission of the performer - and with the recorder in my purse to avoid hassles) - and they all came out fine using the internal mics! I've been recording everything as reasonably high quality MP3 - my goal in all cases wasn't to have CD-quality material, but to be able to hear the words and the tune.

It is a bit pricy ($421 US from FullCompass - which (to put it a mini-plug) usually has great prices, though you do have to call them to get the price), but I can copy a 30-minute set (47 MB as 192 kbps stereo MP3) to my hard drive in under a minute) and we don't need external mics (tho' we did get a pair to use if we couldn't get the recorder near the center of the music).

And it does record WAV files if we wanted to do something at that level. (It's not what I'd use for serious recording - but that was never the goal; I have other stuff for that, and would rather have the victim - oops, I mean performer - come here where I have a handle on ambient noise.)

The 1 GB card we got for it will record around 11 hours at the 192 kbps setting - which should be enough for all but the really dedicated song circles!

If you have any specific questions, let me know. I can also post some snippets from our recordings if anyone is interested.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments - I now do know a lot more about the alternatives than I did when I started the thread!

JudyB

Subject: RE: Tech: Edirol Portable Digital Recorder
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 06:32 PM

Ive been using an IriverFP790 mp3 player with an external Sony stereo mic.
Ive only had it a few weeks after another musician recommended it, and have to say Im really pleased with the cost, quality of sound, and general performance.
I never bothered getting a minidisc, mainly because you cant upload the digital version to your computer, Im sure the analog version is good quality. At the Fiddletunes festival in Port Townsend a couple of weeks ago, I saw a number of people using Irivers, and of course still a lot of people with md's but the one advantage is you dont have to bother with discs. You can record on to the Iriver, it has a USB port and as you transfer it to your computer it converts to mp3 format.

My version is 512mb and I was able to save approx 8 1/2 hours at the highest quality (which was 44.1khz stereo, 128kbps) you can of course choose mono or lower quality and get more time, I did find that the 512mb version was almost enough for recording a lot of the sessions at the weeklong festival.

Aside from the voice recorder, it has an FM tuner.
ALthough it has a builtin mic, I got an sony stereo mic ($100 canadian) It has a builtin pre-amp so its not necessary to get a battery powered mic. And since it has no motor like the minidisc you can just plug the mic directly into the Iriver, without worrying about the noise from the motor. IT takes one AA battery which lasts about 25 hours. (since it has no motor it has a low signal to noise ratio)

I dont know how it compares with the minidisc in quality, but Im impressed with the sound quality (of course at a session it will pickup extraneous noise). One fellow at fiddletunes had both minidisc
and the iriver. I never saw him using the minidisc.

Ive also used it to record from lp's using the line-in recording mode,
(I know I can use the line-in mic from my computer but I cant be bothered lugging my computer downstairs close to my stereo).

Depending on your budget the 256mb version is $100 Canadian
the 512mb is $170 and the 1gig is $250 or so.
& if you are going to be recording Id recommend the sony stereo mic.
(I found the 512mb version almost enough for a weeklong festival, but in retrospect I would have gotten the 1gig version which would have been plenty.)

Subject: RE: Tech: Edirol Portable Digital Recorder
From: JudyB
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 06:10 PM

Thanks for the explanation, Ivan! I wasn't sure if the file had to stay in SonicStage format once it was on my computer or if I could pry the wav version out to edit or whatever.

I did find a discussion on a cnet.com forum that provided some real-world reviews of the Edirol, and it's probably the way we'll go (if I can find one - most of the usual on-line places have it on backorder). But if that doesn't work, I now feel more comfortable going with MD. Thanks!

Subject: RE: Tech: Edirol Portable Digital Recorder
From: IvanB
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 10:23 AM

Judy, sorry I can't help you as regards the Edirol. It looks like a fine little machine and would almost certainly perform the function you want, albeit at a bit pricier level than MD.

The main comment I wanted to make was regarding the copy protection scheme used by Sony for the MD system. If you use the optical input on a High-MD recorder, it won't let you upload optically to the computer, since the MD would be regarded as a copy of copyrighted material. This restriction wouldn't apply to your situation since you'd be recording in analog. For recordings made through the mic/line in, SonicStage allows one upload to a computer, then marks the file on the minidisc so it can't be uploaded to another computer. However, there's a Sony provided conversion utility to convert the uploaded file on your computer to wav format, at which point it's yours to do whatever you want with. Perhaps a bit more of a hassle than necessary, but it hasn't given me any grief so far.

Subject: RE: Tech: Edirol Portable Digital Recorder
From: JudyB
Date: 19 Jul 05 - 09:41 AM

Sorry - my sentence structure there was a bit shaky. What I was trying to say is that I hadn't seen any reviews/comments on the Edirol R1 from real users - only from reviewers who mostly had pre-production copies.

There are lots of comments on MDs, and many people seem very fond of them. I guess my primary concern (and perhaps it's out of date) is that it sounds as if I can only get the music we record (of us and friends - I'm not trying to bootleg concerts!) into my computer by (a) sitting there twiddling my thumbs for hours while the MD plays into CoolEdit in realtime or (b) using a Sony transfer program called SonicStage which adds all sorts of copyright levels that (paranoid person that I am) I think might come back to haunt me someday.

It's my understanding that with the Edirol or the Marantz, I can transfer the files using the same CompactFlash card reader I use for my camera (and in a pinch I could probably use one of the cards from the camera if we run low on memory while traveling).

But I may be misunderstanding the process with the MDs - there's almost too much information out there, and it's not always clear what is out of date.

Thanks,
JudyB

Subject: RE: Tech: Edirol Portable Digital Recorder
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 10:30 PM

As a 'real' MD user, what information do you find hard to find?

Subject: Tech: Edirol Portable Digital Recorder
From: JudyB
Date: 18 Jul 05 - 10:02 PM

Hi! Has anyone actually used the relatively new Edirol R1 Portable Digital Recorder? Sounds interesting as an alternative to minidisc technology (which has lots of threads about the pros and cons), but it's harder to find any information from real users.

We're looking for something that's portable and will let us record a song swap with decent enough quality to make out the words and tunes of the songs, and will let us record an individual singer in a quiet spot at high quality (though not CD quality - if we're going to record a CD for someone, they'll have to come to us!).

We'd be expecting to use an external mic most of the time, though I am curious what the tiny built-in mic actually does.

There seems to be more info (or maybe better promos) on the Marantz PMD660, but that's getting a little more pricy and really seems to be more machine than we need.

If anyone's actually used either of them, I'd love to hear your experiences and thoughts.

Thanks!
JudyB