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29 Nov 05 - 10:12 AM (#1616326) Subject: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Janie (If this thread duplicates another, please combine....I'm (in)famous for ineffective searches) I have no experience with music recording equipment or singing through a PA. I'm wondering if what I am hearing is accurate. I am using a Sony ICD-ST digital voice recorder to record my singing for the purpose of working on my voice. It is designed for dictation or to record meetings, etc. and does a pretty good job with that. When I play it back with headphones the tonal quality of my voice sounds ok. When I download it onto the computer for playback, or burn a CD and play it on a portable player, my voice lacks resonance--the sound is a bit flat or dampened down. Do you think its me, or is it the recorder? FYI, I have a low voice for a woman, but I always thought I had sufficient resonance until now. Janie |
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29 Nov 05 - 10:26 AM (#1616334) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: MMario Janie - I'm no sound tech - but I have found I always sound more "me" when I'm listening over headphones then when with open speakers. I don't know whether it is that with headphones you do get some bone conduction. |
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29 Nov 05 - 10:31 AM (#1616340) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: JudyB Janie - If you have a friend who will be honest with you and whose musical sense you trust, ask them to listen to you singing live and then to the recording. I suspect the range of the recorder is not as great as the range of your singing voice so it's likely to be the recorder - but having someone objectively compare the two is the way to find out. Good luck! JudyB |
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29 Nov 05 - 10:43 AM (#1616345) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Janie Well duh! Great idea, Judy. I'll do exactly that. Janie |
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29 Nov 05 - 03:08 PM (#1616560) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: GUEST EQ? |
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30 Nov 05 - 06:07 AM (#1617053) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: AKS That recorder is a dictaphone, i.e. the sound quality is about as 'good' as in the good old wired telephone; definitely NOT you! AKS |
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30 Nov 05 - 06:43 PM (#1617587) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Tootler I bought a digital voice recorder for recording tunes at workshops. The quality was dreadful. As the previous poster says, it is is a dictaphone and the quality will be sufficient to transcribe the material from the recorder. I ended up with a minidisk recorder which is much better - except for Sony's crap software. If I want an mp3 of my recordings I have to transfer the data in real time by the expedient of recording it into the computer. The quality of the recording by the minidisk recorder is good, though. |
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01 Dec 05 - 10:00 AM (#1618105) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Janie My musician sister bought the Sony for me after she got one herself on the recommendation of another instrumentalist. For a digital voice recorder to use for practice and to record workshops and song circles, the quality is actually pretty good other than the 'damping down' of vocal resonance. I also have an Olympus digital voice recorder that I tried to use for the same purpose before Annie gifted me with the Sony. I don't know what Annie paid for the Sony ICD-ST, but the Olympus was fairly pricey. The quality of that little machine was so poor I didn't use it. I will ask Dani listen to a couple of the recordings I have made and tell me how much fidelity there is compared to my live singing. Thanks to all. Janie |
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02 Dec 05 - 08:17 AM (#1618410) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Snuffy And ask Dani to sing into it and compare how she sounds too. |
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02 Dec 05 - 12:33 PM (#1618652) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: JudyB Great idea, Snuffy - that will give Janie a more accurate view of how it's distorted than someone else could put into words! JudyB |
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02 Dec 05 - 04:46 PM (#1618834) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Tootler The digital voice recorder I had was an Olympus and the recording quality even on "best" was poor. To make things worse, the software for downloading the audio files caused my computer to crash periodically. The feedback from Microsoft suggested the driver were at fault. I contacted Olympus and - guess what - problems with our drivers? of course not, couldn't possibly be etc. etc. I was less than impressed needless to say. Fortunately, the software worked OK on my laptop, so I was not completely sunk. Pity, because in other ways, it was a neat bit of kit. |
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07 Dec 05 - 10:07 PM (#1622396) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: GUEST,gary jamie- I'm looking to purchase a digital recorded for my wife to record her choir pratices with. I'd like to hear more about the comparison of the sony and olympus, and to know which Olympus model you have. thanks Gary |
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07 Dec 05 - 10:13 PM (#1622399) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: GUEST,Gary does anyone have any experience with external mic's on these digital recorders? Does that make any difference to the sound quality? thanks Gary |
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08 Dec 05 - 06:25 AM (#1622571) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: GUEST,chris Hi I have a Sony minidisc recorder which I use for rehersals recording both voice and guitar. After trying many different tape rcorders,including a TEAC reel to reel, with reasonable microphones, I find the minidisc surpasses tapes.Minidisc is the only affordable recorder that gives anything remotely near to a half decent guitar repro. I wouldn't expect a dictaphone type of recorder to have a good enough mike let alone wide enough frequency response to handle more than talking. With regard to mikes, with the Sony minidisc, I use a small stereo mike that is the sole surviving part of an Akai cassette recorder. |
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08 Dec 05 - 07:17 AM (#1622593) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: GUEST,DB I have 2 Olympus recorders - a DM-1 and a DM-20. I use them both with a small Sony mic mounted on a table top tripod (an essential piece of kit, I've found). Neither recorder is perfect - and I too have problems with the software. I'm aware that I'm repeating myself here but both recorders have irritating limitations (the software with the DM-1 is particularly poor - eg. I've not managed to burn anything to CD yet) and the sound quality is pretty 'basic' (although the DM-20 can record in stereo). Nevertheless they are both very easy to use 'in the field', as it were, and have huge memories. The DM-1 has a removable SD card - which is great, whilst the DM-20 has a built-in memory which is a stupid and frustrating limitation. I resorted to using these devices because I found the Sony MD recorder very difficult to use and was not impressed by its lack of USB port. I believe that more recent models are an improvement on older ones (?) In summary, I'm glad that I bought the Olympus devices because it allowed me to record a lot of stuff, more or less spontaneously, without having to fiddle around with the clunky Sony MD recorder. They have suited my purposes fairly well. These purposes have extended beyond folk music - for example, back in June I went on holiday to Slovenia. I was carrying a rather heavy digital camera, plus lenses, but also took the Olympus DM-20 (which is tiny) and with it recorded sounds of bird songs, mountain goats, crickets, church bells and my own impressions of things that I saw etc., etc. - and was able (with the somewhat better software) to burn them to CD. |
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08 Dec 05 - 08:19 AM (#1622629) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Janie Hi Gary, I'm just now seeing this thread again. The Sony digital voice recorder is the ICD-ST. It has a very good quality internal stereo mic. The software has caused no problems on my computer. I have had to get some help (I'm kind of a technophobe) on moving files from the computer to a CD. I forget the model of the Olympus (I'm not at home to check.) I never downloaded the software because the recording quality was so bad. I don't know if there is much of a price difference between the voice recorder and a minidisc recorder. If there is not, from comments here the minidisc is probably better, but other than that slight damping down of resonance, the Sony ICD-ST is quite good. My sister, who is much more of a musician than am I, got one on the advice of another musician friend who lived out of state so they could e-mail tunes to each other. She liked it so well she got me one for Christmas last year. Hope this is helpful. Janie |
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08 Dec 05 - 09:29 PM (#1623327) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Pauline L I have a related question. I just bought a bottom-of-the-line microcassette recorder (Sony 570) to record meetings. I should have known better. The quality is absolutely crap. The biggest problems are signal-to-noise ratio snd sensitivity. I need something better, but I'm not going to use it to record music, so it doesn't have to be great. Cost is a *major* consideration. I'd appreciate any recommendations. |
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09 Dec 05 - 09:18 AM (#1623500) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: JudyB So (techie that I am) I'm wondering if you've had a chance to get Dani to sing into your recorder, and, if so, what your impressions are. Thanks, JudyB |
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09 Dec 05 - 11:01 AM (#1623575) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Leadfingers Frequency range is the problem ! The average human ear can hear as low as 20 cyles and (Until Age takes effect) up to about 2o Kilocyles A Recorder designed purely for 'Spoken Word' will not have any thing like that sort of range , so you will lose all the harmonic nuances for a start . For Music , a Mini Disc is probably the best thing to go for ! |
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09 Dec 05 - 11:27 AM (#1623600) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Janie Dani and I are best friends, live within 1/2 mile of each other, and are both so swamped right now that the best we can manage are cryptic e-mails back and forth to one another....Oh! My family's gone Sunday--gotta go e-mail Dani--maybe she's free then:0) Janie |
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09 Dec 05 - 11:32 AM (#1623602) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Janie Pauline--check your pm's. Janie |
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09 Dec 05 - 09:23 PM (#1624072) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: The Fooles Troupe Telephones were designed with a limited range to cope with most of the three and half thousand Hz range of human speech. |
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13 Dec 05 - 08:49 AM (#1626294) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: Janie JudyB, Finally got up with Dani. Conclusion--it does a good job for a voice recorder, but definitely some damping down. Or as Dani says,"Sounds like a home recording." Ditto with her voice. Janie |
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13 Dec 05 - 10:26 AM (#1626359) Subject: RE: Tech: Effects of Digital Voice Recorder From: JudyB Thanks for the report, Janie! It's what I expected, but you never know. And now you get to choose between using it, knowing its limitations, or talking to Santa about something with a bit more range - either one should work, now that you know what's there that you're not hearing on the voice recorder. JudyB |