Hi everyone,
I'm hoping to get some advice on what sort of a portable audio recoder I should purchase. I would use it to record myself on the piano, but of course also other uses (voice, etc.). I purchased one of the NetMD models about a year ago, but after finding out that I couldn't upload digitally, I sold it on eBay. I know that the Hi-MD models are capable of digital uploads, but, looking around on the Internet, I've now discovered some other options that could work for me, and have a pretty hard time making a decision. I am contemplating the following:
- one of the Hi-MD units
- the iRiver iHP-120
- Creative's Nomad Jukebox 3
- one of the Neuros recorders
- the Edirol R-1
I have a few questions/thoughts:
- Out of the above, only the Edirol and some of the hi-MD units have a mic-in port. Does it matter if I use a mic-in or a line-in with an amplified microphone?
- I like the Edirol, however, it is the most expensive of them all, and it also seems that a 2 GB compact flash card is much more expensive than the minidiscs. Also, I wouldn't mind using whatever I buy also as a music player, for which the Edirol might not be the best.
- I really don't like SonicStage and all of Sony's DRM limitations, which is one of the reasons why I've been contemplating the other options. I don't like the fact that all the transfers would have to be done via SonicStage and then a converter - the other options seem to be better in this regard.
- I currently have a Sony ECM-MS907 microphone, which I bought last year along with the NetMD unit. When I made some recordings last year, I was pretty happy with the clarity of sound, but my biggest problem was that the louder volumes on the piano didn't really project into louder volumes of the recording - in fact, when I played really loud and with attack, there were some thuds in the recording. If I want to have teh dynamics more accurately reflected, who much is this a matter of getting a different microphone, and how much of the recorder that I use?
I'm not very knowledgeable about the physics, etc. of audio recording, so sorry if I'm not making sense.
Thanks for any help!!
Ivan