At 07:24 PM 4/18/2006, Lani Spahr wrote:
>Hello everyone -
>
>A friend of mine recently asked me for advice on portable sound
>recording devices. He's a fellow piper (I know some of you cannot
>resist the temptation for making jokes, so now's your chance :-)) who
>wants to record his lessons. He said he tried a $100 device that was
>probably a voice recorder with less than great results. So what would
>you all recommend? - short of not playing the pipes :-)

Well it's sort of like the joke I hear: would you please sing tenor 
ten or twenty miles away...

One can get really good results with a good mic and any decent 
recorder. I use think one of the best mic bargains out there is the 
Audio Technica AT-822. I plug that into a minidisc recorder, but I'd 
only suggest that if he doesn't want to archive anything -- or can 
bump it up to CD.

I would normally suggest a compact flash recorder today, and the 
M-Audio MicroTrak should work well with an AT-822 - a friend on 
another list just ordered the AT-822 to go with his MicroTrak so 
we'll see fairly soon, I hope.

As far as my MD setup and links to oral history recording, try these 
two pages at my info site:
http://richardhess.com/notes/formats/magneto-optical/minidisc/ (my MD setup)
http://richardhess.com/notes/resources/info-supplies-support/ (scroll 
down to oral history links
especially see Andy Kolovos's page)

Really, the mic is a major key to all this and at $200 new on eBay 
often, the AT-822 is a real bargain. It continues to impress me with 
its value and quality.

Cheers,

Richard


Tape Restoration Seminar:    MAY 9-12, 2006; details at Web site.
Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm