Some of my best friends are pipers - one friend has an email 
"@piperchicks.com" so you are not alone (except maybe while playing 
them!)...

There are a number of newer recorders in the $400 to 2,000 range that 
do nicely. Marantz makes one with built in mics, as easy as you can 
get, will even record directly to MP3s: http://tinyurl.com/52hnu This 
is as simple as you can get. And still be listenable! I've been 
involved in extremely long discussions on the Nature recordists elist, 
so can go into detail if you like...

Personally, I use this: http://www.sounddevices.com/products/744t.htm 
but it might be a bit much for, ahem, a piper, unless they are wealthy 
and extremely audio competent.

About that dynamic range, the alternative to fffff is silence, pretty 
wide range!

<L>

Lou Judson • Intuitive Audio
415-883-2689

On Apr 18, 2006, at 4:24 PM, 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 :-)
>
> Cheers,
> Lani