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