[Harp-L] MobiBlu Recording

["Tim Moyer" <wmharps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, folks, last week my MobiBlu B153 arrived and I've been having 
some fun with it.  It took me a while to get used to how to control 
it, since it has only a few buttons, most of which do different 
things in different modes, and sometimes depending on whether you 
push them or push-and-hold them.  For the most part it's pretty easy 
to operate, and particularly when it comes to getting MP3 files onto 
it, since it appears on a Windows computer as a removable Flash 
storage device.  It's a pretty nice little MP3 player, and 
particularly with the Philips noise cancelling earbuds I bought to 
go with it.  

But mostly I was interested in how it functions as a recorder.  I 
took it with me to our gig on Saturday night and recorded two hour-
long sets of live material.  Unfortunately, the volume level where I 
placed the device was too high, and it clipped badly, particularly 
on the first set.  I moved it for the second set, and the quality is 
better, though it still has a lot of really nasty fingernails-on-the-
blackboard digital clipping.  And although you can vary the 
recording bitrate, you can't adjust the recording level using the 
internal microphone, so you'll have to rely on placement to control 
levels.  

My recordings (one of each set) were made at 96kbits per second.  
The first was almost 58 minutes long, approximately 41.5 megabytes, 
and the second was just over 48 minutes, and consumes about 34 
megabytes.  Since this is a 2 gigabyte device, you can see you could 
get a lot of recording on it.  I'm going to take it to SPAH and 
record, and maybe I can figure it out better there.  Or maybe I'll 
buy a line level microphone setup so I can record using the line-in 
instead.  

I had much better luck plugging it into my mixer at home and 
recording stuff out of the board using the line-in.  At least there 
I could adjust the level of the signal I was feeding it to avoid 
clips.  Here's a short sample I recorded at the 128kbit per second 
rate:

http://www.workingmansharps.com/Sounds/other/Pork%20Pie.mp3

Not bad for an investment of less than $200, including the 
player/recorder, A/C charger, and noise cancelling earbuds (from 
walmart.com).  

-tim

Tim Moyer
Working Man's Harps
http://www.workingmansharps.com/