RE: [Harp-L] Re: Portable digital recorders

["Charles Slavish, Jr." <cslav@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, I'm a new subscriber and have been lurking for a few weeks.  On this
subject:  I was interested in finding out if anyone was familiar with, or
had any positive or negative experiences with the Olympus line of digital
recorders, as I was interested in purchasing one (they're reasonably priced
as well in the $60-80 range) but I don't want to buy one if they suck, as my
only use for it is to record my playing, in order to gauge my progress.

Thanks!
Chuck


-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Richard Hunter
Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2006 11:03 AM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Re: Portable digital recorders


Bill Houle wrote:
<  I was just listening to last night's rehearsal on my Zoom H4 when I read
your <email. Can't comment on the compare thing, but I'm in love with this
little <gadget. The onboard mics work really well by the way.  It is really
easy to use 
<and the stuff sounds great.  Seems as rugged as any other gadget these days
but 
<dropping it on a hard floor could be an issue.

I've used my H4 to record myself at home playing solo, and a band rehearsal
as well.  I generally agree with Bill.  It's easy to operate and sounds very
good--the solo harmonica tracks I recorded sound very good indeed, and the
band tracks sound as good as you can expect for a recording made in a small
room with amped guitar and bass and live drums.   It runs for 4 hours on a
pair of AA batteries, and with the built-in limiter it's as close to a
set-it-and-forget-it device as any recorder can be.   I bought a 1 GB Secure
Digital card for less than $30, and that's enough for about 190 minutes of
stereo MP3 recording at 320 kbps.  It will do 24-bit WAV files in stereo
mode at up to 96 kHz, so it can certainly record high quality audio if
that's what you need to do.  Exchanging files between the H4 and the
computer is as simple as plugging in a USB cable.

This device is very good value for money. The new micro Boss unit is alo
interesting; from reading the spec, I'd say the Boss may be a better buy if
you want to do a lot of multi-track recording, i.e. overlaying instrument
tracks with drums, bass, etc., etc.; the Zoom H4 is probably a better buy if
you want to do a lot of live recording.  Live recording is what I want from
the Zoom, and I'm very satisfied with it.

Regards, Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com

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