posted by Stanley Meyerson [ 18.9.05 ]

Hey, nice round up of these devices. I have the Zoom PS-04. I think it's a great deal, especially for those looking to do some multitrack recording. With the built in effects (guitar, mic, reverb, send, etc.), drum machine, built in mic, and tuner and stuff, it's a nice little pocket studio. The quality isn't as good as some other recorders, but it's decent.

Hi Tristan,
thank you for you comment.
If anyone else wants to share his experience about his portable recorders...
I own myself a Iriver Ihp-140 : As I already said : a killer.
But the big lack : no visual control of input level....

i recommend the archos mp3-players. i've recorded dozens of live shows with the old gmini 120. 20gig hard drive, usb2 transfer, 16bit/44.1kHz wav recording (also mp3-recording 48-190kbs). up to 20hours of battery (this one has old skool b/w lcd screen) and spdif.
only bummer is the stupid adapter needed to plug in the recording plug (3.5mm).

I'm confused to have forgoten the Archos players in my round up.
I will post an update.
Any one else?

The Core Sound PDAudio should also be considered by anyone looking for professional, portable recording. It can record at 24bit / 192Khz and the device likely already works with the iPaq/Axim/etc. you've got in your pocket.

I'm using a Neuros II (40Gb) with a portable mic preamp to record to wav. Not the world's best, but in most cases good enough. I got it for about $250. Unfortunately I think they've discontinued it as well... :(

If you have a harddisk recorder, be sure to insulate that sucker from vibarations if you're in a really loud situation.

Iriver ihp-140 had one got rid of it to get the color one. Now I regret it but regardless the Irivers are the best.

I'm using the Archos Gmini 400 and it is rock solid. The only problem is the built in mic which picks up a lot of internal noise from the hard drive.

The iriver H1x0 series is a serious contender. I use it all the time for both on-the-fly live recordings and more studio type setups with heavy equipment. Wait a little while and through a third party firmware (rockbox.org) you will have your level meters.

What about the Marantz PMD 660 Portable Recorder with CF, 16 bit .wav, phantom power, and the biggie: 2 xlr inputs along with usb? On another note, I'm looking for one of these guys, possibly the Marantz, Edirol R-1 or Microtrack (or any other good ones), to use for recording sound/dialogue on location, that I can sync up with my HDV camera for some video projects that I'll be working on. Right now I have a Sennheiser ME66 Shotgun Mic with XLR out that I was hoping to plug into a portable recorder, either directly or with a converter. If I need a larger recorder, that's ok I suppose, but I would prefer the smaller ones. I'm just beginning to research this stuff and am worried about the possible loss of quality with non-digital XLR being converted to digital, and the question of syncing sound. Any help would be appreciated.
thanks
schear at mac dot com

Your "review" is not a review but just a lame roundup. As the previous post stated you don't even mention the Marantz 660 which my friend has been using on a feature film. Your quick price and specs of each device are also useless and you can find better info on createdigitalmusic.com or the manufacturers websites. If you really get your hands on these things and do tests with each then maybe you can give a real review.

You did maybe miss the best alternative... Sony MZ-NH910 is a HiMD recorder that can record uncompressed on low prize 1GB discs OR almost 8 hours (of higher quality than MP3 320kbps) with the HiMD SP setting... It has also a big 5 line display, up to 34 hours battery life, very elegant 141cm3 body (80x21x84mm) very happy owner and naturally mic in, at less than 180usd.

Thanks for the round-up. I have an older Archos with an internal mic that picks up hard drive noise. Is that a problem with any of the other internal mic machines?

Yes, I don't speak about the Marantz PMD 660 because I think it sucks!!!
Expensive - Limited memory - No digital in (M-audio and I-river as one)- only 16/44,1 (or 48)in .wav and 128 kbit/s in Mp3 - 4 hours recording with battery (portable : LOL) - You get Phantom power : You get only 1 hour recording on battery - XLR inputs : yes but M-audio has balanced input too (TRS 1/4" input) - You pay for the name on it, not for the specs...
But if you think I'm wrong, feel free to post a comment :)

I waited many weeks for the Edirol R-1 but it was worth it. I work in post production and SFX with a nonprofit radio drama group on a local public radio station. The built in stereo mics let the R-1 go everywhere I need it to, capturing sound effects, live music, whatever.

A friend of mine linked me to this page and the contest certainly isn't over. I've been going nuts researching this stuff and as of just last Thursday the 15th of Sep some MicroTracks have made it into the hands of the public. So far the battery life is about 3 hours w/o phantom power on... so it may very well be in the area of the 660. At THIS price point I think the MicroTrack is probably an easy winner... but it's just not clear yet if anyone can call this a professional recorder... even though M-Audio already is. There will be issues a plenty until the first firmware update.

I still like my sony md recorder for on the go recordings small phantom power & good power life

roll on

I have an older Archos Jukebox Recorder 15 - and other than the size, its been great. I've upgraded the HD to 30 gigs (just a normal 2.5" laptop HD), changed the batteries to 2400 mA rechargables (AA), and changed the firmware to Rockbox (www.rockbox.org). End result - more space, doubled the running time (approx. 18 hours), and vastly improved the OS, control, recording settings, etc. You have visual input settings, can record *.wav, *.mp3, and in the end its all drag 'n drop via USB 2, recognized just as another HD. The internal mic sucks, though, so I got a Sound Professionals mic (www.soundprofessionals.com). With these older Archos (not sure about the new ones), you need a preamplified mic. Served me well for the better part of 4 years.

I don't consider PDAudio to be professional. Professional => reliable. Anything with as many hanging wires and devices chained together as PDAudio will always suffer reliability problems. Reliability can only happen when everything is in one package and tested together long-term.

I have the Sound Devices 722. It may last the rest of my life. It's hand built in the USA, is amazingly small, and has far better preamps built in than anything but Lunatec I could add as an external preamp. It's also amazingly well designed for usability. It's a record-priority device which means if I am caught by surprise I can always go into record with one button and with up to 10 seconds of rollback (it's always got - user-selectable - up to 10 seconds of audio in its cache that is added to the beginning when you hit the record button). I could go on and on.

I just used my gmini 400 to record a live show (from my pocket). Is there a way to adjust the levels on this devise?

You can turn some iPOD's into a recording device with very high quality recordings (96kHz)thanks to the ipodlinux replacement firmware. You can also record in stereo thanks to this howto .