Studio in Your Pocket

Jun 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Geary Yelton

           
 

STEREO DIGITAL RECORDERS ARE MORE PORTABLE AND AFFORDABLE THAN EVER

The recent trend toward pocket-size stereo recorders has accelerated dramatically, with more than a few major manufacturers getting into the act. What began as a niche market for broadcast journalists and sound-effects collectors has exploded into a wealth of new and exciting tools for all kinds of musicians and audio professionals thanks to impressive advances in portable digital technology. It's been said that smaller is better, and that's never been truer than with the current crop of high-performance pocket studios.

Compact recorders have a broad range of uses, from archiving band rehearsals to recording birdsongs in your backyard. Nothing is more convenient for quickly capturing spontaneous song ideas and taking verbal notes. They can't be beat for recording interviews and lectures, and they're unobtrusive enough to make clandestine concert recordings with remarkable clarity. Today's pint-size products offer audio performance unheard of in previous generations, with fidelity and accuracy that blow away yesterday's analog mastering decks and digital audiotape (DAT) machines. They can store considerably more material than an analog reel or a DAT cassette. And some offer such pristine A/D converters and preamps that they're ideal for archiving your mixdowns.

A lot has changed just since October 2005, the last time EM surveyed portable tapeless recorders (see “Playing the Field,” available at emusician.com). Most notably, recorders have gotten much smaller and less expensive. More of them include features designed for musicians, such as variable-speed playback and built-in tuners. CompactFlash was the preferred storage medium in 2005, but most pocket-size recorders now rely on Secure Digital (SD) cards.

This article looks at eight little digital recorders currently available and another one that should be shipping by the time you read this (for detailed specifications, see the online bonus material “Stereo Recorder Features Compared” at emusician.com). All of them have impressive storage capacity, and some have surprisingly long battery life. All record WAV files, most record MP3 files, and one records at rates as high as 2.8 MHz. Each is priced well under $1,000, and all can slip into a shirt or jacket pocket.

FIG. 1: Edirol’s R-09 is small enough to operate with one hand, yet it offers pro-level features such as a digital audio out and support for SD cards up to 16 GB.

EDIROL R-09

When Edirol introduced the R-09 ($399), it was the smallest digital recorder yet to target audio professionals (see Fig. 1). About half the size of the earlier R-1, the R-09 has a pair of fixed omnidirectional condenser mics in its upper corners, stereo mic and line inputs on minijacks, and a minijack that handles optical S/PDIF out, line out, or headphones. The R-09 records and plays 16- and 24-bit WAV files at 44.1 or 48 kHz, and MP3 files from 64 to 320 Kbps. It can apply onboard reverb to playback and has a button that loops playback between two user-defined points. It accommodates SD cards up to 16 GB and includes a 64 MB card.

The R-09 is easy to operate with one hand, and it packs a lot of graphical information into its small (128 × 64-pixel) but sharp organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display. In play, record, or stop modes, the display shows information such as song name and length, playback or recording time, and reverb and battery status, as well as level meters calibrated in decibels.

The transport controls, which also serve as cursor controls, are clustered around a central Record button. There's no mistaking when recording is armed; the area around the Record button flashes red in record-ready pause, and it glows steadily during recording. The Record button doubles as an Enter button for selecting menu items. I was pleased that I could begin recording less than 7 seconds after pressing the Power button.

Also on the front panel, the Finder/Menu button allows you to view and select recorded files when playback is stopped. During playback, the Reverb button toggles between Hall 1, Hall 2, Room, Plate, and Off. Pressing the Repeat button specifies a loop start point, and pressing it again specifies the end point; a third press disables the loop. You can also repeat songs individually, in sequential order, or randomly in Shuffle mode.

Plus and minus buttons for controlling input and output levels are on the side panels. You'll want to quickly memorize their locations, as the black-on-black labeling is difficult to read. A glance at the rear panel reveals additional functions; you can enable a low-cut filter and automatic gain control (AGC), specify a mono or stereo external mic, and switch mic gain from low to high.

The R-09 has the clumsiest means of replacing its two AA batteries I've ever seen on any device. After sliding the flimsy bottom panel halfway open (revealing the USB port and SD slot), you need to press and hold a tiny switch to slide it the rest of the way open, and then flip it up to reach the batteries. Closing the panel is almost as awkward. I'd wager that replacing broken bottom panels is the most common R-09 repair.

As of this writing, Roland has just announced the Edirol R-09HR, a model slated to replace the R-09. Among its new features are 96 kHz recording, better mic preamps, a larger OLED display, a built-in speaker, an included wireless remote, variable-speed playback, and a much-improved battery-door design.