Decent, small, portable, light, high-quality microphone and recording thingy...

[Piers Gibbon]

well done

you might be needing these online transcribers soon then

http://www.outsec.co.uk/

they are great

and maybe audacity for editing?

 

[mrs quoad]

Got audacity yesterday, ta!

Got the zoom through this morning; it's made the external mike COMPLETELY redundant. The sound quality from the zoom is far, far better than anything I'm getting from the external, so the external's boxed up with an amazon return label firmly attached

It is a PHENOMENAL gadget. I'm amazed! VERY useable, and very high quality (to my - admittedly - amateur ears / inexperienced hands )

e2a: yep, standing about 3-4 metres away and speaking in a very normal / quiet-ish voice, it's picking up every syllable perfectly... Admittedly in a quiet room. But I'm still pretty impressed

 

[mrs quoad]

Got audacity yesterday, ta!

Got the zoom through this morning; it's made the external mike COMPLETELY redundant. The sound quality from the zoom is far, far better than anything I'm getting from the external, so the external's boxed up with an amazon return label firmly attached

It is a PHENOMENAL gadget. I'm amazed! VERY useable, and very high quality (to my - admittedly - amateur ears / inexperienced hands )

e2a: yep, standing about 3-4 metres away and speaking in a very normal / quiet-ish voice, it's picking up every syllable perfectly... Admittedly in a quiet room. But I'm still pretty impressed

This, basically.

Having finished my fieldwork, I'm slightly less staggered by the quality of recording in a chaotic environment (@ 44.1 thingies, 24 bit). It's nonetheless extremely functional, and an outstanding bit of kit

'Sall!

 

[cybertect]

Did you say professional?

http://www.nagraaudio.com/pro/pages/products_ares_bb.php

Might be a bit outside your budget though

 

[pk]

Avoid Minidisc - they're noisy as fuck and for some reason they keep indexing, so they sound like an Austin Allegra with clutch problems.

Solid state or nothing.

ETA - Zoom stuff is OK but fragile as fuck if their FX line is anything to go by - transport it in bubble wrap and let it sleep in cotton wool pads.

What you gain in high end electronics you lose in build quality.

 

[Goatherd]

Another H4 convert!

My vote would be for the Zoom H4 too, although I agree about the build quality being on the low end. Sound quality wise it's wonderful, and there's a huge array of built in features should you wish to take it more seriously. The 16bit/48khz mode should be good enough for most applications, and you can fit a good, what 2 1/2hours+ on a 2gb card?

One caveat - the little windshield they supply for the external mic isn't that great, and it's bound to get lost sooner or later. I lost mine and replaced it with a Rode dead kitten. Also make sure you get the firmware updated if you want to record MP3, because there's a bug in default firmware that makes MP3 recordings sound awful on some H4's.

Protip - the limiter function is very useful indeed.

 

[soonplus]

darn i wish i saw ths topic before i made mine ( http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=247351 )

ho hum


jut try throw in another suggestion (although io have no expereince of it... just going on what i have seen on online recommendations) is something called an Edirol R09 (made by roland)

 

[pk]

Edirol kit is better built, maybe less fun than the Zoom though.
Good value mind.

 

[soonplus]

Edirol kit is better built, maybe less fun than the Zoom though.
Good value mind.

i'm not sure i know what you mean by "less fun"

....the edirol split and loop buttons look like fun , and they dont seem to present on the h2 BUT the h2 is about £100 cheaper which would probably make me feel less paranoid about breaking it

 

[soonplus]

also i'm trying to work out the dimensions of the h2... is it roughly the same size as a 20 pack of ciggies?