Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Joe Bravo)

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 23:43:48 GMT

You might try asking around in the Mystic River Forums.

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Tripecac)

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 22:59:48 GMT

Thanks Joe! That thing is amazingly cute! I wonder where we can find audio samples (recorded with cheap mics)...

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Joe Bravo)

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 19:45:38 GMT

Hey Travis, I meant to mention this little mp3 recorder made by Iriver.

http://www.bhatt.id.au/blog/iriver-t30-wma-ogg-mp3-player-with-voice-recording-and-linein/

Somebody in a video forum tipped me off to it about a year ago. I've never seen one in use but it looks interesting for field recording.

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Tripecac)

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 23:59:49 GMT

The price of the computer, software, and backup mechanisms aren't an issue in my case, since I already have a Sonar-based studio. But Sonar isn't (IMO) very friendly for spontaneous recording because:

1) starting sonar (especially if pc is off) takes longer than hitting "record" on a tape recorder
2) sonar forces you to pick a name for your project, which discourages "winging it" (although I suppose you could write a script that generates a name based on the date)
3) sonar is visually distracting when you are recording (though I suppose you could turn your back)
4) if the pc crashes, you lose some or all of your unsaved recording, which is annoying if you jam is really long
5) after you finish recording, the sonar's editing tools encourage you to edit, which takes away from the "pure fun" aspect

(Does anyone consider editing and engineering more fun than performing?)

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Thomas Campitelli)

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 23:22:54 GMT

There are real benefits to having a dedicated device, such as a tape machine, where you can just hit record and go for it. My price calculations also don't account for the hundreds of extra dollars you need in order to have a computer to which the hard disk is attached. I also did not include a facility, such as another hard disk, to back up all that data you are creating. However, cassette tapes are kind of a dead end. They've always sounded badly and they are not very convenient or long-lived. There isn't a really good, cheap, and easy answer to the problem. My preference would be to record on the computer as much as possible, but all methods have their pluses and minuses.

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Tripecac)

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:49:09 GMT

Thomas -

Thanks for the enlightenment! You are absolutely right!

I had forgotten about CDs. And mp3s. And I didn't bother to do the math. I was thinking of how each 120 minute tape equals about 1.2 GB of hard drive space (uncompressed). I only have about 50GB left (time to buy a new drive). The thought of each tape eating up 2% of my remaining disk space was what I was worried about. I didn't want to be conscious of the rapidly dwindling megabytes while trying to jam.

I guess I was talking about "subjective price" more than "real world price".

The "funny" thing is that I always copy the tapes to the computer anyway. So it's not like I save disk space by using tapes. I just defer the disk space cost until years later. Hopefully by the time I get to the 2007 tapes we'll have multi-terabyte drives!

Thanks again!

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Thomas Campitelli)

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:46:49 GMT

How do you figure that tapes are less expensive than digital? I have a feeling that if you compared the cost (and inflexibility, and speedy degradation) of analog cassette tape with that of digital audio, you might be in for a surprise. For example, at tape.com, they sell a 100 pack of 62-minute cassette tapes for $30. Not too bad. They sell a 100 pack of 80-minute CDs for $17.50. That would seem to make digital less expensive, at least with respect to removable media.

I haven't figured out the math myself, but according to Cakewalk, uncompressed, stereo, CD-quality audio at 16-bit/44.1 KHz requires 10.3 MB/minute. Mono requires 5.2 MB/minute. Let's be conservative and assume that you are recording in stereo.

A 500 GB Western Digital hard drive costs $125 at Newegg.com right now. Because hard drive manufacturers use a different measure of gigabytes than the rest of the computing world, this comes out to more like 465.6 GB. So, let's break this down on a per minute basis.

Cassette tape = 206.6 minutes per dollar (with 62-minute tape)
Cassette tape = 264.7 minutes per dollar (with 90-minute tape, 100-pack at $34)
Hard Disk = 370.3 minutes per dollar
CD = 457.1 minutes per dollar

So, CDs win the minutes per dollar award. Cassette tapes, at 90 minutes a piece, cost about 40% more per minute than hard disk, if I've done my math correctly. What's more, 100 cassette tapes take up a lot of space and audibly break down in just a few years. 100 CDs take up less space and have a better archival life, but are still less than convenient. A 500 GB hard disk isn't much bigger than two slices of bread. It supports random access to all of the files on the disk and can be searched by freely available utilities. Note, if you compress your audio with an MP3 encoder, the digital media become even cheaper, by 4 to 8 times. I also did not account for a 4-track, in which case your 90-minute tape becomes a 45-minute tape.

100 tapes (at 90 minutes) can hold 9,000 minutes of music.
100 CDs can hold 8,000 minutes of music
1 hard drive (at 500 GB) can hold 46,289 minutes of music.

I'm afraid that the economic argument does not hold up here, neither does one based on archival life, ease of access, or ease of storage. If you are already setting up a four track and mics, you could do things with your computer almost as easily, provided the 1-minute boot time would not get in the way.

Just some food for thought.

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Tripecac)

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:11:21 GMT

Joe, thanks a ton! Your sound clips were a "tie breaker" for me; they sounded crisp, but lacked low end. Great for voice, but not so great for piano and deep guitar notes. I don't want to have to do any bass boosting or other effects. I really just want to capture hours of messing around and then put the the best bits on CDs (with minimal effort). Once I start having to think about EQ, it's no longer fun. (I hate the engineering part of making music).

While trying to decide between tape vs digital, I had an itch to play some more, so I dug out my old analog 4-track. I then setup some mics near the amp and where I usually like to sing. Then I put in a tape and started recording (to stereo only). The first day there was a lot of overhead (adjusting mics, testing to make sure the 4-track actually worked, etc.) But then today I went in there with the goal of seeing if the already-set-up 4-track would be just as easy and spontaneous as the dictaphone...

And it was close. I felt a little more pressure to play well because of the mics, but I also knew I was just recording to an old tape, so it wasn't "expensive" to record. It was fun. :) And it will certainly sound a lot better than a dictaphone (or voice recorder). Here's how my 4-track sounds (with 2 cheap mics):

http://txe.swa.com/mp3/tripecac/tripecac-infatuation.mp3

So I decided to go tape. I figure with tape I can always choose between 4-track and a dictaphone, whichever one feels "right" at the moment. I ordered that $22 tape recorder from Amazon and a bunch of blank tapes.

Maybe in a couple years there will be cheap USB audio recorders which can record deep sounds. Computer audio (and video) technology always starts off wimpy but then eventually surpasses analog (to my ears), without the price going up at all. Digital Cameras today are amazing (and cheap!). Hopefully soon we'll have amazing, cheap digital audio. Until then, I guess it's back to what works!

(BTW, I just "early adopted" Vista and regret it, so I'm techno-wary at this point).

Thanks again Joe!

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Joe Bravo)

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:51:03 GMT

Actually, I think yours sounds considerably better than mine. But, mine's a few years old now and a cheap one at that. Those that you're looking at might sound much better across the board considering how much cheap memory is available now. I couldn't care less how they sound. I just want to be able to make out the notes.

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Tripecac)

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:45:31 GMT

Thanks, Joe! The treble actually sounds on par with what I've been doing. However, I don't hear much low end. Here are some samples of what I'm trying to get:

http://txe.swa.com/mp3/trex/trex-moody-guitar.mp3 (guitar)
http://txe.swa.com/mp3/trex/trex-my-stupid-song.mp3 (piano)

They don't sound as crisp as what you have, but they have more low end.

Is it impossible for cheap (< $50) digital voice recorder to have decent low end?

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Joe Bravo)

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:04:26 GMT

"Do you have any samples of music that you recorded with your Memorex IC? I am curious about how well it captures different frequencies."

If you have to ask, then these little dictation recorders probably aren't for you as the quality is unimaginably bad. All I use them for is to get a small hint of an idea down with, like maybe early in the morning if I wake up from a dream with a song in it and I want to put it down quick before I forget it or something. I use them to leave myself voice messages more than anything though.

It just dawned on me that maybe you're used to those dictation recorders with full size cassette tapes in them. Those will sound considerably better than my digital unit which sounds more like those very tiny tape recorders that use micro-cassette 1/16" tape. Anyhow here's what it sounds like, and I was probably half asleep when I did this, just jotting down a mental note. All I did to it in my wave editor was to raise the volume.

http://billseper.com/junk/dictation_sample1.mp3

Here's the same file with a low-end boost and some noise reduction.

http://billseper.com/junk/dictation_sample2.mp3

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Tripecac)

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:47:30 GMT

Joe, thanks! Do you have any samples of music that you recorded with your Memorex IC? I am curious about how well it captures different frequencies.

RE: Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Joe Bravo)

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 01:31:21 GMT

I use a Memorex IC Recorder. It was probably around $30 and sounds at least as good as my old dictation recorder. Both are terrible sounding, just barely good enough to get an idea down. I run a line out of the headphone jack to my mixer and then sound card.

Digital Voice Recorder vs Tape Recorder - for recording practices (Tripecac)

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:43:43 GMT

Hi folks! It's been ages since I posted here. Anyway, here goes:

Like most of y'all, I use Sonar for my "serious" songs. However, when I want to just pick up a guitar and jam spontaneously, I prefer to record to a tape recorder. The sound quality is lousy (especially since I don't even bother to plug in a mic), but it's super-easy. Also, since tapes are cheaper per-minute than disk space, there's no pressure to actually play well, so I take more risks and have more fun. Sometimes the music itself ends up being a lot of fun[ny]; I like to put the best moments on CDs for myself. I really do enjoy jamming to a dictaphone, and have gotten in the habit of doing it every lunchtime. :) Unfortunately, my dictaphone is dying; it's old and making warbling sounds. I need to replace it.

My question is: should I get another tape recorder (for around $20) or a digital voice recorder (for around $60)? Tape recorders are cheaper and simpler, but the digital recorders make it easier to transfer files onto the PC and save me from having to buy tapes.

How do digital recorders sound? Are they comparable to dictaphones? Or cell phones?

Here are specific examples of what I'm comparing:
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Pressman-Cassette-Recorder-Automatic/dp/B00001ZT4H/ (analog)
http://www.amazon.com/Olympus-VN-4100-Digital-recorder-champagne/dp/B000OVPB9K (digital)

What would y'all recommend?

Thanks!