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Curzon
Author

Curzon

Date

June 30th, 2006

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Field Recording

Regarding the audio version of the Far East Travelogue, Davesgonechina asks:

Technical question, Curzon, what did you use for field recording? You got some decent sound there.

Good question—and thanks for asking, as I was thinking of making this a post.

First of all, skip the trendy I-Pods. You have to buy the microphones seperately, and the recorder must have solid state memory. Hard drives that spin will ruin recordings made on built-in or attached microphones.

For me, I swear by the I-River brand. I brought the T10 super-portable player with a built in clip (no silly cords or necklaces), which is great for this kind of recording (15+ hours), and it is extraordinarily efficient in energy use (48 hours of play on a single AA battery). I only used a few batteries for the T10 in my entire month-long trip, although my camera was a different story.

Most importantly, it’s tiny. You can leave it to record without drawing attention to yourself and make oral memos at the drop of a hat.

Other fun features are a built-in FM tuner that can be set for Japan, the US, and Korea, and the internal menus are available in 32 languages (Icelandic or Farsi, anyone?).

Comments to this entry

sun bin
June 30, 2006
9:02 pm
there are many such flash players around in China (also in computer malls in HK). they cost maybe $30 or less for 1GB, around $50 fo r2GB, looks like a diminished iPod nano, with over dozen language, FM, mic /recording, 1.8" screen, and even plays MTV format movies!

iPod is so yesterday now :)
Dan tdaxp
June 30, 2006
9:07 pm
Lady of tdaxp responds to Sun Bin:

"Hmm? I don't think so. Maybe you can find some at that price, but it would not be good quality."
sun bin
June 30, 2006
9:13 pm
i got one that is very good in quality.

there are many different shells, they all come with the saem chip-set and software. but you need to venture into the computer malls, eg. in HK. and they are, as lady tsaxp said, 'generic brand' made in shenzhen. i will post a picture when i got time. maybe even some sampling of the recording for your judgment.
Curzon
June 30, 2006
9:24 pm
I checked out mp3 players in Kunming, Chengdu, and Shanghai and was not impressed by the quality. And the players for less than $50 were either 128 or 256mb.

I for one look at a lot more than price: battery life, endurance, size, radio, recording, and much more. If you want a cheap player, by all means get a generic brand at Wal-Mart or the developing world, but I need the features that come with my player, plus the reliability of the brand.

Another picture of the player can be seen on the "laptop travel page.":http://www.cominganarchy.com/saigon/laptop.htm
sun bin
July 1, 2006
1:22 am
i didn't choose it by price.
this one has recording, video, and standard usb inlet/etc. (unlike iPod which has proprietary plug).

but these things are commodities.
the pricing cycle changes by the week in these small shops, i.e minus HK$20-30 every week. bascially correlating with Flash memory price, which is a commodity(unlike IRiver or IPod, i believe their pricing cycle is at least 3-4 months). take the 1GB version, it cost $80-90 in Feb, $50 near end of march, now i heard it is $30-35
(2GB version came out around march)
-- thing in kunming are probably more expensive and less elegant in design.

i guess when you were in kunming it was dec(?), $50 could only get you 256MB at best.

although i say they dont have a well know brand, they do come with warranty and a beautiful gift box package.
if you understand how the electronic industry works these day, you would not be surprised that these comes from the same factory that does OEM for iPod. -- it is bascially assembly job. note they don't even desgin the chip set/software. they were done by some wholesalers which then sell them to different factories.

davesgonechina
July 1, 2006
6:15 am
I had a super cheap 256mb MP3 player in China for about 20 bucks. Did some ok recordings, but then the buttons went all funny. Sun Bin's looks alot better.

The T10 is about $200 bucks, no? I've already invested in an iPod, which certainly gets me alot more storage space. I'm gonna pick up a Belkin TuneTalk Stereo microphone as soon as they come out. We'll see how those work out. But if I see Sun Bin's model around, I might pick one up.
sun bin
July 1, 2006
7:40 am
dave,

they are abundent in HK. but i don't know where to get them in China.

i saw similar models in taobao (I never used it myself though), costing "RMB318 for 1GB":http://search1.taobao.com/browse/0/t-g,nvydiibri5ba----------------40-list-commend-0-all-0.htm

as for recording quality, what bit-rate is yours? i think the hardware quality are similar, the fact that you may have not as good quality is perhaps a result of bitrate setting (which may be hard-wired)
sun bin
July 1, 2006
7:44 am
they are abundent in HK. not sure about china.

but i saw some in taobao (the price i saw for 1GB is RMB318+15shipping). just enter mp4+1GB to search.

i think the hardwares are pretty much the same. curzon had better quality recording perhaps because it is one with larger memory and hence factory bit-rate setting higher. maybe you two can compare the bitrate spec's and see if that is the reason.
mic's are very low tech stuff, i dont think there should be much difference in recording except bitrate setting
sun bin
July 1, 2006
7:52 am
these gadgets arte typically only 25-30% above the flash memory price.

and here is the flash memory price trend. that explains the difference in pricing between my and lady dantxp and curzon
!http://pcworld.com/news/graphics/123395-2401p028-2b.jpg!
davesgonechina
July 1, 2006
5:11 pm
Mine had adjustable bit rate, but a poor built-in mic and as I said, the buttons started falling off. I bought it in... 2003 or 2004? for $200~300 RMB in Urumqi. 256 MB. So I'm not surprised at all that you got yours for that much. I bought an iPod in the U.S. because I wanted something that would double as a portable hard drive, could be hacked several different ways and had nifty accessories like the FM tuner.
Nathan Hamm
July 2, 2006
9:36 pm
I think that the attached mic dramatically improves things on the units with hard drives. But because I hate fiddling with wires, I might pick one of these up on eBay. They are going for less than $100
sun bin
July 3, 2006
4:02 am
mine has built-in mic.
i believe almost all the newer ones have (including the ebay items).

this is one of the major drawback for iPod.
Nathan
July 3, 2006
5:24 am
this is one of the major drawback for iPod.


Well, I don't want to get into an argument about design or features, but it's not something most people are really looking for. I have an iPod and an Archos Gmini. As far as listening to music goes, the iPod is much better user experience than the Gmini. But, the Gmini's selling point was the built in flash slot that allows me to carry around a pretty darn small 20 GB hard drive for storing photos on the road. I could say that the lack of said slot is a design flaw in the iPod, but I'm one of those crusty SOBs who doesn't necessarily like to have one device to do everything--especially if it's not going to do everything well. (Whenever I find myself in need of a new cell phone, I hunt down a discontinued model I like because it does one thing--makes calls--particularly well.)

I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the recording Curzon got out of this thing and been looking for something similar (for an upcoming trip, incidentally), so I think I think I might be spending my latest check from my neo-conservative paymasters on one of these.
sun bin
July 3, 2006
9:10 am
just that the mic(and the software needed) cost little and occupy almost no space. i wonder why they did not bother to at least provide a model with built in mic.

the nano, does not even have a plug for mic. its size is bigger than the 'mp4' i bought.
Mutantfrog Travelogue » Blog Archive » Fukui talks into every model of microphone known to man
July 15, 2006
3:40 pm
[...] Question: What are Japanese reporters doing using cassette tapes to record news conferences?? They could take a cue from Lord Curzon! [...]