[ThisGuy]

i posted here a week or so ago and i said that my Belkin Voice Recorder finally shipped, well i finally got it. i haven't had too many opportunities to use it, so i figured i would post one of the recordings so you can see what it sounds like.
this recording was made in a college classroom with about 2 people in it. most of the voices heard are from 5-20 feet away. it is sitting on the edge of my desk with my iskin exo pulled back. there are some funny noises about every 2 minutes that i believe is the iPod hard drive spinning up. it is very annoying and it almost makes me worry that something is wrong with my 30 GB.
recording number 1

as i keep testing this thing i will post more examples. if any of you also have one please post some examples as well.
thanks.

[SeSawaya]

thanks GUY!

Like any mic its going to always pick up the closest noise source first (papers moving and such)

can you turn on your stereo in your home (at a moderate level) and record that for 30 seconds. Then maybe try a soft level and a loud level (even if only a few seconds)

Id like to hear if it distorts or not.

I saw the Philips comercial last night with what looked like a PALM but you could use the "line in "on it to "convet your old vinyl" to apparnetly MP3s. Why the HELL cant the pod do this yet!! Bring on Line in recording!

thanks again

[::maroma::]

Good sample. I think it sounds pretty good, as long as the professor speaks clearly and loudly.

And I hear what you mean about the hard drive spinning up. It is pretty loud. I wonder if this is an issue with all iPods, or is there something with yours specifically? Guess we need more people to post experiences.

By the way, are you in Chicago by any chance? It sounds like the professor has a heavy Chicago accent.

[tafticus]

Thanks for the sample. I got a voice recorder today at the Apple Store and I will post tomorrow a sample from a large lecture hall to compare to the classroom setting of this sample. We'll see how that works out...

[ThisGuy]

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
Good sample. I think it sounds pretty good, as long as the professor speaks clearly and loudly.

And I hear what you mean about the hard drive spinning up. It is pretty loud. I wonder if this is an issue with all iPods, or is there something with yours specifically? Guess we need more people to post experiences.

By the way, are you in Chicago by any chance? It sounds like the professor has a heavy Chicago accent.

hehehe yes, i am in chicago. the instructor has a very heavy chicago/midwestern accent.

here is sample 2
it is an Mp3 of The Sea and Cake - Four Corners playing on iTunes. i recorded it from about 3, 6, and 10-15 feet away from the two speakers and subwoffer. notice the hard drive noise again at 2 minutes in and also when i stopped recording..

[ASIMO]

A Sea & Cake fan? Good man. Good man.

[jetta_gt]

If you are a Sea & Cake fan from SoCal, please tell you me you've heard of Pinback!

[SeSawaya]

not bad, thanks for the music example. I never heard the music distort, only your voice. That was wierd. Hard to tell how loud it was in context but that dose a great job IMO.

I wonder if anyone else will jump on the wagon and build these mics.

Can you set it to save as anything other than a .WAV?

[ThisGuy]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
not bad, thanks for the music example. I never heard the music distort, only your voice. That was wierd. Hard to tell how loud it was in context but that dose a great job IMO.

I wonder if anyone else will jump on the wagon and build these mics.

Can you set it to save as anything other than a .WAV?

not that i am aware of. the options are basically record/pause & stop/save.

[tafticus]

I tried the voice recorder out in lectures today. My verdict is that it is adequate but not perfect. The main problem I ran into was that when the speaker, especially in a lecture hall where he was amplified, got really loud the Belkin peaked out. You'll hear it on the samples below, especially the lecture on the Jewish temple. I found that this problem was helped considerably by just covering the mic up with the arm of my winter coat or even putting it in my backpack to muffle the sound a little. (I did this at 3:40 or so into the second sample.) In editing the files down I also converted them into quicktime movies, but there was no compression applied from the WAV format. (I tried MP3 compression, but it added a LOT of annoying noise to the files.)

The first sample was recorded in my Alexander the Great class, which takes place in a classroom of about 50. I sat up front, about 6 feet or so from the prof.
Sample 1

The second sample is from my Religion lecture, which takes place in a lecture hall of about 300-400 students. The professor wears a microphone, and I was about 40 feet or so from him. You're hearing the sound from the speaker system more than from him directly.
Sample 2

[ThisGuy]

did you notice any hard drive spinning noises while recording?

[::maroma::]

Originally posted by ThisGuy:
did you notice any hard drive spinning noises while recording?

Yeah, he's got them in there too. Although, they don't seem as loud as yours were.

[zac4mac]

Got mine last week, but I have only been able to get 2 minutes into a recording, then it quits without saving.
So little info yet, the guy at Belkin said yesterday I was the first to call them about it.
I wonder if the length of "memo" changes with the amount of free space on the iPod.
Using mine on a 15 GB 'Pod

Update, played with it some more and it appears mine was stopping because the input wasn't loud enough. Put my headphones on the mic and recorded several minutes...

[hyteckit]

I was wondering what the surging noise was. Then I realize it might be the noise coming from the hard drive spinning up and spinning down every minute or so.

[benb]

Originally posted by hyteckit:
I was wondering what the surging noise was. Then I realize it might be the noise coming from the hard drive spinning up and spinning down every minute or so.

Every 2 minutes it writes to disk for about 5 seconds. That is what you hear.

[seishindo]

To me, the noise of the HD spinning is a big problem unless one is simply recording something like a lecture.

What to do if you want to record something of high quality?

cb

[CharlesS]

Is it possible to connect an external microphone other than the Belkin adapter, for recording music, etc.?

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by seishindo:
What to do if you want to record something of high quality?

Get some professional recording kit?

[seishindo]

I wrote:
What to do if you want to record something of high quality?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

And Angus replied:
Get some professional recording kit?

//
Hi Angus, what I am saying is, if one gets HD drive on whatever is recorded, the unit is pretty useless except for one's most basic needs. Yes?

This to me is a huge disappointment.

cb

[michaelb]

Originally posted by seishindo:
if one gets HD drive on whatever is recorded, the unit is pretty useless except for one's most basic needs. Yes?

However, the unit is described as a voice recorder and in all the samples above it's been possible to hear the voice through the spin so it does do its basic function. But it's no DAT by any means.

Actually though, it's better than I thought from the specs (8k didn't fill me with confidence) and I'm going to get one for my 30GB based on what I've heard.

(They don't seem to have reached Australia yet though: 4-6 week wait on the Apple Store.)

[CharlesS]

I wish they would make some sort of adapter that would allow you to connect any microphone to the iPod. Imagine how great it would be for recording music then (although they'd have to fix the spinning problem)...