I had the good fortune to use the Edirol R-09HR wav/mp3 recorder for some time (firmware 2.0). Of course this machine has been reviewed earlier so i will not repeat the previous conclusions but i have some interesting findings that i did not read about before. First the volume of the built in speaker is low. Putting the volume at 100 does not really make it better. You have to put the speaker against your ear to hear anything. Headphones on the other hand can be set very loud. So don’t expect to fill the room with sound with this speaker. You have to find some amplified speakers to do that.

When you change the batteries some of the settings resetted themselves, at least on my machine. The file naming was reset to the default instead of the date as the filename. But the second time i changed the battery my settings were preserved. Strange but since i did not use the machine for some time, the internal? battery or capacitor ran out of power? But i could be wrong.The first time i started using the recorder i had to set the time. The second time when chancing the batteries i was not asked to set the time.

The remote control worked nicely, but i got some problems with the reception. Earlier (in some review video during a convention) it was mentioned this remote worked by radio. Well it does not. It used a infrared LED. So you really need a good line of sight to control the recorder from a distance.

Lastly this recorder can not stand “up”. The bottom is too rounded and the recorder will fall over when you try to set it upright. Too bad, but that’s probably why Roland is selling this thing.

Overal i am very impressed with the responsiveness, menu usability and built quality. It is worth each and every penny.

I have been selling media for some time now which is stored on a hard drive. I was using Western Digital’s Passport serie hard drives because they are small, look nice and i never had problems with them. This week (6 oct 09) i bought another drive. It was the latest model (500 GB, model WDBAAA500AWT-EESN).

When i plugged it in (windows) for the first time two screens popped up. One screen was the “cannot find a driver” -screen. And they other was the “Smartware screen”. And in the windows explorer screen 2! new devices were installed. The hard drive itself and a new CD drive…???. After some digging around i found out that this “Smartware” automatically installs the CD drive everytime! you plug it into your computer. And it is NOT REMOVABLE!!! Shame on you Western Digital

So since i cant remove this annoying smartware i cannot use the drive… Thanks WD….. Goodbye WD…

So be warned and buy the older models!!!!!

Read some more :

• http://superuser.com/questions/44318/how-do-i-remove-a-mybooks-wd-smartware-virtual-cd-from-my-desktop
• http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10351853

I recently bought the Zoom H2 recorder. We reviewed the Zoom H2 earlier, but now that i have some practical experience i wanted to share it with you.

Here are some of my experiences:

1) USB connection

When you plug the USB cable into the Zoom when it is not switched On then something funny happens.

First windows recognizes it, but than later will say that this hardware is not working properly. Switching on the Zoom will not help at this moment.

So you need to switch the zoom off and take the USB cable out. Then turn the Zoom On and go into the menu. Find the USB menu item and choose “Storage”. Then you can connect the USB cable and windows will recognize the Zoom properly.

2) Copying files to/from the Zoom

When you want to copy files from the Zoom then remember this is slooooow. It still uses a USB 1.0 connection… Saving money here SamsonTech ???

3) Responsiveness of the machine

I found that switching between menus and tracks can be painfully slow. Also starting recording and stopping is also quite slow. I am comparing it against the Edirol R09 and the edirol seems much more quicker in responding to the buttons.

4) Recording quality

Although this is very user interpretable i found that the microphones are less noisy then the Edirol R09. I dont know if the noise issue was resolved in the new Edirol R09HR. I will report on that when i have worked with this new gadget.

Concluding i can say that you certainly get what you pay for. The Zoom H2 can be found for around $120-150. The new Edirol start from $330. But the Edirol comes of course with a nice remote control, slicker design and overall more responsive user experience. So the Edirol stays my favorite, but if you are on a budget and dont mind the shortcomings the Zoom is an excellent choice.

I have been using the Marantz PMD660 Handheld CompactFlash Recorder ($450) for about a year now to record classes and bhajans.  It is a little bit larger than the new crop of portable recorders, but that size comes with some features that are lacking in nearly all recorders I’ve seen.

First, what I like about the recorder:

• Records to Compact Flash
• XLR Inputs
• Analog level adjustments
• Powered by AA batteries
• Bright LED level meters

What I don’t like about the recorder:

• A bit bulky
• Record time could be longer
• Built-in Microphones are useless
• Left and Right levels are hard to adjust independently.

This recorder has very good quality MIC Pre-amplifiers through the XLR inputs.  I hear very little noise when the levels are cranked way up.  I will go into more detail on XLR inputs when I cover microphones, but almost all good microphones use XLR connectors.  You can convert to mini-jacks used by other recorders, but the resulting quality probably is not as good as using a good pre-amplifier like one that is built into the Marantz.  The recorder also supports built-in phantom power which can be used to power condenser microphones.

You can also record line-in through a 1/8″ jack — might be useful if you want to hook up through the temple’s PA system or a mixing board. 

The analog level adjustment feature is very important.  Most recorders (including this one) support some sort of automatic gain control.  This feature will allow the recorder automatically adjust the levels as the speaker or bhajan becomes louder and softer.  This may seem like a good feature at first, but the end result will often end up with a recording that is not natural sounding.  Instead, one should disable the automatic gain control and use the manual control.  Many of the smaller recorders bury the level controls pretty deep in the menu system.  Better recorders provide a nice analog knob or slider that can be used to adjust the level.  In combination with the bright LED level meters, one can ensure that the recording isn’t too loud (distortion) or too quiet.  This unit allows you to adjust the left/right levels independently.  This is useful to record the speaker with one microphone and to have another microphone for recording questions from the audience.

The recorder has many options that I really don’t bother using.  I always record in WAV format at 48Khz (to match the sampling done by my video camera).  This gives me about 6 hours on a 4 gig card if recording in stereo or 12 hours if recording in mono.  It does support recording as MP3, but only at 128Kbps.  If you plan on doing any post processing of the audio, just record in WAV format.

Record time is about 4 hours on 4 AA batteries.  I use rechargeable and tend to change them out at the 3hr mark.  One severe flaw in this device is that if you are actively recording and the battery runs out then it is likely that the track that is being recorded will be lost.  This hasn’t been an issue since I normally recharge after every use and don’t generally record for longer than 2hrs at a run anyway.

Alternatives:

I highly recommend this Marantz PMD660, but it is a bit bulky compared to some other recorders.  If you are looking for something smaller and are not going to use nice microphones, there are other alternatives.

I have generally recommended the Roland R-09HR ($350).  This is a small recorder that has good built-in microphones.  You can also use an external microphone that uses 1/8″ jacks. 

Another recorder that looks promising is the Tascam DR-1 ($250).  A friend of mine just took it to the New York Rathayatra and it seems to have worked out for him.

If you need something that supports more than two tracks, Roland just came out with the Roland R-44 ($895).  It can be linked with another unit for synchronized 8 track recording.  This would be great for recording live bhajans.

Next week?  A quick review of microphones.

Then it is a good time to increase your storage space of your laptop (or other computer). We get more and more and more data and we want to have it. But our hard disk space is limited unfortunately. So if you have a USB port to spare then you can buy a USB harddisk.

Western Digital is releasing some interesting new models with lots of space. These USB (2.0) hard disk do not need a power supply and are nice and small. They fit in your pocket and are easy to take on travelling. So if you are a travelling preacher then go for it :

• Product page at Western Digital, Passport Elite 320 GB
• A review of the Passport Elite at notebookreview.com
• Another review at laptopmag.com
• Buy this hard disk at newegg.com

In a month or so this passport will be available in 500 GB. Current models have a storage space of 80, 120, 160, 200, 250 or 320 GB. I would recommend buying the biggest possible if you have the money.

If you need to upgrade your internal laptop hard disk then you can read my post with some guidelines on how to do this.

• Guide to upgrading your internal laptop hard disk