I was happy to attend the Ratha Yatra Festival in Dublin last sunday the 13th of Sep. I visited Dublin for a “tourist” tour and was suprised to find out a Ratha Yatra was planned. Amazing mercy from Krishna. The Ratha Yatra Festival in Dublin starts at Parnell Square and ends at the Park @ Stephens Green. The festival was wonderful with Mahavisnu Swami and many others. I made some photos, particulary from the soundsystem they used. The sound was not placed on the festival cart but was placed on a stroller. It was running on a 12V big battery. They used a 12V – 220 V converter to power a powered speaker and probably a wireless system. The singer was using a wireless headset so i presumed it was also mounted on the stroller.

Overall it looked like a nice contraption. The sound was clear but since it was mounted on a cart and very close to the ground the sound did not travel far. The music party moved sometimes quite far from the cart and then you could not hear the chanting anymore. Also people who were pulling the cart were not singing that much because of that. I suggest that the Dublin Rath organization could place the sound system on top of the cart in the future. In that way everybody can hear the chanting and will sing along. The big cart has enough place to store the soundsystem so that is no obstacle. Or they might consider buying the Megavox portable sound system!!!

With my last post on the Tascam audio recorders i wanted to summarize the list of audiorecorders. Of course Mark Nelson (O’Reilly) made his excellent comparison list (read here), but to make it even more concise i present my list.

In order of liking:

1. Edirol R09HR – comes with remote control and internal speaker.. Hard to beat but pricey for some
2. Zoom H2 – Although very plastic still a good second and very cheap
3. Tascam DR07 – no reviews yet but looks promising. 2GB SD card is included
4. Olympus LS10 – Small and Tiny. Excellent battery life.

There are more recorders out there but i think the list above will fulfill the needs of devotees. If you are on a budget you can consider the H2, and now the Tascam. But at the moment the pound is very low compared to the euro so ordering in England can lead to good deals!!!

The market is slowly filling up with decent wav/mp3 recorders now that Tascam has released two new recorders. The new DR07 and DR100 are there to get you recording classes and bhajans quickly. The DR07 comes even with a 2 GB SD memory card. Now that is what we always wanted!. And it uses standard AA batteries.. Way to go Tascam.

You can read all the details about the DR07 here

I saw the DR07 already for $199. That is not expensive at all with a 2GB SD card.

The DR100 is the bigger brother of the DR07. Tough it might be out of your budget, but if you crave for more microphones (4 instead of 2) then this is the machine to have. But we remind you it default comes with a internal LiOn battery. But you can also use AA batteries. Read more here.

When a review is posted about these gadgets i will post it. I wonder how it will compare to the Edirol R09HR.

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.

At O’Reilly.com they are doing a piece on Digital Home Recording. What is needed to make a great recording in your own home and how to sound professional.

One of the most common questions posed by beginning and intermediate recordists is “How do I get rid of background noise in my recording?” It’s all too easy for 60-cycle hum, air conditioner drone, mic cable crackle, traffic noise, and many other ugly artifacts of modern life to sneak into our pure audio signals.

You can read part 1 here.