iPod recording

[Oskar]

For the 5:th generation iPods (iPod Video), there are a few accessories out that allow 16 bit/44.1 kHz recording, either using a built-in microphone or an external one. The ones I know of are: Belkin TuneTalk, Griffin iTalkPro and XtremeMac MicroMemo. I am looking for an inexpensive way to make field recordings, and since I own an iPod Video I think this might be the solution for me. But, I have a hard time finding good reviews on the internet from demanding users, so I wonder if anyone here has any experience of these.

What can you say about the recording quality using a good external microphone? Is there anything making any of these practically unuseable? I will be using it primarily for recordning of different noises and nature sounds.

[poncival]

Wish I had something concrete to offer towards your question, I haven't had any experience with any of these things but I HAVE heard about a way to use ipod linux to record at 24 bit 96 kHz in through the headphone jack... Does anybody know anything about this, too?

Last I heard ipod linux wasn't supported for the G5 ipods so I haven't wanted to mess with it too much but I agree it would be awesome to be able to record on the ipod and have it sound at least as good as a crappy DAT machine etc...

Thanks
John

[Angus]

My wife has a MicroMemo and uses it for recording her chamber ensemble rehearsals. She loves it and it does appear to work as advertised but from what I've heard it's very noisy - even when using a decent stereo Sony mic. I wouldn't think you'd be happy using it for anything serious. It seems that the small dedicated recorders do a much better job. Given the iPod's recording capability, I keep wondering when someone will come out with a better sounding recording accessory.

Angus

[neurosound]

Hi,

I have a G2 eye-pod and dabbled with the linux software a little. This was a few years ago now, and back then I found it WAYYYYYY too clunky to be of much use. Maybe the software has improved since then.

Basically, you need to create a back up of your apple eye-pod first, then install the linux software. There is a key combination that lets you switch between booting in linux or apple. As I said, I ditched it pretty quick as it was just too clunky. I own a Sound Devices 722 now, so eye-pod linux to do 24/96 is history for for me.

John

[Larry Elliott]

I heard an example of a recording made on a Nano with an Xtreme. It was quite amazing. A bit of hiss but passable. The owner said that setting the gain was the major problem as there is no visiual indicator. He had also used the xtreme line in jack to record output of a mixer.

[deardaddy]

I've owned an ipod and I loved it for its user interface but I finally sold it and bought an Archos 402. It's only 20 GB and it is not as good looking as an ipod (it doesn't have the jog wheel and doesn't sync with itunes) but it has a lot of advantages over the ipod :
it is completely open to exchange music files
it has a built in mic wich is pretty impressing
it has a line in built in
it can record wav files at 48KHz/16bits
it comes with all the cables (line in/out-video out to tv)
It costs only 99US$ on ebay for a new one

I use it as my mp3 player when I'm on the road and I also use it as a backup recorder when I do live shows, one of my colleagues even uses it as a field recorder when he does ENG/EFP work.
I'm not an Archos dealer at all, just a happy owner.

Hope this helps.


Pascal

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by Oskar

For the 5:th generation iPods (iPod Video), there are a few accessories out that allow 16 bit/44.1 kHz recording, either using a built-in microphone or an external one. The ones I know of are: Belkin TuneTalk, Griffin iTalkPro and XtremeMac MicroMemo. I am looking for an inexpensive way to make field recordings, and since I own an iPod Video I think this might be the solution for me. But, I have a hard time finding good reviews on the internet from demanding users, so I wonder if anyone here has any experience of these.

What can you say about the recording quality using a good external microphone? Is there anything making any of these practically unuseable? I will be using it primarily for recordning of different noises and nature sounds.

I would use a Boss BR-600 instead with a stereo AT 825 microphone.

BOSS BR-600 Digital Recorder :: Faq

bcgood

[DonM]

I own an 80G 5th G. I purchased the Belkin a while back. I've tried a bunch of mics - The onboards are good for meetings in a dry room - The couldn't be used for anything musical. With a small cheap mini-plug stereo mic (Sony, and AT) the S/N improves quite a bit - with the gain on or off.

I've also used my Rode NT-4 - with the 9V battery in line and the stereo mini-cable - not too shabby for rehearsal recordings and artists interviews, and some on-location sound design element capturing - just slightly noiser than my mini-disc - and tremendously more flexible.

-D

[Oskar]

Thanks for all replies! The problem with buying another recording device like the Boss is the price... So, maybe I'll just take a chance and try one of the iPod recorders out.

[nilsemil]

Is there any possibility to playback 24-bit wavefiles from iPod?

[synthoid]

Sure! I make 24-bit 48KHz Apple lossless files for mine all the time.

-synthoid

[AroundTheClock]

The fact that the Ipod will play 24-bit files doesn't mean the files wouldn't be truncated to 16 bit prior to D/A ...

Originally Posted by synthoid

Sure! I make 24-bit 48KHz Apple lossless files for mine all the time.

-synthoid

[Marlan]

ProTrack Handheld Stereo Digital Recorder for iPod

Interesting. The tools for the IPOD are getting better and better these days. It's no Sound Devices mind you, but pretty cool nonetheless.

[synthoid]

Originally Posted by AroundTheClock

The fact that the Ipod will play 24-bit files doesn't mean the files wouldn't be truncated to 16 bit prior to D/A ...

Right, I'm not hoping to get high quality playback out of my ipod. It's just that I can bounce something down out of a DAW and pop it into my ipod for someone else to hear, without going through rate conversion or dither. Saves time and the result is not bad.

-synthoid

[audiostout]

Hey guys, I'm headed to get the new ipod touch to use some of the recording apps. My question to you guys is, does the ipod have anything that can sync to a camera for video work? There gotta be something out there.

[audiostout]

Bump. Anyone?

[Plush]

Why?

[Teddy Ray]

Originally Posted by Oskar

For the 5:th generation iPods (iPod Video), there are a few accessories out that allow 16 bit/44.1 kHz recording, either using a built-in microphone or an external one. The ones I know of are: Belkin TuneTalk, Griffin iTalkPro and XtremeMac MicroMemo. I am looking for an inexpensive way to make field recordings, and since I own an iPod Video I think this might be the solution for me. But, I have a hard time finding good reviews on the internet from demanding users, so I wonder if anyone here has any experience of these.

What can you say about the recording quality using a good external microphone? Is there anything making any of these practically unuseable? I will be using it primarily for recordning of different noises and nature sounds.

The creative labs Nomad Jukebox 3 is rather legendary(at least in the taping community) for its recording ability. has a digital in too....

dirt cheap taboot.

[panatrope]

As there are so many about, what about an iTouch or iPhone? Info is available as to how to access audio in and out via the connector in the base - and apps and accessories are available to facilitate high quality recording or transmission. For example there is a program for PDAs (and others) called Luci which enables high quality broadcast links over wireless data in real time. Our national broadcaster has apparently invested in a few hundred of these kits.

Must be worth a look for field recording -

[Mark A. Jay]

Originally Posted by Teddy Ray

The creative labs Nomad Jukebox 3 is rather legendary(at least in the taping community) for its recording ability. has a digital in too.... dirt cheap taboot.

Creative...they were really ahead of the game, and then Jobs et al came along and re-branded much of the concepts they developed (kudos to Apple for some clever 'lifestyle' marketing, but mad props to Creative for their direction in those days).

Indeed - I once used (in a pinch) an iRiver iHP-140 mp3 player which had scads of features (including optical digital I/O) for the money. I even used it a few times to record orchestral performances (with a Neumann KU 100 mannequin head microphone) and got great results going to 16-bit 44.1 (using the analog in).

Long story short, I still have this player hangin' around that I use as my default mp3 player. One of these days I may load Rockbox onto it as it seems there are some cool and useful features that were not resident in the original build / firmware.

Anyway, you can get surprisingly good recordings with many mp3 players provided you respect all the input sensitivity issues (avoiding distortion and ensuring favorable S/N, etc).