Has anyone any advice about technology to use for recording in lessons? I want something that will record and play back - without having to plug into a computer to play back, as several lessons are away from home.
In the old days there used to be these things called tape recorders....

I use my camcorder

Looked into buying Zooms etc but in the end decided that for singing it's useful for me to have a visual recording.

What's your phone like?

I've got one of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Olympus-LS-11-Line...=dp_ob_title_ce - it might well be over the top in terms of quality, depending on what you want, but I wanted something I could do good recordings (i.e. CD quality) of large ensembles too, and this fitted the bill. dead easy to use.

It does have a tiny speaker, but it would be easy to get some extra little speakers to plug in and play back. Plus it has the advantage that if you've set it to record as mp3 you can easily email the recording to the pupil. I guess that there is a myriad of ways of recording (phones, Zoom, etc.), and all of them have headphone outputs from which you can run a speaker.

Just use your ipad or iphone

I have a sweet little tripod for my iphone for video use in lessons and it's very easy to send recordings straight to youtube from it - I often do this for bits of bowing or pieces to be learned by ear. The iphone doesn't like emailing big clips but it can cope with little ones. Sound quality is pretty good!

Only in lessons at home. I am not allowed to record at school.

Thanks for the replies, folks. I have a very passe mobile - I guess I need to look at spending on a better one.

Has nothing replaced those cheap cassette tape recorders that my kids used to have fun with, recording and playing back whatever took their fancy? I know the quality wasn't hifi, but they did the job.

What I want is something I can do a quick record-play on during lessons...eg record the scale, play back to listen for legato, evenness etc

I have a recording app on my iPhone. I also have a Zoom recorder which is the closest to the old tape recorder for ease of quick bits - and even I can use it so it must be simple! But it also is very good quality sound for those more important recordings.

Sounds interesting, Miffy, thanks. But can you play back on it - without having to use a computer?

Yes, it's literally point and shoot! Mines an H4n and has a little built in speaker for playback. The model below, you plug little headphones in to hear the playback I believe. It really is as simple as the old tape recorders, but can also do some snazzy stuff if you want it to

Which recording app do you use? I've looked at quite a few but they all seem so technical! I just want something straightforward!
X

Just out of interest, has anyone tried the blue mic snowball or snowflake?

bluemic snowball

I use my apple macbook pro to record, but have wondered whether it is worth getting a usb mic to improve the quality of sound.

When i used my iPod I used the app iProRecorder, which was straight forward to use, but emailing recordings too pages and was a bit of a pain.