I know there's been topics on recording before but my specific question is does anybody know what a digital dictaphone will record like? - specifically for violin.

Horrible, I'd guess. These gadgets take advantage of speech having a fairly narrow bandwidth to reduce the sampling rate/bits to get more into a given memory. They also rely on automatic recording level control so you lose the dynamics and may increase background noise if you record any distance from it. If quality isn't an issue then, yes, it will record but...

WS

Violinist

If you PM me with an e-mail address, I'll send you a violin recording I made with one such digital dictaphone. But bear in mind that I'm a very beginner violinist, so do try to ignore the quality of the music in assessing the quality of the sound.

Cheers

Katyjay

If you've got a laptop or desktop pc (or Apple Mac), connect a mic to the line in or mic socket on the computer and open "sound recorder" then hit the rec button.



The sound is sampled at anywhere between 44 Khz to 48 Khz which is CD quality, even with a cheap lavalier mic.



Don't use a dictaphone. Its OK for voice memos but is useless for high frequency bandwitdth of musical sounds and your playing will sound horribly distorted and "YUK"



Send me a PC if you need details on how to set up your computer to record music.

If you can afford it I would go for the microtrack M Audio 24/96 portable wav and mp3 recorder. It is a handheld device to which microphones can be attached and line-in sockets are available. It comes with its own stereo T-microphone which is surprisingly good. I've used it to not only record solo piano pracitce sessions but music at church services and concerts and the results have been pretty good.

It is quite expensive and retails for about £350-399. However, I was able to find a new one off ebay for £230 inc posting and packaging!

Dangermouse

Check out at the Edirol R1 and the R-09 audio recorders. The R1 has instrument sound sample files (including guitar, violin and piano) available in .wav and mp3 format on their website and both retail at approx £299.

My dictophone records reasonably well for musical instruments- you still get dynamics.

When I've unpacked I'll look at what make it is!

The Edirol R-09 looks good, but can you play it back instantly without having to use headphones or fix up to a computer etc? i want something i can take to my lessons to record and then play back straight away so myself and my teacher can both listen.