Inexpensive audio recorder
November 12, 2015 8:02 AM Subscribe
My friend is looking for an inexpensive audio recorder for her very creative daughter to record the stories she comes up with. Specifics inside.
She's not looking for anything super high tech, essentially today's version of a tape recorder. Under $50 preferred, but under $100 is fine. Her daughter is good with her belongings, so it doesn't have to be extra durable. Nothing super high tech, just the ability to save to removable media. Does anything like this exist? Thanks in advance!
She's not looking for anything super high tech, essentially today's version of a tape recorder. Under $50 preferred, but under $100 is fine. Her daughter is good with her belongings, so it doesn't have to be extra durable. Nothing super high tech, just the ability to save to removable media. Does anything like this exist? Thanks in advance!
A used iPod Touch can be had in that price range, with the added benefit of being a great little device to play educational apps and games on.
posted by fairmettle at 8:08 AM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by fairmettle at 8:08 AM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
She's not looking for anything super high tech, essentially today's version of a tape recorder.
Why not a, err, tape recorder? Super easy to use.
posted by popcassady at 8:14 AM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
Why not a, err, tape recorder? Super easy to use.
posted by popcassady at 8:14 AM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
Is the daughter too young to just use a smartphone app/tablet app/PC and mic?
But if you really want a specific device then yes, cjorgensen is correct Sony and Olympus both make tons of these, including several at the $40-$80 price point. They usually have a USB port to allow exporting the audio to a computer for storage or editing. You can get into the details of whether they have fancy noise cancelling, record in stereo, etc. but if this just for a young kid I assume none of that matters, I'd just grab whichever has decent reviews and is cheap on Amazon. Maybe whichever has biggest buttons if she's young.
If really young, like a toddler, you can still get that iconic Fisher-Price tape recorder that seemingly every single little kid had back in the day.
posted by Wretch729 at 8:32 AM on November 12, 2015
But if you really want a specific device then yes, cjorgensen is correct Sony and Olympus both make tons of these, including several at the $40-$80 price point. They usually have a USB port to allow exporting the audio to a computer for storage or editing. You can get into the details of whether they have fancy noise cancelling, record in stereo, etc. but if this just for a young kid I assume none of that matters, I'd just grab whichever has decent reviews and is cheap on Amazon. Maybe whichever has biggest buttons if she's young.
If really young, like a toddler, you can still get that iconic Fisher-Price tape recorder that seemingly every single little kid had back in the day.
posted by Wretch729 at 8:32 AM on November 12, 2015
The Zoom H1 that cjorgensen mentioned is great, but if you want to get closer the $50 mark, I've had good luck with Olympus Digital Voice Recorders. Looks like this starter model (WS-852) can record mp3s to a microSD card or internal memory. A nice feature of the Olympus models is that it has a "simple more" and "normal mode" so your friend's daughter can grow with the recorder.
posted by 2ghouls at 8:49 AM on November 12, 2015
posted by 2ghouls at 8:49 AM on November 12, 2015
The good thing about audio cassettes is that they're more likely to last thirty plus years. I don't think I have a digital file older than fifteen.
posted by popcassady at 8:54 AM on November 12, 2015
posted by popcassady at 8:54 AM on November 12, 2015
Under $50, I have this Sony voice recorder. It doesn't save to removable media, but it comes with software that works fairly well for organizing the files (and you could easily copy to USB from there).
posted by typecloud at 9:53 AM on November 12, 2015
posted by typecloud at 9:53 AM on November 12, 2015
I recently got a Tascam DR-05 to record my flute playing. It seemed to be the cheapest I could find that was not designed for primarily for speech. It's a bit on the techy side with lots of options that a beginner, even an adult beginner, won't understand, and the "manual" is not very helpful. However, having found good settings, I'm pleased with it. It plugs into a USB port, and then the SD drive is available to you computer. I suspect that more expensive Tascam options are even less user friendly, but I don't know.
A lot of the cheaper recorders are meant for speech which means the top and bottom of the frequency distributions (high notes, low notes) are going to be suppressed. This could be a problem for nature sounds like chirping birds. They may also need an external microphone unless the person speaking is close to the device.
posted by SemiSalt at 9:57 AM on November 12, 2015
A lot of the cheaper recorders are meant for speech which means the top and bottom of the frequency distributions (high notes, low notes) are going to be suppressed. This could be a problem for nature sounds like chirping birds. They may also need an external microphone unless the person speaking is close to the device.
posted by SemiSalt at 9:57 AM on November 12, 2015
nthing the cheap Sony. Unusually for Sony, the ones I've seen all appear as standard USB mass storage and not something horrid and proprietary. Great battery life and decent sensitivity.
The only key feature that all of these solid-state recorders miss over tapes is the ability to play back faster or slower. It's a formative part of childhood humour.
posted by scruss at 10:36 AM on November 12, 2015
The only key feature that all of these solid-state recorders miss over tapes is the ability to play back faster or slower. It's a formative part of childhood humour.
posted by scruss at 10:36 AM on November 12, 2015
Most modern digital voice recorders allow the use of micro SD cards or a USB port connection. I can personally recommend Olympus.
posted by AppleTurnover at 12:18 PM on November 12, 2015
posted by AppleTurnover at 12:18 PM on November 12, 2015
I have this Etekcity recorder and I'm really happy with it. It is very cheap (bonus?) but has proven surprisingly good. It's basically just a flash drive that records audio and saves with generic file names in .WAV format but that's really all you need, right? I haven't been able to get mine to save the files with the correct "created on" dates but that shouldn't matter too much in this instance. I haven't been too hard on it (since it's small enough to just keep in my pocket or purse) but it seems pretty durable. The files it saves aren't too huge, I've had mine for months and still haven't used up all the space on it (I do back up the files, of course).
posted by kassila at 8:43 PM on November 12, 2015
posted by kassila at 8:43 PM on November 12, 2015
Response by poster: Thanks all! I'll pass on the message.
To answer the questions above, friend's daughter is 10. Mom doesn't want to use a tape recorder because she wants the ease of movement between digital audio devices, and wants to leave it open to editing and archiving if daughter so chooses.
Thanks again; I'll be back later to mark best whichever she chooses.
posted by Verdandi at 5:40 AM on November 13, 2015
To answer the questions above, friend's daughter is 10. Mom doesn't want to use a tape recorder because she wants the ease of movement between digital audio devices, and wants to leave it open to editing and archiving if daughter so chooses.
Thanks again; I'll be back later to mark best whichever she chooses.
posted by Verdandi at 5:40 AM on November 13, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
The Zoom H1 is a nice unit. I own a bunch of these.
You can get even cheaper ones, but the quality drops off as you go down in price.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:07 AM on November 12, 2015