Audio scrapbook?

March 25, 2025 3:30 AM

I want to assemble recorded audio messages from maybe a dozen people as a gift to someone with vision problems - like a little scrapbook. I’m picturing something like an mp3 player so that it’s a physical gift, but it could also be a link to something cloud-based, or a downloadable file. Recommendations?
posted by Kriesa to Technology (5 answers total)

There's a device aimed at kids called a Yoto which is designed to play audio material off physical cards, but you can also buy blank cards and make your own audio recordings. I think (but am not sure) that these can be linked to Yoto's cloud based app. Caveat - I don't actually own a Yoto, but I'm considering getting one for my kid.
posted by damsel with a dulcimer at 3:35 AM on March 25 [2 favorites]

You could set up a folder in something like Dropbox or Google Drive to make it easy for your fellow gift-givers to upload their voice messages into one spot so you can grab them, edit audio, and let them know if the audio quality isn't good enough and they need to re-record.

For about USD$50 you can buy a small MP3 player device that has physical buttons. You could pre-load the player with the files (with well-formatted metadata so the speaker's name is easily visible to the recipient) in a playlist. And you can stitch together the messages into one long audio file the recipient could also download onto some other device if they want.
posted by brainwane at 4:04 AM on March 25

How much recording are we talking about? I was thinking of a bunch of those recording greeting cards, albeit blank inside (except maybe a number in Braille and written so it can be sorted to be played in order). They don't contain a lot, 30-40 seconds each, but they are just a couple bucks each. You can buy longer recording ones too. Several minutes are possible depending on the module you buy.
posted by kschang at 8:49 AM on March 25

What about one of those photo albums that lets you record a different message for each page?

There are "talking picture frames" too, but those seem to mostly be just one short blurb.
posted by xedrik at 9:15 AM on March 25

I've had good luck with talking MP3 players I've bought from talkingmp3players.com. You can also buy your own MP3 player and Rockbox it... Maybe a good thing is that a player like this is reusable/repurposeable?
posted by wabisabijane at 12:28 PM on March 25