Cheap-Portable recording

[Psychotic_Hell]

G'day guys. Just wanna know what the best cheap recording device i could get for my band practice. My guitard has the memory of a goldfish and pretty much forgets a riff as soon as we play it.

We have tried a whiteboard and electro shock treatment but nothing seems to work so we all decided to get a recorder.

 

[chokeslam512]

I have had the Line 6 Backtrack with the built in microphone for a few months now and it does everything that I need it to.

 

[RustyAxe]

Pop a Zoom H2 into a mic stand and go straight to MP3. We use it for our acoustic combo all the time. Cheap, easy, and best of all ... really great sound!

 

[JPrinos]

We rented a similar unit for our band. It was a 'ZOOM H4 Handy Recorder' These units are amazing. I thought we'd get a clipped signal from our combined volume but it produced a very listenable mp3. The price might be too high for some (~$250-$300).

For quieter practices, i.e. with acoustic guitars, drum and bass, I use my Philips GoGear mp3 player's microphone. As long as the bass/drum volumes aren't over loud, it work very well. It only cost me $35 at a a local refurb outfit.

Pop a Zoom H2 into a mic stand and go straight to MP3. We use it for our acoustic combo all the time. Cheap, easy, and best of all ... really great sound!

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Where we practised there always used to be a couple mic's around.

We used to stick one mic at each side of the room, infront of the band. Ran the mic's into a cheap behringer mixer, used the pan control to set the mics to opposite sides. Recorded out to an MP3 player.

Pretty decent results

 

[Slowgypsy]

Zoom H2. Inexpensive, reliable, easy to use. It simply works great.

 

[Tactician]

When you say cheap, how cheap. I just found the Sony B133 MP3 player has a internal mic and records. It's been great this week to be able to record students and play back what they are doing as a teaching aid. I can record a backing track and play along with it immediately afterwards. Can't wait to try it out at a band rehearsal - nothing quite like hearing the truth when reviewing, "What was that like?"

I got the Sony B133 from Amazon. It was a refurb. - just had some bent packaging actually - cost $20! How's that for cheap recording? Listen back on headphones, or buy a mini jack to 1/4" jack cable and play it back through an amp, which is what I do. How cool's is that for $20?

 

[dropbass]

boss micro BR.... great for me... and its a four track with drums you can arrange... and all the sounds u need too ...and take an external mic so if there is one in the room you use .....

 

[kesslari]

+1 on the Zoom H2. cheap, rugged, sounds great.

 

[Tactician]

Ok - an update on the Sony. As this is sensitive to sound - great for recording conversation level sound - it's also too sensitive for just leaving it around for band practice. So I put it into a guitar case and a cloth....that's fixed. Record the whole band and it sounds like your out at the bar listening. Get the whole band to listen after the song and no arguements - that's how it sounded - that's what was played - fix it or say that was great! Being able to do that for $20 represents money well spent. And you can use it for recording practice, a lesson, school or something off the radio. Or even contractual a conversation (yes you did agree those terms, here's you saying it) - shortly followed by a conversation with a nurse to explain your broken nose.

Anyway - all working fine so far. Getting a refurb one for what was actually £14.99 which is $21.29 in US dollars seems a no-brainer. You can archive everything on a computer just by drag and drop - the computer sees this tool as a memory stick of some sort. And you can drag and drop the other way. BTW, I had the foresight to record my tracks in iTunes in 192kb/sec MP3 - so I can now just drag and drop to the Sony without conversion. And I just found out that I can drag and drop to email as well from iTunes - how cool is all this technology? I must find time to play the bass sometime!

 

[Wolf]

I was looking into something similar back in the days (eventually deciding to put the cash into the "new acoustic fund" instead) but it seems the Zoom H2 is pretty much the way to go. Alot of cats in the jazz academy here use them to record lessons, rehersals and shows - and I've gotten some rave reviews. Keep in mind that here it costs about 30% more. Had I been in the states, it would have been a no-brainer...

Most MP3 players out there have internal mics, but are in no way designed to record at high volumes - and even with some placement tweaking, I've found that your results will be mediocre at best.

Best of luck with your search - and do let us know what you end up getting!

 

[Tactician]

I agree with what you say there Wolf - this isn't about the sort of quality recording we are used to as musician - but more an adudio notebook where we can record the band, li-fi, just to understand the basics in rehearsal (what it sound like over there in the bar) so so glaring mix errors can be fixed, recording a student so they can hear and critque themselves, create a little 'exam' like pressure on them and generally just have something around that we can use to play back an idea, whatever. So cheap and easy was the top of the list. You're absolutely right that there are some great stereo, hand-held recording devices out there - but generally I found these to cost 10x more.

I'll keep everyone in the loop on how I've used the Sony 133. So far I've recorded students playing -good results so long as the volume was down - clipped otherwise. Would be easy enouth to record a whole lesson - so long as the volume was kept at a conversational level - this is when you realise you want compression and some EQ and level checking. With this device you don't have anything but simple on/off recording.

More to follow. I'll post some recordings soon.