Which one has better sound quality?

[lilpep4ever]

I am planning to make a CD or a casette.

I want to buy an iRiver because it has a voice recorder. Can anyone tell me which one has a better sound quality, a casette tape or iRiver recorder?

[Brian Healey]

What is this for? To record your piano playing?

As far as I know, the iRiver's voice recording mic is for just that. The main purpose of it is for dictation, and I don't think it would be good for anything else. It probably wouldn't sound very good to try and record a piano.

A high quality cassette deck with a good mic will sound much better. I'm not talking about those cassette players that have a built-in mic, I'm talking about a professional style cassette recorder with external mic inputs.

I used to do recording with an old Tascam 4-track cassette recorder and a couple SM-50 microphones. These days you should be able to find one relatively cheap if you're not looking to spend much money.


Peace,
Bri

[Ziggy]

It's ok. Loud noises will distort quite a bit. My Chopin 10-2 recording was recorded with an IHP 120 using the little mic that comes with it. Really easy and convenient to use.

PS - IRiver rocks! Don't be one of them conformist's with their Ipod and there lil white earbuds       

[Brian Healey]

PS - IRiver rocks! Don't be one of them conformist's with their Ipod and there lil white earbuds       

True that. I don't know about the iRiver, but I have a Creative Jukebox 60gb that blows iPods out of the water IMO.  It cost about $250, whereas an iPod with only 40gb costs $400. What a rip-off. The Creative can do more too.


Gravy,
Bri

[jlh]

Being a recording engineer (my "spare time" occupation) for a few years now, let me warn against using any "built in" microphone.  Even a $30 Radio Shack Special will do a better job than most built in mics.  Buy a condensor mic that doesn't require phantom power (phono plugs) and you should be able to use if with most devices.

If you have no other choice, do a few test takes to get a good signal without distorting.  Pianos are loud, and have a tendency to overload some cheap systems.  If you can adjust the input gain, set it to where the loud parts are about 60-70% or so of signal capacity -- this will allow some headroom for editing later.

If you can't do this, you'll have to put some considerable distance between the piano and the recorder to make sure there's no clipping.

As far as quality is concerned, I'd advise against recording with an mp3 recorder.  The bitrate is simply too small to get a good recording out of it.  Cassette tapes are ok if that's all you have available -- analog is generally better because there is no encoding (and sample loss) involved, though the additional noise can be a bit much.

My suggestion?  Record onto a VCR.  You may not realise this, but you won't get a better storage medium without spending a small fortune.  Perhaps with a seperate mic going to the imput of your iRiver and the output going to the input of a VCR, you will get a very good result.

Then, you can transfer that to your computer via a 16 or 24 bit .wav recorder and make a CD of it -- no encoding loss that's noticeable.  You'll have to dither down to 16 bit to make a CD if you record in 24 bit, though.  Though you'd have a generation loss in transferring the analog recording to the computer, the end result will still be MUCH better than if you recorded straight to an mp3 recorder or cassette tape using a built-in mic.

[PianoStudentReady2Perform]

wow, some good information, jlh.

[lilpep4ever]

Although I don't know what all the technical names are, but thank you so much  , i'll try to findout what they really r...