Carlo S. Suerte Felipe
Voice recorders are eveyrwhere. Much of the mobile phones and mp3 players produce today have voice recording functions. But not all of them have the same recording quality. Some are excellent, and some are poor. Some are even useless (and it's actually paid for when you bought the product in the first place).
As a writer, I resort to having a separate, old-school tape recorder for my voice recording needs (especially in the field, since I am slow at jotting down important notes from speakers and interviewees). Recently, Sony lent us thier ICD-B300 IC Recorder. This is a small, lightweight, digital recorder with a 64 MB storage capacity and voice operated recording (VOR).
The VOR functions automatically activates recording upon detecting sounds, and stops recording when there is no sound. This eliminates soundless recording, therefore conserving the available space of the recorder.
The recorder runs on two AAA batteries.The package contains the recorder, an earphone, a carrying puch, and operating manual (accessories supplied with the recorder are country-dependent). Sliding a pair of fresh, new batteries activates the display, promting you to set the date. There's no power button here, but the hold button somehow shuts down the display when left for a while.
Also, and optional accessory called an Electret(?) Condenser Microphone which allows you to do telephone recording. Too bad this wasn't included in the package that was lent to us, for I haven't experienced recording an telephone interview yet.
Once the date is set, you can now start recording as if you are using a regular recorder (minus the hard-to-push buttons). Depending on the quality setting of your recording, you can record a full 7 hours and 30 minutes of high quality (HQ) recording. Long playing (LP) recording would reach 37 hours and 5 minutes.
With the high quality setting, I was able to record the voice of my interviewees clearly, despite the noise happening around us. One recording was done inside a moving yacht (with the engine whirring in the background), and another was on an open space of a bar beside Roxas Boulevard (where there is music, singing, and the strong gush of wind from the ocean).
These unwanted noise are a writer's nightmare. But thanks to the IC recorder, I was able to get the info from the recordings without hassle. Although when recording inside a room that produces a lot of echo is not good. Even digital recorders can't solve this matter.
The downside of the recorder is how you will have to back-up your recordings.According to the manual, it reccomends copying a backup of the recorded messages using a tape record, etc. I recorded my messages through the computer and I had to think deep about this process. Because recording it to a tape would also mean recording whatever sound that would occur in the background.
A bit tasky, but, nonetheless, an indespensable piece of gadget. I hope succeeding digital recorder would come with a (built-in) USB to back-up messages with an ease.
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