Urban Unrest

24 February 2006 | Technology | Ernesto Aguilar

One of the more common programmer questions has to do with minidisc recorders. I highly recommend Radio College for an exhaustive primer on gear, radio craft, etc. If you’re a complete newbie, and even if you are experienced and could always soak up more knowledge, that site will be a real boon to you.The kind of recorder you buy depends on your means. If you can splurge, I’ve heard that there are several quality flash recorders out there, which won’t drain your bank account. Flash recorders record your audio in WAV or MP3 format and will allow you to transfer your audio from the recorder to the computer via USB. Much more convenient than the old-school minidisc-to-computer real-time recording! If you are serious about flash recording I would only encourage you to jump in at the pro level, as the $30-90 mini-recorders you can purchase at Best Buy and elsewhere can be a hit or miss affair, and if you miss, that’s audio that sounds awful. My knock on the cheapies is that they don’t permit much space for a high-quality tape and don’t maintain accurate sound levels onscreen, if at all. Those levels will help you to capture the best audio. RadioWorld has a tight guide to flash recorders if you’d like to learn more about the key players. These recorders range $400-800, and they are dropping every month. If you do a great deal of field recording, take some time and consider a flash recorder as an investment in sound quality, time you will save from recording into the computer, and in hardware that will likely be part of your collection for years to come. The Marantz PMD series is considered among the best in the flash recorder field, but choose what works for you.

If you are like me and don’t do as much recording and/or are unapologetically old-school, here’s my pitch for the MZ-R37, Sony’s sturdy, discontinued MD recorder. You can still do an ebay search for Sony MZ-R37s and find this equipment in the $50 range. A good R37 is solid and won’t let you down. My knock on the R37s is needing to pause to adjust recording levels. However, it’s otherwise wonderful. I’ve used various Sharps as well and, for what it’s worth, I often fall on the Sharp side of the Sony v. Sharp MD debate, but love the R37’s durability so much that I’d recommend it against any Sharp from the same era. Those Sharp 722s did look fly though.

Mics are a whole different ballgame. If you have to go cheap on an MD, spend on the mic. Again, think investment, not price. The Radio College site above is a great mic primer. I’m available, as always, if you have further questions.

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