I am a hypnotherapist, and I'm searching for a tool that will allow me to record sessions with my clients and put them onto CD. I need a recorder which is portable and allows me to record with no hiss and other noises in the background. So far, I've been recording using my Sony Vaio laptop, but it has a lot of hiss and noise and I am not happy with it. Could you advise me on an affordable portable solution to suit my needs?
Peter Michaels
Edirol R09 (above) and Zoom H4. Along with the M-Audio Microtrack, they all have their own strengths and weaknesses, but all three of these portable recorders can give great results in almost any location. What's more, they all have USB connections, allowing you to quickly drag and drop audio onto your computer's desktop for editing.Editor In Chief Paul White replies: A lot depends on how many tracks you need. If you only need to make stereo recordings of live events or of speech, then the Zoom H4 (reviewed in SOS December 2006) would be ideal, as would the Edirol R09 (reviewed in SOS October 2006) and M-Audio Microtrack (SOS March 2006).
All of these models include a built-in microphone, and because there are no moving parts, there's no motor or fan noise to pick up, as is the case with cassette-based machines or computers. Using a portable recorder's USB interface, you can transfer the recording later on to your computer for editing or further processing, allowing you to put it on CD using a regular CD-burning package.
Most compact recorders of this type can record using the MP3 format, to make the most of the available memory and maximise the recording time available. Providing you don't choose the more aggressive compression options, the subjective quality is actually very good and most people would be hard pushed to tell the difference on speech recording. Where non-compressed (PCM) recording is available, expect the recording time to drop to around one tenth of what you'd expect when recording in MP3 mode.