I'm back in interview mode, recording experts in research for my book. I had been using an Olympus mini-cassette recorder, and wasn't too unhappy with it, but John Markoff at the New York Times convinced me to try out a solid-state digital recorder. I settled on the Olympus DS-330 and it's been pure delight. The advantages over the mini-cassette: 1) Ultra-tiny and light, it's truly pocket size, only as long as your finger, but twice as fat. It's only weight seems to be the two AA batteries. 2) Digital sound; the built-in mike is fantastically keen and sharp. I usually don't need the lavaliere mike I used to use with the analog machine. 3) No tapes. I can get up to five hours in this little thing; other versions can get 11 hours. 4) Easy download. After each session I merely plug it into the USB port and it dumps the recording to my hard disk. (Has a nice MacOSX version!). 5) Best part, the files are easily scannable, and bookmarked on my computer. I find I can more readily zip back and forth through an interview to find the parts I want, rather than have the whole affair transcribed. 6) But if I want to, the files are easily transmitted to transcribers via email or the web. No more packaging up tapes. 7) Lastly (and this was the part that Markoff was most excited by) the audio files can be easily posted for general archival purposes on the web or elsewhere.

These latter virtues make the solid-state digital superior to the digital tape recorders since you can merrily manipulate and pass along the sound files. There seem to be no lack of transcribers able to handle the audio files.

I carry mine in my bag next to my digital camera.

Olympus Digital Voice Recorder
DS-330

Posted on April 27, 2003 at 01:37 AM to Kevin's Recommendo site