Hi, Its probably a really stupid question but does any one know of good audio recorders. I want something I can take into concerts which will give me good quality recordings. I currently use a dv4000 digicam but the quality of the sound is not very good. I have a minidisk already also but unfortuantly it doesnt enable microphones to be fitted to it so i cant use that. What would you suggest. Do portable mp3 players enable good quality sound recordings? Im clueless when it comes to things like this. I want something that will enable me to upload it onto my computer so i can put it on to CD

Any advice/help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

As far as I know, most portable mp3 players don't have an input for a microphone.

Some have their own built in mic, but this will be as bad (or worse) than the one on your digicam.

To get a really good result, you need a decent stereo microphone with at least a minidisk recorder, or if you're serious about this a portable d.a.t. machine.

You could try plugging a decent mic into you digicam and playing around with your camera's settings to get the highest quality sound, as the bitrate is adjustable on a lot of cams.

Hope this helps.

You'll need something very discreet.

Most promoters aren't too keen on people taking recording equipment into concerts ( Bootleg recordings )

Not sure if they can confiscate your equipment but they can certainly 'eject' you.

StereRowe

Especially following the recent (highly publicised) prosecution of someone who had made millions from selling cds of music they had recorded at concerts.

We have been doing audio recordings at work using a mini-disc recorder, and have found them not to be as good as you would expect. You would probably get better results than we did as you would have a much louder input to work with.

We ended up buying a £120 Panasonic audio recorder, which has produced much clearer results.

However, as pointed out before, you are breaking copyright law by recording concerts.

From oldie. I assume your minidisk has a line input only. Why not use a battery operated stereo preamp? Try Maplin, Keene, Lektropacks, CPC. I use one from Canford Audio but it's a bit pricey because it's for pro use.You can also search the net. There must be dozens of types out there to suit all pockets. Good luck.

Any MP3 player with a line in for direct encoding from a CD player can use and external mic. A friend of mine fits his little iRiver iPF-390 with a battery powered pre-amp mic and the resulats are great. I bought an MPIO-fy200 to do the same and bought a $50 Archos pre-amp mic but in testing it, if find the mic to be very weak. I guess the secret is a good pre-amp mic.