I need a small recording device with a mic and speaker in one unit that
will play back at the same speed that you record onto it.

The time and pitch performed and played back should be the same, that's
the goal.

I also need to stop it often and play back quickly (for rehearsals and
classes) so a minidisc is too tough for stopping and starting many
times. Cassette is the best medium, for ease of use, but they have
"variable playback speed" which does not lend itself to precision tape
recording speed.

Any advice?

Thanks very much

AC

On 4 Apr 2006 09:36:27 -0700, wrote:

I need a small recording device with a mic and speaker in one unit that
will play back at the same speed that you record onto it.

The time and pitch performed and played back should be the same, that's
the goal.

I also need to stop it often and play back quickly (for rehearsals and
classes) so a minidisc is too tough for stopping and starting many
times. Cassette is the best medium, for ease of use, but they have
"variable playback speed" which does not lend itself to precision tape
recording speed.

You need a digital recorder. Your mobile 'phone will probably do it
:-) But you can get dedicated units with rather better speakers. I
saw a rather neat Olympus one recently - an actress was using it as I
was teaching her a song.

wrote in message
ps.com...
I need a small recording device with a mic and speaker in one unit that
will play back at the same speed that you record onto it.

The time and pitch performed and played back should be the same, that's
the goal.

Some form of digital recording is what you want, so that the speed at which
a tape moves will not affect it.

"Geoff@work" wrote in message
...
wrote:
I need a small recording device with a mic and speaker in one unit
that will play back at the same speed that you record onto it.

The time and pitch performed and played back should be the same,
that's the goal.

That is the goal of most recorders, and is pretty much universally
achieved.

I also need to stop it often and play back quickly (for rehearsals and
classes) so a minidisc is too tough for stopping and starting many
times. Cassette is the best medium, for ease of use, but they have
"variable playback speed" which does not lend itself to precision tape
recording speed.

Unless you have an especially acute case of perfect pitch - amoungst tyhe
most acute few percentage of sufferers - then casstte should be just
fine.

I've found that if you use cheap cassette tapes and play them over and over,
like the original poster says they do, then the tape can stretch a bit in
places and it will start to sound awful.

A partial cure for this is to use better tapes, but even the best of tapes
will start to wear out when subjected to the type of abuse they would see
being used for "rehersals and classes".


I'm a bit confused that MD would not be appropriate. My daughter's dance
instructor uses a MD deck all the time. Once a CD is transferred to MD, you
can add as many track marks as you like, which makes playing a certain spot
in the music extremely simple. Plus you can do many other editing tricks on
MD that you simply can't do on a cassette tape.

Unfortunately, MD isn't as available as it used to be. The high end decks
with pitch control and the like aren't easy to get in the US. The only home
deck still readily available here is the fairly low end MDS-JE480. Of
course even a "low end" MD deck (using SP record mode) sounds far, far
better than a cassette tape and you get 80 minutes (in SP mode) on an MD
without ever having to wait for a tape to rewind or fast foreword to the
spot you want.

HiMD decks give you more recording time, but are very expensive and Sony
doesn't make one. Plus they really don't really give you any additional
editing capabilities over MD.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

Geoff@work wrote:
wrote:
I need a small recording device with a mic and speaker in one unit
that will play back at the same speed that you record onto it.

The time and pitch performed and played back should be the same,
that's the goal.

That is the goal of most recorders, and is pretty much universally achieved.
...
Unless you have an especially acute case of perfect pitch - amoungst tyhe
most acute few percentage of sufferers - then casstte should be just fine.

My suspicion is that the original poster is describing "micro"
cassette recorders, not normal "compact cassette" units.
Micro cassette recorders, intended primarily for note taking and
dictation, almost invariable have no drive capstan for speed
reference. Instead, the transport imply drives the supply and
takeup reels through rubber belts or pucks that are designed to
slip. There may easily be 10% speed variations from one end
of the cassette to the other. Also, because of the tape speed,
the track width, with microphone and speaker, their fidelity is
just good enough for voice articulation, and absolutely no better.

Yes, it is true that handheld digital recorders may be the answer,
depending upon what the user requires for recording time,
portability and so on.