[vlmarcor]

Is the Olympus DS-40 Digital Voice Recorder any good?

[Richard Crowley]

"vlmarcor" wrote ...
Is the Olympus DS-40 Digital Voice Recorder any good?

Good for what?
For taking casual voice note recordings? Probably.
For some other use? Maybe, but you will need to be specific.

[Julien BH]

On Jan 22, 2:20 pm, "Richard Crowley" wrote:
"vlmarcor" wrote ...

Is the Olympus DS-40 Digital Voice Recorder any good?

Good for what?
For taking casual voice note recordings? Probably.
For some other use? Maybe, but you will need to be specific.

Why is it in rec.audio.production? :\

[vlmarcor[_2_]]

Mainly I want to use it to record my voice in several environments. At home
late at night where I can talk in almost a whisper as well as record my
voice in noisy environments such as in a bar. Also how well would it do
recording concerts? And finally I'd also like to use it to play mp3's when
working out in the gym or riding my bike.

Marc

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"vlmarcor" wrote ...
Is the Olympus DS-40 Digital Voice Recorder any good?

Good for what?
For taking casual voice note recordings? Probably.
For some other use? Maybe, but you will need to be specific.

[Richard Crowley]

"vlmarcor" wrote...
Mainly I want to use it to record my voice

Yodeling? Speaking? Orating? Spying?
For what purpose? Casual note-taking?
Critical analysis of singing performance?

in several environments. At home late at night where I
can talk in almost a whisper as well as record my
voice in noisy environments such as in a bar.

Why? Surreptitious survelience note-taking?
What is your requirement for playback quality?

You'll likely have to conduct those experiments
yourself, or find someone who has one that is
willing to do the experiment for you. And then
only you know whether it meets your (undisclosed)
record/playback requirements.

Also how well would it do recording concerts?

If if did anything more than the most basic telephone
quality, I would consider it an extra bonus. I wouldn't
count on it for any kind of music quality.

And finally I'd also like to use it to play mp3's when
working out in the gym or riding my bike.

There are official sources of information online that
will tell you whether you can use it as an MP3 player.
Not clear why you came here asking these questions?
Did you not do an internet search first, or were you
unable to find the answers to your questions? It would
be helpful for us to know where you are coming from.

Asking simply if something "is any good" is so subjective
that it hardly seems worth the effort of asking, or have
we missed something?

[Mike Rivers]

On Jan 22, 2:19 pm, "vlmarcor" wrote:
Is the Olympus DS-40 Digital Voice Recorder any good?

OK, I won't waste your time asking questions that you should have
answered in your original post.

This is a "memo" recorder. It's not designed to record music, it's not
designed to be the starting place for a music production. It's
designed to record notes to yourself, or perhaps record an interview
that will be transcribed (not broadcast).

It is good for its intended purpose. It's probably not very good for
other purposes.

[vlmarcor[_2_]]

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"vlmarcor" wrote...
Mainly I want to use it to record my voice

Yodeling? Speaking? Orating? Spying?
For what purpose? Casual note-taking?
Critical analysis of singing performance?

Primarily for casual note-taking; for putting down thoughts any place where
I happen to be
for the purpose of gathering material for eventually writing a book. But
also for recording
conversations or class lectures.


in several environments. At home late at night where I can talk in almost
a whisper as well as record my voice in noisy environments such as in a
bar.

Why? Surreptitious survelience note-taking?
What is your requirement for playback quality?

You'll likely have to conduct those experiments
yourself, or find someone who has one that is
willing to do the experiment for you. And then
only you know whether it meets your (undisclosed)
record/playback requirements.

Also how well would it do recording concerts?

If if did anything more than the most basic telephone
quality, I would consider it an extra bonus. I wouldn't
count on it for any kind of music quality.


Recording concerts would be just for amusement.
So I take it the sound quality is very poor with this device.
To get considerably better quality - barring getting
mics around the stage and connecting to the soundboard - I'd
have to spend a lot more money for a portable device ( for
instance, like the Sound Devices portable recorders - this is
way more than I'm willing to spend.) I want the quality too be
good enough so that friends can listen to a concert without it
being unbearable. It doesn't have to be exceptional quality but
good enough so that we can enjoy it without cringing at the sound
quality. To achieve this would getting something low end like
the Zoom h2 suffice. I only want to spend several hundred for the
package.


And finally I'd also like to use it to play mp3's when working out in the
gym or riding my bike.

There are official sources of information online that
will tell you whether you can use it as an MP3 player.
Not clear why you came here asking these questions?
Did you not do an internet search first, or were you
unable to find the answers to your questions? It would
be helpful for us to know where you are coming from.


Yes I did searches on it and read many reviews by users and experts.
And they were generally favourable. But I also wanted to know the advice
from this newsgroup, who I take are very knowledgeable about sound recording
in general and specifically about the latest sound recording devices.

Asking simply if something "is any good" is so subjective
that it hardly seems worth the effort of asking, or have
we missed something?

[vlmarcor[_2_]]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...
On Jan 22, 2:19 pm, "vlmarcor" wrote:
Is the Olympus DS-40 Digital Voice Recorder any good?

OK, I won't waste your time asking questions that you should have
answered in your original post.

This is a "memo" recorder. It's not designed to record music, it's not
designed to be the starting place for a music production. It's
designed to record notes to yourself, or perhaps record an interview
that will be transcribed (not broadcast).

Yes it's mainly for notes to be transcribed. I also noticed that you can use
voice recognition software(example: dragon naturally speaking) to do
this. Would you know how well such software work transcribing?


It is good for its intended purpose. It's probably not very good for
other purposes.

[Mike Rivers]

On Jan 27, 2:47 pm, "vlmarcor" wrote:

Yes it's mainly for notes to be transcribed. I also noticed that you can use
voice recognition software(example: dragon naturally speaking) to do
this. Would you know how well such software work transcribing?

I've rarely seen an accurate automated transcription of a recorded
voice. You can probably get the meaning of most of the speech but it
will require a lot of cleaning up and probably some confirmation by
listening before it's ready for publication. There aren't really too
many shortcuts when it comes to working with audio.

[Laurence Payne]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2008 14:47:36 -0500, "vlmarcor"
wrote:

Yes it's mainly for notes to be transcribed. I also noticed that you can use
voice recognition software(example: dragon naturally speaking) to do
this. Would you know how well such software work transcribing?

Pretty badly. It can work OK for YOUR voice, after a prolonged
training session.

But keep checking. Voice transcription is obviously an area in which
the military and security services are interested, so you bet it's
being energetically developed. Their systems will filter down to us
in due course.

[Richard Crowley]

"vlmarcor" wrote ...
Primarily for casual note-taking; for putting down thoughts
any place where I happen to be for the purpose of gathering
material for eventually writing a book. But also for recording
conversations or class lectures.

Yes, those were the designed applications for those little voice
recorders. Although I wouldn't have significant expectations of
their ability to coherently record lectures, etc. from far away.

Recording concerts would be just for amusement.
So I take it the sound quality is very poor with this device.
To get considerably better quality - barring getting
mics around the stage and connecting to the soundboard - I'd
have to spend a lot more money for a portable device ( for
instance, like the Sound Devices portable recorders - this is
way more than I'm willing to spend.)

Wow, talk about your change of perspective! You are comparing
a cheap skateboard with the Space Shuttle. There are dozens,
nay scores of very competent products between those extremes.

There is an explosion of products designed specifically for casual
music recording that are a tiny fraction of the cost of things like
Sound Devices recorders. Take a look at the Zoom H-2, for example.

I want the quality too be
good enough so that friends can listen to a concert without it
being unbearable. It doesn't have to be exceptional quality but
good enough so that we can enjoy it without cringing at the sound
quality. To achieve this would getting something low end like
the Zoom h2 suffice. I only want to spend several hundred for the
package.

The street price for the Zoom H2 seems to be ~ $200
http://www.trewaudio.com/store/produ...cat=106&page=1
You could buy your little voice recorder with the change.

Yes I did searches on it and read many reviews by users and experts.
And they were generally favourable.

For music recording, or for casual speech documentation?
I'd be very skeptical of people who claimed any of those little
voice recorders were competent at recording music.

[Richard Crowley]

"vlmarcor" wrote ...
Yes it's mainly for notes to be transcribed. I also noticed that you can
use
voice recognition software(example: dragon naturally speaking) to do
this. Would you know how well such software work transcribing?

Reasonably reliable speech-recognition for consumers is still
likely many years in the future. I'd be surprised if it even exists
in high-power laboratories yet. At this point, it is likely faster
to just transcribe it from scratch than to go back after the fact
and make all the corrections, etc.

Note that there are a growing number of transcription services
available online where you can send them an MP3 file and
they will return a text file, etc. This is used extensively by the
newsmagazines (and other electronic media) where they send
recordings of their interviews to some agency in India (etc.)
where it is transcribed overnight then emailed to the editorial
offices in New York by the next morning.

[vlmarcor[_2_]]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...
On Jan 22, 2:19 pm, "vlmarcor" wrote:
Is the Olympus DS-40 Digital Voice Recorder any good?

OK, I won't waste your time asking questions that you should have
answered in your original post.

This is a "memo" recorder. It's not designed to record music, it's not
designed to be the starting place for a music production. It's
designed to record notes to yourself, or perhaps record an interview
that will be transcribed (not broadcast).

It is good for its intended purpose. It's probably not very good for
other purposes.

If you were to buy a portable recorder to be used mainly for taking down
personal
notes, but also record conversations and lectures and perhaps the odd time
to do
some field recording and the recording of musical concerts, would you go
with the
Zoom H2 or the Olympus dx-40. I'm thinking I should go with the Zoom H2.
I was concerned at first that it didn't have voice activation, but it can be
set
to record automatically when audio is detected. Although it costs around $50
more than the Olympus digital voice recorder I think it might be more
versatile and
give better recordings.