The mobile recording space keeps rolling along. Alesis is the latest company to try to turn the iPod into a usable digital recorder. With up to 160 GB of storage, the fact that the iPod is a mobile hard drive you may already own certainly has some appeal. But what about quality?

The Alesis ProTrack attempts to bridge that input divide with internal mics and XLR inputs:

• XY pattern stereo condenser mics (they look a lot like the mics on the Zoom H4)
• XLR and 1/4″ inputs (line/mic) with 48V phantom power
• 1/4″ stereo output, making this interesting as a playback device, too
• LEDs onboard (nice!), limiter
• Tripod mount, universal iPod dock

Recording is limited to 16-bit, 44.1kHz; the lack of 48kHz means a big downside for anyone doing video production. Our friend and roving podcaster / NPR reporter Brad Linder has the full story on his blog:
Alesis ProTrack turns your iPod into a pro audio recorder [Brad Linder's blog]

This does look quite like the Belkin Podcast Studio. I’m not totally sold on Alesis’ quality control of late, but I’m more sold on them than on Belkin, so we’ll see.

Edirol R-09 with more storage

If there’s one mobile recorder to rule them all, it may be Edirol’s trusty R-09. The big news there: support for bigger storage, in the form of firmware updates for the R-09 and new, higher-quality R-09HR. The updates add support for Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) cards, for up to 32GB in storage. The 32GB drives are still mighty pricey, but 16GB isn’t a bad sweet spot.

I hadn’t actually paid attention to the HR model, but it has some nice extras: dedicated analog input control, low-cut filter, limiter/AGC (Auto Gain Control), gain boost, and even a remote.

R-09 HR Product Page [Roland/Edirol]

The Edirol has only an 1/8″ mic jack, but I know people who’ve been very happy with it. It may not work as a primary recorder — for that you may be willing to sacrifice something bigger and pricier. But for quick and dirty jobs and internal mic use, it does look quite nice. I sometimes think I should’ve gotten it instead of the Zoom H4 I bought, but I’ll just save up for a real mic pre for the Zoom and go home happy.

Review: Tascam DR-1

The last bit of news from Brad: a quick review of Tascam’s entry to the increasingly-overcrowded handheld recorder market. Brad writes us:

Seems like a decent, but not great device for recording music and interviews. A friend of mine took one for a spin for a little while and ultimately decided to return it and get an Marantz PMD660. I’ve heard good things about the Olympus LS-10 though, and I might pick one up myself eventually as a backup for my trusty Sony PCM-D50.

Got all those models straight, kids?

The DR-1 does have a 1/4″ jack, though no XLR. Downsides: preamps sound a little disappointing (weak levels), there’s no real mono recording, and, well, a lot of competition. Here’s Brad’s review with sound samples:

A short review of the Tascam DR-1 [Brad Linder's blog]

Blue’s Snowflake USB claims to be the "first portable USB microphone to hit the market." (I thought they were exaggerating, and then picked up the "USB" bit — okay, fair enough.) It’s just US$79, plug-and-play on Mac and Windows, bus-powered, and comes in a cute case that doubles as a stand or screen clip. Blue’s mics are quite nice — I’m just a little skeptical in terms of how this performs in terms of quality, given its bargain price and small size. Hope to get one of these to try out, and we’ll see.

Oh yeah, that and it costs quite a lot more than $79 list if you wind up having to buy a MacBook Pro to match. Blue has sent along this gear pr0n to inspire us. I’m sure someone has a PC laptop that also would look nice with it.

Snowflake Product Page [Blue Microphone]

The announcement was made at winter NAMM in January, but the version photographed here evidently has some cosmetic tweaks for the final production version.

Should be available now-ish. Any owners of the previous Snowball USB mic (the non-portable version), we’d love to hear from you.

Updated: I knew the Snowball had gotten somewhat mixed reviews (in contrast to some of Blue’s excellent, higher-end mics), but here’s one from CDM reader Thomas for Ars Technica (via comments):

A Snowball’s Chance: Blue Snowball USB Microphone mini-review

Review audio samples

My guess is, while the mic may satisfy less-demanding users, readers here may not mind carrying a little more bulk to get their choice in mics. After all, just about any mic is "portable," and even if it’s a bit of a pain to carry an audio interface, too, the flexibility in getting results could be worth it. This is an interesting design concept, though, so I wonder if other makers will pick up the idea and run with it.

Us Americans are wimps. Scandinavians know how to test music gear. As a metal soundtrack pounds away in the background, a Shure SM58 gets subjected to some serious torture testing, including:

• Being used to hammer nails
• Dropped a couple of meters
• Frozen
• Dunked in water
• Driven over by a car

And then something really nasty happens involving Heineken and a microwave.

I’ve found the Windows Vista Team Blog to be largely disappointing in terms of actual OS information, but they’ve got an interesting post this week from Windows Vista audio team Program Manager Richard Fricks:

Using a microphone array to enhance sound capture

Microphone array recording is a technique for improving recording quality by processing signal from multiple microphones. Compare the signal, and you can more easily focus in on the source. The application here is really not music and “pro audio” — in this case, I think they’re targeting consumer-grade mic arrays that would replace, say, the lousy built-in mics in laptops and webcams. It does sound very useful, that said, and I would be interested to know about any “pro” applications that do exist for this sort of thing, beyond making podcasts and Skype chats work better (which is a worthy thing, and something I myself use).

The Bigger OS Picture

But here’s why you should care, even if you don’t really care: in Windows XP, a lot of these sorts of functions were handled by device drivers instead of the OS. That could wreak havoc because of the low-level function required for tasks like echo cancellation. One particular third-party vendor (cough, Logitech, cough!) was shipping XP drivers for its webcams with echo cancellation turned on by default. It caused all sorts of problems, disabling pro audio hardware interfaces without warning and even nasty Blue Screens of Death (at least in my experience). It could entirely disable your music setup until you turned it off. Now, some might say you should have a dedicated machine for audio production, but that ignores the reality that lots of third-party, consumer hardware plays just fine on the same machine. That’s part of what’s great about using computers for music. So, clearly, this unnecessary chaos could be avoided.

Manufacturers have attempted to make USB connections for audio and MIDI more transparent before. We’ve seen mics with USB cords instead of XLR, and USB cables with little humps in the middle with built-in circuitry for MIDI connections. But new cables announced this week by Chinese manufacturer CME go further: a USB/MIDI cable that’s as thin as a standard USB connection, a USB mic interface with integrated +48V phantom power, and a guitar/bass/keyboard USB interface.

Sometimes it’s really hard to be rational and dispassionate about high-end audio gear. Some of it is just ridiculously pretty. And every time the AES show rolls around, you can be sure your right brain’s neurons are going to get all hot and bothered about Blue and Red Microphones and their lovely, vintage-style designs.

Say M-Audio and you probably think of plastic keyboards or USB audio interfaces, but M-Audio’s latest creation is a multi-pattern, large diaphragm studio condenser microphone, with a retro design and a military-grade vacuum tube.

The Sputnik is not M-Audio’s first microphone — they make a line of budget-minded condensers — but M-Audio is crowing about it in a big way. By budget, we’re talking US$699.95 list. But it’s the mics to which M-Audio is comparing the Sputnik that might get some interest. M-Audio claims that “top Los Angeles recording engineers . . . observed [in side-by-side comparisons] that Sputnik exhibited the coveted low and low-mid qualities of the Neumann U47 and the upper-mids and highs of the AKG C12.” Want more classic mic name-dropping? M-Audio compares the upside-down tube capsule to the Telefunken 251.

Now, warning: if you happen to run into someone in sales from M-Audio, they might try to stun you in your tracks by reciting phrases like, “Sputnik’s Class A amplifier circuit is an all-discrete transconductance design based on thermionic studies by researchers at Harvard and the American Institute of Physics.” But, mic rocket science aside, it’ll be interesting to see if this mic can live up to its claims. If it sounds anywhere near as good as they say it does, it could make a nice splurge for a home musician. With that in mind, the kit comes with a power supply, shockmount, and even a flight case.

Mic gurus? Already got a favorite condenser in the US$700 range? Let us know in comments.

If you missed the evolving Dorkbot event in May, you missed some fantastic flourescent light bulb performance and djing with human bodies as electrical swithces. (The former I’ve heard done by a different artist; beautiful, wild sounds.)

You’ve got a second chance: Dorkbot is due again on the 2nd of October with bending circuits apparently the theme:

Dorkbot Tokyo Taking Off [English, WWMNA]
May Dorkbot coverage in Japanese: RealTokyo, RadioLife
May Dorkbot summary in English: Dorkbot.org, plus photos
Upcoming Event info [Japanese only, but hey, it is in Tokyo]

Tokyo correspondent wanted! Readers in Tokyo, want to keep us posted on music making there? I’d love to have a CDM Tokyo writer, even if just to send us some Dorkbot Tokyo pictures next month. Drop me a line.

What’s Dorkbot? Dorkbot is “people doing strange things with electricity”; it’s an event that was born here in NYC (at Columbia) but has now spread to many corners of the world. Check the international Dorkbot site, find a Dorkbot, go listen/see/present, and send photos and a few words = instant global fame on CDM. Even if you’re not in Tokyo.

The hunt for mobile recording solutions continues, and yesterday brings breaking news: flash memory has even found its way into a microphone:

New HHB FlashMic Is World’s First Digital Recording Microphone [HHB PR]

Fasinating, but not terribly useful to musicians: you’re limited to mono recording, since the mic is the recorder. Some interesting features, though: Mac/PC configuration of defaults, powered by AA batteries, single-button recording, USB connection, linear .WAV support. No word yet on pricing or availability. Now if they’ll just make a stereo mic version . . .

HHB comes highly recommended as a portable recording vendor, as a couple of you have tipped us off. So if this mic-that’s-a-recorder seems too limited — or simply unnatural — look to HHB’s pro-grade portable recorders, the PortaDrive (hard drive recorder) and PortaDisc (MiniDisc recorder). This ain’t your Circuit City Sony MD, folks: think US$1500 for the HHB MDP500 (shown). But you’ll get a serious rival for a DAT recorder. For one of HHB’s main rivals, see the Fostex FR2, previously on CDM. We’ve now heard from readers happily using both the MDP500 and FR2 (read the comments on the link before if you haven’t already).

See also part I (and extensive comments): iPod Nano Still Not a Recorder; Portable Recording Alternatives