Audio recorders in areas with no electricity

[Tom Honeyman]

Laura Robinson and I both wrote papers on these topics last year:

http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1291

http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1290

There are currently many hand held solid state recorders on the  
market, from nagra, marantz, m-audio, korg, edirol and others. I'm  
having a play with a Nagra ARES-M today! The power consumption  
varies. Good ones are built for rechargeables and have a charger  
built in (eg the Nagra Ares BB+) meaning you have one less piece of  
equipment. Don't bother with one with an internal HD, they really  
chew power.

A rule of thumb as well is that the smaller the device the more  
likely you'll get background noise from the miniaturisation of the  
circuitry. So there's a definite trade off between quality and size.

For my next trip I was going to try an ultra light-weight setup where  
you charge AA NiMH batteries directly from a panel. I still need to  
check it with someone with more electronics savvy than myself, but I  
suspect you can take a panel and wire it directly to AAs in series as  
long as the voltage is greater than 1.41x(number of batteries) and  
the current is less than than 10% of the capacity of the AAs. This is  
NiMH batteries only though which supposedly can be safely overcharged  
if the current is less than 10%: the extra power is dissipated as  
heat. Anyway... still experimenting on this one though, but it would  
mean only a small panel, and little power loss going from panel to  
battery to device.

Roll up solar panels, despite stating otherwise in the marketing  
material, are in fact fragile. Mine developed bubbles on the back and  
failed after a month in the PNG sun. Currently I'm favouring smaller  
solid panels rigged up in parallel, similar to these:

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ZM9018

...which are very sturdy.

Backing up in the field I used a device that copied the contents of  
CF cards onto an internal HD... not sure I'd recommend this though as  
it creates a single point of failure.

There are devices to copy from CF to CF too (or rather USB mass  
storage device to USB mass storage device). Also there are portable  
CD/DVD burners that can read flash cards... these are power hungry.  
Laptops are very power hungry. Flash cards are becoming cheaper  
though, be careful though as some solid state recorders don't handle  
cards above 2GB in size.

-tom

On 13/05/2007, at 6:05 AM, Alex Francois wrote:

> hello,
>
> I sent the following email yesterday to the list, but it seems my  
> message didn't go through (there was a typo in my return address).
>
> I'm trying again -- with my apologies if you received it already.
>
> best,
> Alex.
>
> -------- Message original --------
> Sujet: Audio recorders in areas with no electricity
> Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 16:22:39 +0200
> De: Alex Francois <Akexandre.Francois at vjf.cnrs.fr>
> Pour: Resource-Network-Linguistic-Diversity at unimelb.edu.au
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> I would like to enquire about the best audio equipment for my  
> fieldwork. I work on endangered languages of North Vanuatu, and am  
> planning for 6 weeks there in July-August.
>
> For several years I've been doing recordings using minidisks, and  
> found them quite convenient. I used a Sony MZ-R900 and a Sharp DR77  
> recorders; but because they both have started to show signs of  
> weakness lately, I thought I should replace them with something new  
> and solid.
>
> Most websites (e.g. here or here or here) present minidisks as  
> somewhat outdated, and indeed they are more difficult to find these  
> days. Another concern often mentioned is the file compression  
> entailed by the minidisk format;  and also, the frequent weakness  
> of the minijack interface, among other things (and indeed the  
> minijack socket in my Sony has started to make an awful noise  
> recently).
>
> These thoughts have made me think I should take the plunge, and  
> shift to the most recent formats for recorders, namely solid state  
> recorders or perhaps harddisks. They generally have a more solid  
> interface (XLR), they can record directly in uncompressed WAV,  
> files can be transferred easily to a computer, etc.
>
> However when I read through online reviews for the Edirol R09, the  
> Tascam HD-P2 and the Marantz PMD660, I realised I was probably  
> going to be faced with another problem, that is battery life.  The  
> areas where I do my fieldwork do not have electricity where I can  
> recharge inbuilt batteries;  as for replacing them with ordinary  
> alkaline batteries, it sounds like this may be a problem if I stay  
> in the field for 6 weeks and want to record basically every day  
> (+playback for transcription).
> I had this problem with my digital camera, which would consume a  
> pair of new Duracell batteries as often as once or twice a day;  
> this means 35 batteries were used in just two weeks, which is  
> expensive and heavy and polluting.
> In the case of S.S. Recorders, it looks like (but I maybe wrong)  
> they are quite power-consuming -- especially in comparison with my  
> older minidisk recorders, which could last for whole weeks with  
> just a single AA battery.
>
> Maybe I'm exaggerating the difference, and SSRecorders are not as  
> power-consuming as I think; but I wouldn't want to find out when  
> it's too late. Has someone had any similar experience of using such  
> a recorder in similar conditions (several weeks without electricity)?
> Then there is also another problem, that of having to buy several  
> expensive CF or SD cards in order to stock my recordings (as I used  
> to do with cheap minidisks), since the conditions are not adapted  
> for using a laptop either.  A rapid calculation shows that during  
> these 6 weeks I might record up to 15 hours of recording  
> (uncompressed mono or stereo), roughly corresponding to 10 Gb  
> (??).  [I use two mono dynamic mikes, and record sometimes in mono,  
> sometimes in stereo.]
>
> So basically here is the advice I'm requiring from members of this  
> list:
> is there a Solid State (or otherwise) recorder that is particularly  
> performant with regard to battery life (besides, of course, the  
> other requirements that make for a quality recorder)?  What would  
> be your best choice between the various models currently on the  
> market?  (I've read pessimistic or disappointed reviews for  
> basically all recorders, esp. the Edirol or Marantz models...)
>
> if you think minidisks are still the best compromise in my case,  
> then would you recommend any particular model?  For example only  
> Sharp models (not Sony) allow to change input volume during  
> recording;  I once thought the Sharp Md-MT190 was a fair  
> compromise, but it's probably outdated now (2002); and of course it  
> has all the drawbacks of minidisks.
>
> alternatively someone may point me towards extra solutions, such as  
> a very light system of solar panels?
>
> Sorry for the long email, and thanks in advance for your advice,
>
> Alex.
>
> ******* Alex François LACITO - CNRS 7 rue Guy Môquet F - 94801  
> Villejuif FRANCE email Alexandre.Francois at vjf.cnrs.fr http:// 
> lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/membres/francois.htm http://alex.francois.free.fr
>