i'm a college harpist looking for a decent mp3 player/recorder or minidisc player/recorder to which i can attach a similarly decent microphone and record myself in order to make audition cd's (as well as just record my practice sessions). i've asked some of my friends what they use; one has an iriver ihp which is AMAZING but i don't have 400 bucks just sitting around; another has a sony minidisc thing, which is much cheaper, but annoying to have to record onto a disc. i'd much rather have some sort of device that acts as a hard drive. i want easy transferring between the device and computer--another friend has a nomad jukebox and i HATE that jukebox b/c it terminates all my file transferring whenever i use it. what is there on the market that is small like all these things and within a price range of 100-200 dollars? with good sound quality?

-- colleen potter (cepotter@uiuc.edu), April 03, 2004

Answers

The short answer is: Nothing. I get surprised sometimes by what's available that's both good and cheap, but I don't think I'll be surprised on this one; you're just asking too much for way too little money. // Here are some thoughts for what they're worth. For the audition CD's, can you borrow equipment from a friend? Maybe you can do that for occasional practice sessions, too? You're right, though, for the long run you need to buy something of your own. But compare the cost of equipment to the cost of lessons; does that put it in a different perspective? Recording yourself is certainly worth as much as a year of lessons; and how much do you pay for those? // By the way, Sony is bringing out a new format of minidisk called Hi-MD, which will allow straight digital recording in addition to the "bit-compressed" recording that minidisk has always offered. This will be a substantial improvement on previous MD machines, though not up to the very best of current digital. // Is anything available used? It's tricky, though, to buy anything used that has moving parts.

-- James Boyk (boyk@performancerecordings.com), April 28, 2004.

You've got me! I've been looking and asking, and I can't get even a clue as to where I can buy, even the expensive home CD recording equipment. I used to, about twenty years ago, have a couple of good cassette boom boxes that were just perfect with tone for music. Now it's impossible to even find one of those that's any good, and it's very hard on us, the home musicians, to get anywhere without a good recorder. I really want a good CD recorder. I have a new Dell with a burner and a cd drive, but I don't know if there's a way to record from a mike on that or not. If you know of any answers, please tell me. Gene Hisey

-- Gene Hisey (mahisey@hotmail.com), February 03, 2005.