subject: Digital Recorders Are Great For Anyone [print this page] A while back you wouldn't find any musician that would let the concept of possessing a totally working digital recording gadget plus workstation stashed away in their day-sack cross their abstract mind. To catch a thought, a riff, or let alone a full tune down on a recording was a crazy experience. The hardware was bulky, and you couldn't simply tote it anyplace you wanted to go.
But fortunately, times are way different now. In the final five years, for instance, things have moved from the studios of big shots into the arms of the every day user. Let's look at a number of ways in which this has occurred.
The move from 'tape' or analog recordings is one big conversion. You no more require to load reels, cassettes or use unique cartridges for recording your thoughts on a 4-track. It used to be that you had to keep a pretty big stash of these items if you were an avid writer, now a days you have capability to easily buy a brand new memory card, wipe an already used one clean, or merely relocate and backup data onto a bigger hard drive.
Portable recorders, before becoming digital, were also big and quite unforgiving. The digital development has produced a freedom for musicians that really is next to none. It is much like giving a kid a Magnadoodle, where nothing is fully permanent. If you don't like what you have recorded, hit that erase button and move on. No worries and no dissapointments. It's utterly freeing.
Size is but one more factor that has revolutionized the portable digital recorder. Even with the first kinds and releases, though fully digital, they were nevertheless nearly the size of a live recording mixing unit. This did not make them simple for every day use. That's not to even mention the sound effects and in general lack of mixing potential. Sure, you might record a demo with one, but any professional musician would not be using one of these bad-boys for a 'professional' or promotional recording.
With new recorders and recent technology you can basically toss them in a little part of your bag with a simple mic and cable nearby. They can run for hours on batteries and you can do nearly everything you used to be able to accomplish in a studio 20 years ago. The musician is hardly limited or stifled in any way.
And this brings us to breakthroughs in the final few years. Handheld devices, phones, tablet computers and the like are now able to be tiny, handheld studios. It doesn't get much more portable than whipping out your smartphone and writing a song with just having to put in a little interface or port.
The progression of computers and processor speed has given us a world of recording and engineering right at our fingertips. This has given rise to the power of music being put back into the arms of the individual. Due to the support of portable digital recorders practically everyone has the chance and capacity to immortalize their inventive juices, songs, ideas and tunes if they can put their minds to it.
