Bought a $120 voice recorder for interviews, my phone was doing the job fine

Got tired of my phone cutting out during a long character interview for a story, so I splurged on a dedicated recorder. Turns out the audio quality is barely better and now I have to carry a second device around, has anyone else overpaid for gear they thought was essential?

2 comments

2 Comments

patriciam2220d ago

Forget the phone, that thing is for quick calls and texts, not serious work. I bought a similar recorder years ago and it saved my tail on a noisy street interview where the phone picked up every single car and siren. The dedicated recorder lets you dial in the levels and it has better built-in mics that catch voices from across a table, not just the person holding the phone. Sure, you might need to clean up audio sometimes, but starting with a clean file beats trying to fix a mess later. That $120 is nothing compared to the time you'll waste trying to scrub out background noise from a phone recording.

miles27720d ago

I read somewhere that even podcasters with $500 setups still end up doing cleanup in post, so the gear barely matters... the room you record in and mic placement do way more than the price tag. My buddy does all his interviews on a $40 lav mic plugged into his laptop and it sounds fine. The real trick is closing windows and turning off the fridge, not buying another gadget. You'll probably end up using the phone anyway once the novelty wears off, and the recorder will sit in a drawer like my old digital camera.