Re: [microsound] mp3recorder

[derek holzer <derek@xxxxxxx>]

i just cleaned up some audio that a friend recorded on his MP3 jukebox 
in Morocco. looking at the spectrographic display of the frequencies, i 
got a pretty good picture of where the MP3 encoding scheme drops 
frequencies... you see almost nothing in the high end [the "air"], and 
then in lower, more "audible" ranges you see that there are certain 
bands that it cuts, and certain bands that it leaves in. these seem to 
be pretty logarithmically related, leading me to beleive they had 
musical harmonics in mind, and not "noisy" broadband sounds [like field 
recordings] or inharmonic frequencies [like a lot of microsound].

conclusion: not the best choice if you do field recording, make 
inharmonic music, or want a full range of the sonic spectrum to use for 
further transformations. the artifacts of MP3 will show up very quickly 
once you start playing with these sounds digitally.

another option: DAT walkman units aren't too expensive if you can find 
one used that isn't thrashed. a sony TCD-D7 or D8 can be found for under 
400 pretty easily on ebay, for example. then you have the added benfit 
of an optical digital out, which no portable MD will have.

good luck!
derek

hendrik lakeberg wrote:

>Thanks for the info. maybe you are right and minidisk is the best affordable
>option at the moment. one thing i wonder is about the arcos jukebox mp 3
>player/recorder. do you think the recording quality is acceptable ?
>hendrik
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