digital tape recorder?

No, because I don't know the capabilities of such machines.

I think you need to consider how & where it will be used. Is it, eg, to sit in the centre of a conference table and hear everything going on around it? Will everyone speak loud enough and clearly enough? Will people talk at the same time? Will some people be much further away from it than others?

I would think the quality of the microphone(s) on the unit and their level of directionality will matter. A machine designed for recording music etc in stereo will possibly not cope well with people sitting all around it. You'd really need omnidirectional mics for that.

On the other hand if it's for a small group of people in a small room, where everyone speaks clearly etc then even a directional mic facing the wrong way may be more than adequate.

Whereas when recording music etc one generally wants a system capable of accurately recording a big dynamic range (ie able to differentiate between very soft and very loud sounds), for your use you might want the machine to 'iron out' such differences. I'd imagine that transcribing audio is much easier if the speakers' volumes are all more or less the same. So you maybe need to look for a device designed to support that. I don't know what it would be called, these days - maybe "automatic levels" or some such.

I got a free gift of an MP4/MP3 player (ATIPIX) which I discovered had a record function amongst its features and I've recorded a 5hr meeting with it in my pocket. 1Gb memory + SD card slot.

Smaller than a mobile phone. Whilst you might not be able to find that model it may well be that other MP4/MP3 players have similar features.

Olympus do a lot of those, some with internal memory and some with sd cards. Usually you can trade off quality for length. The use wma files I think. Brian

actually I dsocovered the ideal thing. an 4GB USB memory stick with a tiny rechargeable battery, microphone and switch. For less than a tenner its a no brainer.

Seems to simply dump .wav files into the flash memory

will report back on how it works.

Define... < £30 < £50 < £100 < £300

All will do MP3 at varying sample and bit rates. 3 hrs shouldn't be a problem as far as data storeage is concerned even at 96 kHz 24 bit WAV. They normally have an SDHC card slot and will handle at least 32 GB cards. Supplied cards tend to be small, only 2 GB ish. Battery (2 x AA's) should be OK for 3 hrs without trouble.

Take a peek at the Tascam DR05 or DR07. I've played with a DR07, bit plasticy and the side buttons to drive the menu system where a bit fiddly but it worked well enough.

There are many out there from cheap and cheerful through to semi-pro with phantom powered XLR mic inputs and bigger price tags. Tascam, Zoom, Yamaha, Olympus spring to mind.

Not sure how big a range of these things would be in a Currys or similar to allow a "kick the wheels" session.

These machines are pretty high quality technically, not like compact cassette or "dictaphones" of old. The limiting factor will be the room acoustics and how structered the meeting is, as has already been mentioned. The cheaper machines won't have the best quality mic preamps but they won't be absolutely terrible.

'Fraid I can't recommend any specific kit - but you do need to consider how viable the whole thing is.

I attend a regular meeting of 8 people where the 'secretary' leaves his phone on the table to record everything, and subsequently uses the recording as the basis for writing the minutes - without taking any written notes in the meeting.

The resulting minutes are *crap* because the recording simply indicates what was *said* but can't distinguish between important stuff and casual 'asides' - with the result that the minutes often fail to correctly reflect what was actually agreed!

A quick google for "digital dictaphone" came up with a a number of links. One such link was for "digital voice recorders" at Currys.

SteveW

So not a tape recorder? ;-)

nope.

AS I said a bit of googlng resulted in a 'spy drive' USB stick with a battery and a microphone.

Cant wait to try it out..

I was thinking DAT tape to start with :-)

I don't think you can call that solid state!

Snag with a lot of these sort of things is you still need the mic in a half decent place for a good recording. Regardless of how it records.

That of course is what 'trying it out' will consist of.

User feedback suggests it produces intelligible results from simply lying on a table at a meeting, or even in a top pocket.

Although tending to go mushy and noisy over 4 feet distance in a crowded room. Probably has some crude AGC in it.

Hi-fi it aint, but that's not the requirement.

Maybe bendy-solid state

NT

Maybe bendy-solid state

NT

It also makes life a *lot* easier if you record in stereo, as then you can physically place the voices, and they're easier to understand over any background noise.

Sony used to sell a stereo tieclip microphone which worked with their minidisc recorders, and was quite unobtrusive in use.

I just got a Sony recorder and tieclip microphone for recording my lectures. So far it seems fine....

You've just described an mp3 player I bought years ago. Size of a matchbox, runs for hours recording/playing, takes SD cards, AAA cell. I'm utterly sure such available now would better it and cheaper too.

Bit of a mixed blessing as stereo also picks up more background noise, over a directional mono mic.

That's fine if all you're recording is yourself - but not much use for a discussion.

The cocktail party effect lets me listen through quite bad background noise, others may not be able to.

I found it quite useful if it was mounted on the aternative desk stand. Still very unobtrusive, in black,and about half the size of an AAA cell. I wish I still had it.