Our blog brothers over at Engadget point to this interesting new device from Belkin at CES. The Podcast Studio basically turns your iPod classic into a mobile voice recording studio. It has a built-in mic, but more interestingly features 1/4" and XLR mic jacks for using more serious external microphones. It also has gain controls and a built in compressor/limiter to help voice recordings sound more professional. Since it records directly to the iPod (in WAV format) you can transfer your audio back to your Mac just by syncing with iTunes, and thence to editing and compression. For their target audience of mobile podcasters this looks like it could be a very handy tool.Wired notes that it should be shipping in June for $100 and is compatible with the 5G iPod video as well as the 3G nano.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-11-2008 @ 10:55AM
David said...
Wow. That's nice! I'm not a podcaster myself, but if I were, I'd be pretty excited about that. $100 doesn't seem to steep to me, especially considering the built in XLR.
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1-11-2008 @ 4:04PM
geekazine said...
That's a pretty expensive digital recorder. I can get a 45 Hr digital recorder with external connection, Cellular interface and USB transfer for under $200. No plugins, no problems. The compressor/limiter is nice - yet I would probably not use it so I could let my computer do the compression and limiting. That way I don't miss anything.
It's cool to see, but $100 is a little pricey.
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1-11-2008 @ 5:26PM
BLACK MONGOOSE said...
Sorry guys but you cannot get a digital recorder that is worth the money under $200 bucks let alone $100.00. They start at $300.00 and go up from there. In the sound and recording arena you get what you pay for. Don't limit the quality of your recording by going cheap. Trust me on this one.
1-11-2008 @ 5:26PM
Rowan said...
XLR is just a connection, without 'phantom power' it's essentially useless as it can't run a condenser mic. Try a Zoom H4, i think the street price in the USA is about $250, works as an audio interface for OS X too. Built in limiter, effects etc. Has two XLR mic pres with phantom power, plus surprisingly high quality X Y condenser mics. Can do 24/96 uncompressed wav, or mp3 at any bitrate, mounts as mass storage device when connected.
Or if you're near a computer, use a Rode Podcaster as this is a good quality condenser mic with an internal inverter, powered from USB.
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1-11-2008 @ 9:41PM
Gisch said...
At this point who knows what it has for sure. The specs released, as far as I have seen, haven't been too, well, specific.
1-11-2008 @ 6:12PM
geekazine said...
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/dr-45.html
This is a pretty good Digital recorder for under $200.
At any rate, I still use a Sony Minidisc and condenser microphone. It does the job and interviews sound pretty good.
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1-11-2008 @ 9:40PM
Gisch said...
This seems like a sweet setup. Hopefully the specs (and price) don't change too much before June...
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2-14-2008 @ 9:48AM
heiner kruse said...
question for me is if ipod classic does proper wav recording
ipod 5g 5.5 80gb didnt do, recording always skipped on 44.1 khz, not on 22.05, so something seemed to be to slow. wonder if its a difference between 5.5 and classic
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