I hate my recorder

My 4-year-old destroyed the battery contacts of my recorder. It was my personal one and luckily my shop sprung for a new one.

 

I bought an Olympus five or six years ago, and three years ago bought an RCA because of the increased record space. It was a piece of shit. It dropped a really important interview, so I purchased another Olympus, and haven't had an issue since. My Blackberry also has a record function, but the audio isn't near the quality of my Olympus, but it's good to know I have a back-up if I leave the Olympus at the office.

 

Buy rechargeables. Keep 'em charged. Have a spare set of charged batteries with you. If you think it's been a while since you swapped batteries, that's a damn good reason to go ahead and swap in a freshly-charged set before you get into the field.

 

What mike did you pick up, and where's a link to it?

 

And during the winter, don't keep the recorder in your car. One cold night and the batteries are dead.

 

http://www.iphonebuzz.com/mini-microphone-for-iphone-236287.php

 

I hate the digital recorders. The one RCA I had would always cue back to the beginning of the interview instead of just going back to the 10 seconds I wanted to make sure I heard right. Also, why did they put the record light next to the mike? I had about 5 or 6 interviews that never got recorded because I couldn't tell the recorder wasn't recording.

But the worst was when someone broke into the newspaper office overnight and took my briefcase, which had my tape player in it with the interview I needed that morning. Fortunately, the coach was available and we did the interview again over the phone.

 

When I speak to journalist aspirants, I give them the following rules of engagement:

1. Don't major in journalism. Major in a subject you really like and work for the school paper, work for the SID as a student assistant, and/or freelance for a local paper. (I did all three).
2. Learn shorthand.
3. Always carry extra batteries.

My favorite tape recorder story, if you can call it that, concerns Lee Trevino. I was working on a book and spent about 30 minutes talking to him on the practice range at a tournament. Great stuff. I get back to the press room, stick the earphone in to transcribe, and . . . zilch. Dead batteries, and I hadn't even used them much. I grabbed two new ones, ran back out to the range and Trevino was still there. He sees me and says without missing a beat, "What was it, the cassette or the batteries?" We did the whole thing again, and he was even better second time around, and contrary to what you might think, Trevino isn't always in happy-interview mode. It probably helps that I had interviewed him at least a dozen times over the previous 20 years.

 

For what it's worth, I've had a Sony digital for 5-6 years, zero problems. Good sound quality. My iPhone recorder has even better sound quality, but if I'm unable to transfer the files to my laptop, then that play/pause control is a booger.

One night after covering a prep basketball game, I got back to the office to find my interview with the winning coach didn't take (dead batteries, I think). Fortunately, the school was close by, so I ran back out there and did it again. Still made deadline.

I now carry a large packet of batteries in my bag at all times.

 

Always take paper notes, and never buy an RCA recorder. I had one once, and to call it crap would be an insult to crap.

I've always had good luck with Olympus recorders.