Just as we radio folk now often carry cameras, print and photo journalists are now lugging basic audio-recording gear out to cover stories. Apple’s Pro - Techniques site has an Audio in Rich Media section devoted to them. Their articles cover audio basics well, including “Telling Stories with Sound,” “Audio Gear for Rich Media,” and “Field Recording Techniques.”

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Took the new all-in-one HHB Flash Mic/Recorder (US$1K street) for a literal spin. Wrapped it in a Rycote full-ball wind-sock (that I use for my Shure VP-88), stuffed it inside the chest pocket of a shell-jacket (in above mic it’s that tribble sticking outta my torso), then pedaled about 30-miles, recording and babbling into it much of the way.

The HHB is a good-sounding microphone with a high-quality digital recorder built right into the mic tube. It’s a mono omni dynamic mic. I rarely use dynamics cuz they just don’t sound as good as condensers (which have wider frequency response and greater signal level = better basses and highs = crispness and presence). But for a dynamic the HHB sounds pert-dern decent. Here’s a mic-ing-while-biking clip:

You can hear it’s pretty good with handling and wind-noise (at least w/ sock on). You can see the mic-to-mouth distance in above pic and hear it’s picking up my voice and road sounds rather well.

Ease-of-use is where this thing really shines. It’s gotta 1GB flash memory card (non-removable) built in, which gives you 3+ hours of recordings (at 44.1KHz, 16bit mono .wav). If it’s on it’s in record-monitor mode. One-button starts the recording, and there’s a pre-record buffer that writes-to-disk the up-to-10sec. of audio before you hit record.

Batteries (2 AAs), which weren’t fresh when I statrted, lasted 4+hours. The headphone amp powered my Etymonic buds well — no trouble monitoring. The thing is really light-weight, but the mic housing and buttons feel rugged. The level meter screen is small but usable. The LCD display is quite readable, even in fairly strong outdoor-light, with usable indicaters of mic-lvel and battery-life. The bottom button/dial on the bottom turns it on and controls all the levels and myriad menu commands, which is a bit tedious; but if you set most everything before you go out it isn’t a prob. There’s a mini-USB jack (digi-camera style) on the bottom for uploading your soundfiles via computer. Didn’t use the filters (high & lo pass) or auto-level controls, so don’t know nada about how they perform.

In sum, this thing performed admirably in this difficult-to-record situation. So considering the parameters: an all-in-one light, rugged mic/recorder that sounds good, is simple to use, stores lotsa audio , and runs a long time on a set of batteries, HHB has done a really nice job. But as with all HHB products, you pay for their high-quality and innovation: the HHB Flash Mic’s about US$1K (street).

Cred: Borrowed the mic from Atlantic Public Media. Recording was for the new series Stories from the Heart of the Land. Thanks to Emily Botein for clip selection.

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Transom Tools just posted a Portable Digital Recorder Comparison writ by (the amazing) Jeff Towne. ‘Chines compared are the Marantz PMD 660, Zoom H4, Sound Devices 702/722, Edirol R-09, and M-Audio Microtrack.

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