Journalism Tools Of The Trade - Digital Voice Recorder

We have all seen it, watching the news, someone needs to tell the world something so they call a press conference. The journalists are gathered, a mix of writers, TV and radio hanging on every word often thrusting something in the face of the person giving the press statement.

What are they thrusting? Microphones and digital voice recorders. For the writers in the press pack a digital voice recorder is an essential tool of the trade, able to quickly power on and grab crisp clear spoken audio for later reference when writing up and article or grabbing a quote.

In our latest blog post we look at the types of digital voice recorders used by journalists, click the heading to be taken there.

Dragon Voice Recorder Edition aka DVR - Worth Buying?

The Dragon Voice Recorder Edition commonly known as DVR is a cut down version of the powerful voice recognition software for Windows from Nuance.

DVR is bundled with a low end digital voice recorder, generally either an Olympus, Philips or Sony depending on your geographical location - in Australia we tend to see the bundle with a Philips Digital Voice Tracer (DVT).

So what exactly is the DVR edition and is it worth the money? Head over to our main blog for a closer look at the missing features of this bundle and the alternatives you might want to consider. Click the heading above to read more.

Microcone - Australian Designed Meeting Microphone Wins A MacWorld Best In Show 2012 Award

A new microphone has arrived and is set to make a challenge for dominance in the small meeting voice recording market. As a change from the norm this is not a self contained unit which is the most popular current design. Instead the Microcone uses the power of what is on most peoples desk already, their Mac to record audio from around the award winning hexagon shaped array microphone.

Already showered with awards, and not just small ones; Australian Design Award last year and to top that a Best In Show Award at the 2012 MacWorld expo in its very first showing the Microcone has already caught the eye of the ever critical tech crowd.

Microcone has been designed by Australian company Dev-Audio who are based on the Gold Coast in Queensland. Dev-Audio released their first offering on the Mac App Store to coincide with MacWorld called Microcone Recorder which facilitates the control of the mic along with numerous audio tagging features.

More over on our main blog including some sample audio recorded on the Microcone, click the title above.

New WS Series Digital Voice Recorders From Olympus

Announced in early January 2012 by Olympus Voice we will this year see a new range of WS series digital voice recorders around the globe. Australia can expect them early Q2, Europe already has them and also the US I believe.

The new range consists of the WS-811, WS-812 and the WS-813 and in Australia will replace the current range - WS-650S, WS-750M and WS-706M. Note the trailing letter off the model number has finally been dropped - S was for stereo and M was for music, no longer really relevant as these and so many other features are consistent in the Olympus digital voice recorder range.

What was a surprise to me was no huge increase in memory with the recorders keeping 2Gb, 4Gb and 8Gb of internal memory - all however have a microSD slot if you you need more memory it is easily added.

Of the three, the WS-812 and WS-813 are fully featured with the new voice functions included (balancer, playback and changer), PCM recording and on the WS-813 there is also an FM radio.

New Innovative Features In WS Series Olympus Recorders In 2012

Olympus were on hand at CES 2012 this year, in force with their cameras and also this year with some new digital voice recorders set to join the line up this year. What caught our attention was not so much the usual changes to the ranges (better mics, more modern design etc) but some innovative functions being built into the recorders themselves.

Its all about the voice in 2012 and Olympus have picked up on a couple of pain points from digital recordings and improved them. Built into the new WS-812 and WS-813 digital voice recorders are three new features:

• Voice Balancer
• Voice Changer 
• Voice Playback

To learn a little more about these features and what they do click on the heading of this post to head to our main blog site.