I'm planning on buying a voice recorder, and am a little confused by the choice out there - does anyone have any recommendations (or warnings?) as to what I could use? I've seen a little gadget that attaches to an Ipod Nano - does anyone have experience of that? (It's a lot cheaper than buying a voice recorder!)

Any help gratefully received!

======= Date Modified 30 Dec 2008 17:05:25 =======
I don't have experience of the Nano extension, but i thought i'd just mention transcription software....

I don't know if you plan to transcribe interviews or something, but if you do, don't be tempted to spend extra on voice recorders that come with transcription software... steer well clear because it doesn't work! (though if you have money to burn, the gibberish it comes out with can be quite entertaining....):p

Thanks for that - I'd already discarded voice recognition stuff as I'll be interviewing people who will probably have strong accents & knew that they would throw the software!:-)

I have used the nano extension. It is really good and gives good sound quality. Only issue is - make sure that you download the files carefully. I let someone borrow mine and they formatted the nano by mistake and I lost all the interviews :-s

I would also say that to get the best quality you need to set it to 'high' and therefore need more room on the ipod - so clear all your usual songs etc.

I went back to using a normal dictaphone - mainly because my pink ipod looked a little unprofessional. I use a sony one which has a built in usb so you can use it as a data stick and download files without having to install any software.

I have an Olympus WS-100 digital voice recorder that I bought from eBay. It is very good. It is small and discreet, but does everything you need it to. It has a USB connection so all you have to do is plug it into your computer like a memory stick to download the audio files. It makes it very simple to use. Now, if only someone could invent some transcription software that actually worked, we'd be all set!:-)