Hi Jake,
> Does anyone record in the field using a laptop?
>
> Are there reasons not to do so?
Laptops are heavy, bulky, clumsy and fragile compared with a good field
recorder. They are also noisy! Even the quietest laptop still has a fan
that a sensitive mike will pick up. That and all the cables and possibly
other power supply needs involved in external sound cards gets pretty messy.
There are some good reasons to use computers, however. The ability to
schedule or script various recording behaviours (i.e. only record at
certain times or intervals, for set durations, or in the presence of
certain frequencies or sound intensities) is something that most
dedicated field recorders cannot do. Automatic location tagging from a
Bluetooth or USB GPS device would be another. Or perhaps doing frequency
or gain analysis and cataloging the sounds in a database based on the
results. Basically, all the kinds of things that computers are good at
could be automated into your recorder if it were computerized.
But you'd do better off using a fanless ITX board and building up some
recording hardware around that if you wanted to use a computer to
record. Or trying it with an IPaq and the Core Sound hardware. But
touchscreens and mice and things are terrible outdoor interfaces, and
some people just prefer to have solid buttons at their reach.
d.
--
derek holzer ::: http://www.umatic.nl
---Oblique Strategy # 126:
"Only one element of each kind"
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