Lost & Found

Sony ICD-SX712 Digital Flash Voice Recorder

I just found my digital audio recorder again, which is great news because its really useful. While I don't use it for video production recording, I often use it to record interviews for articles I write because the microphones in it are much better than the one in the iPad (the other device I use for such interviews.)

But the problem is that the recorder is so small that I seem to loose it a lot. For long periods of time. This is the second time it has disappeared for more than a month, only to turn up in the pocket of a bag I forgot I put it in.

Unfortunately its both a case of not putting it in the same place every time, and being so small it will fit in anywhere. I have multiple bags and - depending upon the situation - I will take a different combination of bags out to an event, and the recorder just gets thrown in to one of the pockets. When I come home, I don't usually unpack the bags straight away, and if I didn't actually end up using it, the recorder can be left in the pocket it was dropped in...

I really need to get into the habit off unpacking things after a shoot and having standard places for storage, rather than leaving then in the last bag they went out in until the next time.

But it is a great little voice recorder. The microphones can be tilted out to enhance the stereo effect, but I don't bother with that. You can record in LPCM 44.1kHz 16 bit and MP3. The on-off slider on the side is small and would be difficult to operate with gloves on, but once it's on, the other functions are easy enough to operate. It comes with 2GB of memory, which seems small after working so long with video cameras, but then you realize how little space audio files take up!


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