Edirol R-09 Review
My Sony Hi-MD (mini disc) kicked the bucket somewhat prematurely. It chews and chews on a disc without engaging. I suppose the mechanism got mangled on one of my trans-Atlantic flights. I had to drag myself into the modern recording age and invest 300 quid in a flash recorder, AND stump up another 25 for an SD memory card. And do you know what? It was worth it.
The Edirol R-09 by Roland of seventies synthesizer fame won’t win any prizes in a beauty contest. It looks more like an electric shaver than a digital recorder - but that hasn’t stopped me falling in love with it. I’m suspicious of in-built microphones, but those silver grills on the top are pretty good - fine for journalistic notes at any rate. The plastic record and play buttons are big and chunky, but they are dead easy to use without reference to the manual. Even someone like me who is all thumbs and struggles to send a text message can use them with ease. There are buttons on the back for mono or stereo, automatic recording levels, etc. Volume controls are on the side. In other words, you can do most things without scrolling through a menu on the LCD screen. Transfer of sound onto the laptop is a doddle. You plug it into the USB and it becomes an external disc. I just open up SoundForge on my computer and start editing away. I have a 2 Gig SD card so it holds several hours of audio.
And what about the quality? It records in mp3 or WAV, the latter being uncompressed and very high quality indeed. It’s 24 bit, which is ample. You might want more bits for recoding the Boston Philharmonic, but short of that it will do for most things. I find it works best with my microphone routed into the sound mixer via the Line In. When I plugged my Sure SM58 directly into the R-09 I got a certain amount of hiss. Not much, but discernible. Perhaps the impedance does not quite match (or some such technical guff). Edirol recommend buying one of their own external condenser mics, but they would say that, wouldn’t they. I might try a transformer. I would hate to buy yet another mic for out and about interviews, but it might come to that…
25. October 2006 at 18:26
Thanks. This was a really useful review. I have been circling around and trying to figure out if I need to buy this product.
I was curious to know how big this recorder was, and how much it weighed?
Thanks,
kamla
25. October 2006 at 20:06
Kamla
The Edirol weighs practically nothing when it doesn’t have the 2AA batteries in side. You would hardly notice it.
Size is about the same as a cigarette packet.
Not very scientific, but hope this helps.
28. March 2007 at 17:51
Just for the sake of clarity human beings
can’t hear beyond 22 bit dynamic range.
And orchestra’s are actually recorded with
24bit convertors, though your point was
taken….
the noise on r-09 is in its microphone
pre-amplifiers but if you keep the gain
on the r-09 to under 20 you should get very
good results.
If you record into the unit’s line in with
an external pre-amp or source the unit is
virtually silent!
28. March 2007 at 18:16
Thanks Nick that’s useful. I am getting very good results with pre-amp. I will try turning down the volume for recording out and about. Hugh
1. April 2007 at 07:54
i happen to think the r-09 is quite fetching in comparison to other similar recorders in the price range, like that m-audio thingy…of course if your the uppity type you could buy sony’s PCM-D1 for $1500 more…meh
great review by the by and by.
1. April 2007 at 07:59
does anyone know the sd card limits for the r-09, as in gigabyte wise?
…I have a 4, 2 & 1gb. the 1gb is for a printer, the 2gb is for my korg kp3, so I was hoping it was capable of using a 4gb card. thanks,
mrcvxxi
1. April 2007 at 08:33
I believe the limit is currently 2gb - though I read somewhere that there will be a firmware update do allow larger cards.
17. April 2007 at 12:17
So if I buy one of these, what size memory card comes with it ? I hear a 4MB card is now out. Any idea what these cost?
17. April 2007 at 12:41
It comes with a small memory card - not really worth it. I bought a 2 gig memory card from Amazon for 25 UK pounds - about 50 USD. Sorry, not seen the 4mb yet.
24. April 2007 at 05:13
I bought a R-09 now my chum says I sshould take it back and get a Boss Micro BR. All I want it for is recording jams and then playing back to learn or maybe dowloding onto my computer. What do you guys think ?
3. September 2007 at 23:04
With the latest firmware, the R-09 can support 8 GB cards, as long as they’re in the SDHC Class 2 family.
I know this because my 8 GB Kingston card works with it!
2. February 2008 at 18:03
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