Ran across some interesting news yesterday. Alesis is touting a soon-to-be-released product called the ProTrack, which makes an iPod into a portable field recorder. Supports 5G and Classic iPods and 2G/3G Nanos. Sounds exciting, key is $$$ ?
Here’s a good thread on Macintouch on the subject as well.
Alesis also has the IMM8USB 8 channel mixer with integrated iPod Dock, using the iPod as the final destination for the mixer.
Here’s another, taking a very unique approach to the matter – integrating it into a hand held mic. Way too rich for my blood though.
The HHB DRM85.
And I’ve enjoyed the Belkin TuneTalk Stereo as well.
Using this mic for direct speech recording, the AT ATR35S.
I concur with IHR’s analysis that the flash-based Nano’s provide much better results in regards to disk fragmentation (as it causes ’skipping’) with hard disk based iPods. I experienced the same with my 5G Video iPod. Also, for sound effects recording, or recording ambiance, you can hear the hard drive spin-up, so the Nano rules. And the processor feels faster on the (3G) Nano, more quickly going in and out of the dialogs for the voice recording screens.
Here are some recordings of thunder and ambiance using the TuneTalk Stereo on a 3G Nano. One, two, three, four.