HHB, a professional audio equipment manufacturer from the UK has shipped 10,000 of these wonderful mics, and with good reason, it’s portable, easy to use with no wires and has a built in flash memory that allows you to record on the go. This is a very nifty feature for podcasters who often do their work on-the-fly for what easier and lighter way to do a recording than with a flashmic that can store over 18 hours of uninterrupted audio for your compilation of materials that you can use for your podcast. The mic is durable enough for the rigors of portable recording and is easy enough to use without the need for a wire leading to the USB port on your laptop (tired recording impromptu on your laptop on-the-go). The mic comes with a preamp with automatic gain control making recordings nice and crisp and it has a nifty LCD display that tells you the time/length of your recording, sound levels and other status information.
Ease of use cannot be more simpler than plugging it into your USB port where it will automatically be treated as a USB mass storage device like any other flash drive. You also get a whole six hours of recording time on two AA alkaline batteries. Recording is done in a user selectable modes of either 32, 44. or 48kHz or if you prefer Mpeg 1 layer 2. It can also record into the much easy to edit wav format that includes a time stamp allowing easy tracing of your recordings. Ideal for beginners and experts alike who would love the high customization options which allows full control of the recording and the files themselves.
The software side has a manager software which allows the user to save settings on several pre-set modes, allowing you to pre-set modes and selecting them on the go allowing you to record at your set levels at the press of a button. There is also a normalized earphone jack which allows you to edit or hear your recordings as you scan them for quality with a firmware upgrade function built-in that can be used to upgrade the mics firmware as needed. There is also a free conversion software that allows you to convert your edited audio recordings to MP3 which is the favored format of choice due to high compression ratio’s.
The mic is a podcaster’s dream come true especially if you love live podcasts without the added weight of all your home studio (computer desk) equipment setup, they come in four models that are grouped into two types of either cardioid or omnidirectional recording abilities. Ideal for interviews and very convenient allowing easy recordings at the sound quality more expensive wired mics provide.

Originally posted on April 14, 2009 @ 9:04 am