A Pocket Full of Storage
Over the past few years in the pages of FOH, we’ve had more than a passing discussion of digital recording technology. We examined the in-creased demand for live recordings (December 2006), the nature of digital data delivery (January 2007), and the use of optical technology for digi-tal audio transfer (September 2007). In fall of 2006, FOH reviewed the Sony PCM-D1 Linear PCM Recorder, a hand-held stereo digital recorder with a built in XY pair of condenser microphones intended for location recording. The PCM-D1 has the ability to capture linear 16- or 24-bit audio at sample rates from 22.05 kHz to 96 kHz into nonvolatile RAM. Using its 4 GB internal RAM, recording times range from 2 to 13 hours, depend-ing upon sample rate and bit depth, and recording time can be expanded by adding a Memory Stick. You can connect the PCM-D1 to your com-puter via USB, and it shows up on your desktop as a storage device. Note that the words “hard drive” are not mentioned anywhere in a discussion of the PCM-D1.