TASCAM HD-P2

TASCAM HD-P2

The HD-P2 from Tascam is now shipping apparently...supposed to be a lot cheaper than Marantz. I like the look of the display.

Transom Review M-Audio Microtrack 24/96

Transom Tools: M-Audio Microtrack 24/96: "The M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 "

Despite promises, the M-Audio track is not available in the Netherlands at the moment. It would appear they are feeding customer requirements in the US and UK first. I have given up trying to review this model in 2005. The link above is to one of the best in depth reviews I have seen so far. I am told there IS now a firmware upgrade allowing mono recording without having to make up a special lead.

Farewell, DAT. - Minidisc Community Forums

The MiniDisc Community forum posts this technical announcement from Sony in Novemer 2005 saying that Sony Japan has apparently phased out production of DAT, and also noting the workhorse TCD-D100 model will no longer be produced after December 05. Sony will continue to offer repairs and blank media...but for how long?

Livesupport Nears Completion of First Stage

Radio is still the most powerful method of disseminating news and educational material to disadvantaged groups and in areas with high poverty, fragile technological infrastructure, and/or instability. But while radio is extremely effective, the tools available to most community stations are very limited in function. The LiveSupport project, based in Prague, seeks to address this by giving stations an open source, end-to-end solution for managing a radio station.


LiveSupport is the first free and open radio management software that provides live studio broadcast capabilities as well as remote automation in one integrated system. They have also understood that such software is worthless unless it is backed by support - and a simple way to maintain it. I've been impressed by the first betas, all of which are posted on the website
As in all Campware products, LiveSupport software is language independent: virtually everything in the user interface can be translated into any language using Unicode. Multilinguality is implemented on all levels of the user interface as well as for the metadata for audio files in the storage system.

LiveSupport has been designed for a Linux environment, but it was built it on top of standard, cross-platform classes. Such an architecture allows for easy porting of LiveSupport to different operating systems in the future.

In short, expect interesting developments in this sector from these guys in the first quarter of 2006.

Past the 500 Reactions - Thanks

Just to say thanks for the feedback already received on the Podcast recorder survey. I didn't realise people were so passionate about having better recording equipment. It is a real shame that the audio recording quality on the iPod is deliberately crippled (presumably to stop bootlegging at concerts). In the meantime, Numark has released what it calls "iDJ" which is a 2-channel mixer that enables mobile DJs and iPod enthusiasts to seamlessly integrate their portable music libraries with other music systems—transforming the iPod from a personal music player into a source playback device.