5 Tips For Getting Pro Quality Recordings With Your Portable Audio Recorder

1) Start with a professional digital audio recorder. This doesn't mean you have to spend thousands of dollars, but you can't expect to get good results from a toy handheld dictation recorder. Your recorder should, at a minimum, record the full frequency spectrum (20Hz - 20kHz), use popular file and media formats, and have good quality microphones and preamps.

2) Record at the highest quality possible. The settings available will depend on which digital sound recorder you are using, but you should try to record uncompressed WAV files at the highest sample rate available. This should be at least 16-bit/48kHz and possibly up to 24-bit/96kHz for better-than-CD quality. Recording at the highest definition will use more space on the SD card or whatever storage format your recorder uses, but you can always erase the unwanted files. If you start with the highest quality recordings, you can compress and edit the files later if you want to convert to MP3, upload to the internet, or conserve hard drive space. But you can't increase the quality once it has been recorded, so start with the highest quality.

3) Use high quality microphones. Most of the top-rated handheld digital recorders have very good microphones built-in to the recorder. These onboard mics are more than adequate for most recording applications. If you have a recorder you like but the onboard microphones are not the best sounding, check and see if there are microphone input jacks for using an external microphone. You can rent or purchase a professional quality mic for times when you need pro quality sound. You can also use these mic inputs jacks for connecting a boom microphone or a lavaliere mic if you are recording for video production.

4) Set the record levels correctly. You should always check your input levels before you begin recording. Whether you are recording music, speech, nature, or whatever the sound source is, look at the record level meter and adjust the input levels so your portable recording isn't too quiet or too loud. If the record level is set too low, the signal-to-noise ratio will be high and you will hear lots of noise in your recording. If the record level is set too high, the sound will overdrive the microphone preamps and you will hear distortion on your recording. Try to set the record levels so you get the highest level without the meters ever going into the red or over the zero mark. Anything over zero on a digital recording will result in distortion and an unusable sound recording.

5) Don't get fancy. Some portable digital recorders have built-in effects and other features which can be used to alter the recorded sound. It is usually best to record "dry" or without any effects. If you record at the highest quality possible, you can always edit your recordings and add compression, eq, reverb, or whatever you want to use later. But if you apply the effects during the recording, you can't un-do the effect. So it's better to record dry and add effects later if needed.