I'm looking for a compact and simple box for live recording to WAV (uncompressed), either line-in or optical. I'd like to record in excess of 2 hours in a single session. VU recording meters are important (else, how do you confirm your connections are good ?) Ability to store lots of recordings and play back in my favorite compressed format (Ogg Vorbis) would be a nice bonus.

There are some boxes out there which "sort of" do this, but most appear to be designed for playback, and recording was an afterthought. In particular, most don't seem to include a recording level meter, which is extremely important if you care about your recording! Additional user-interface bonus: good if it was designed for rugged use and didn't suddenly stop recording if you accidentally touch some obscure button, or throw away your whole recording if you don't enter the right filename afterwards, etc. but that may be a vain hope with current consumer hardware. Anyway, I currently know about:

Nomad Jukebox 3 (no level meter?)
iRiver iHP-120 (no meter? stops recording WAV at 795 MB ?)
Core Sound PDAudio-CF (complex, pricey, requires separate PDA)

Can anyone offer suggestions? Anyone do live recording with gear like this?

I currently use a HHB MDP-500 "pro" minidisc recorder which works fine, I'm just looking for longer record times than it can provide, plus ability to do playback from a library of recordings. Uncompressed recording would be a bonus, although I really have no complaints about the MD quality.

I think that foobar2000 would do the job. It has a record function and will record to WAV/PCM. Just plug your stereo input into the line-in.

Thanks for the reply, I guess you're referring to this (?) http://www.foobar2000.org/index.html
I wasn't aware it did recording since I didn't see that feature listed on their web page.

Anyway what I was hoping for was a compact and portable hardware solution for record and playback, without needing to bring an entire laptop along. The laptop solution works but it is big, heavy, has short battery life, and in my opinion it is not really optimized for field recording as far as controls and user interface.

The Nomad Jukebox 3 has a level meter, although it's practically worthless.

As far as MP3 players that record, you mentioned the Jukebox. Two more I'm aware of are the Neuros Digital Audio Computer and the Archos Jukebox Recorder (I believe both lack VU meters). You could also go with a DAT recorder, which may be expensive, but most are designed for this type of recording and have appropriate accessories.

Thanks for the link to the Neuros, I didn't know about that one. According to the below post on their user forum, it does indeed have a volume level meter (at least with the latest firmware).

http://www.neurosaudio.com/community/forum...p?TOPIC_ID=1174

When recording with the built in mic, you can only use +0dB or +20dB gain. There is also a large amount of background electronic noise that is picked up with the internal mic. This basically makes the internal mic only useful for stuff like quick voice recordings.

From line-in, however, you can go from -12dB to +12dB gain in 1dB increments, which can be changed live. In 1.40, you can record at 8kHz, 44.1kHz, or 48kHz (16-bit samples) raw PCM (well, encapsulated in a RIFF-WAV, but now I'm being a bit too pedantic). I made a recording from my Behringer UB1622FX mixer using my Shure SM58 and the quality of the recording was excellent (at least to my untrained ears). There are stereo level meters and a monitor signal is output to the headphone jack while recording. It's pretty basic, but it works well if you just want to record stuff and then copy it onto a computer for further processing.

FWIW the new SONY is supposed to be able to record PCM on a MD.

You might want to ask in these forums. A lot of these guys record live shows on portable hardware for redistribution.

Yep, the new Hi-MD minidiscs do offer PCM recording live to disc, and without encryption, plus uninhibited uploading to a PC. If you use the new 1 Gb media, this would get you just under 2 hours per disc.

If you do choose this route, you do need to get the right recorder, as some of them offer the uploading/downloading without the live recording feature. Most of them are yet to be released so you may also need to wait a month or so.

Dennis.