As mentioned earlier in our article about consumer grade Olympus digital voice recorders, these higher end devices allow you to record in a highly compress format which means that – although it’s not the highest quality audio, allows doctors and surgeons to send smaller files via email or transfer to a different computer.

The very best of these Olympus digital voice recorders allow you to edit, search and organize files right on the device. You can also plug in separate devices that help make transcribing even easier. Foot controllers are one popular choice for the people that actually do the transcribing. This allows the transcriber to rewind and pause the recording without even taking their hands off the keyboard. For transcribers that get paid by the word or per transcription, this is a huge moneymaker. Since they are used daily for several hours at a time, these recorders are usually heavy duty and are able to withstand prolonged use (and abuse) .

Recorders like the Olympus DS-4000 are recommended for doctors, lawyers, reporters and pretty much anyone that requires massive amounts of recording time and daily prolonged use. This is especially true if it is essential for your job.

What makes the Olympus DS-4000 stand out among competitor models is it’s intuitive interface. Admittedly, some digital voice recorders are confusing and require clicking through several layers of options and configurations. It can hold almost 180 hours (!) of recording time – if you buy an additional memory card. It comes standard with a 32MB card but can be easily expanded up to 1GB. It has internal rechargeable batteries and has voice activation functionality built in. You can use the DS-4000 on both Macs and PC.

The Olympus DS-4000 has won many “best of” awards and comes highly recommended from experts across a wide range of professions.

If you are only recording voice for notes and maybe dictation, a basic digital recorder will suffice. But if you want to create podcasts, or record songwriting ideas, you might want to consider something with a wider frequency range and a higher bitrate. Some of the more expensive models can reduce background noise, and will automatically save in a common format like MP3 or WMA. If you are someone that does medical transcription, there are certain models that use compression formats that allow the file you recorded to be even smaller. This is good if you have to email files back and forth between a doctor and transcriber.

We’ll talk for just a moment about analog. You can still obtain Olympus microcassette recorders, which are even less expensive than the cheapest digital recorders. Again, if you are just doing simple note taking or listening to a college lecture, these will more than suffice. In fact if you want to buy an analog voice recorder there are often many used and new ones for sale in our voice recorder store.

The downside of analog is maintaining and labeling tapes, as well as having to fast forward and rewind to find spots you need. So if you do a lot of recording the Olympus digital voice recorders are your best bet. I like them because I can organize files on my computer and quickly rename them and file them away for future use. That’s how I use it for my songwriting. Some of the higher end voice recorders even allow you to tag files with keywords and that way you can find files easier down the road. Because they are made for voice recording they usually are higher quality recordings. They won’t sound thin or flat like they would on a cell phone or using an iPod accessory or something.

One thing you might want to seriously consider is if the digital voice recorder allows you to choose various settings of bitrate quality. Think of it like in the old VCR days when you could record in SP, EP, etc. With VCR tapes you could record longer, but the quality was not as good (i.e. the colors became more muted and the audio sounded thinner).

The same is true with a digital voice recorder. Allowing you to change the settings on the recorder can often help you adjust to unexpected situations. Perhaps a lecture goes long. Perhaps there is a discussion after a presentation which you would like to record. On a lower bitrate setting you would be able to capture the conversation and take it back home for transcribing. If it only had one high rate setting you might miss out on saving important statements form a conversation. Some recorders will give you up to six levels of quality, though you’ll most commonly find two or three settings.

All Olympus digital voice recorders let you save your files to a computer. By allowing you to do that you have the capabilities of emailing them to associates, uploading them to a website, transcribing them, labeling them and filing them on your hard drive and any number of additional uses.

The Lower End Digital Voice Recorders

If you are recording lectures in school, or recording interviews for a newspaper or media outlet, most of the time you can find a voice recorder that fits your needs for under $150.

One popular model is the Olympus 300 Series. Most of them are primarily voice recorders but also double as MP3 players. On this site, we have reviewed the WS-311M, the Olympus WS-321M (shown right), and the Olympus WS-320M.

Pretty much the only difference across each model is simply the amount of storage available. Most of the functionality is the same for each. All of the WS-300 series digital voice recorders have voice activation, so it will only record when people are speaking. This can save battery life as well as increase the amount of recording you can fit on one device.

You’re not allowed to edit files on any of the 300-series voice recorders, but you can move them over to your computer and manipulate the files in any number of free and low-priced audio editing programs. They export to your computer in WMA format which means they’ll work on any PC. You can also play them on Apple computers provided you have installed Windows Media Player for Mac.

New: Olympus upped the ante again. Check out our review of the Olympus VN 5200 PC

(Reprinted and edited for relevance with permission)

Capture Creative Ideas With Your Olympus Digital Voice Recorder

There is no denying digital tools are making inroads into the world’s personal listening (and now viewing) habits. Almost 15% of the world’s internet population is now subscribed to iTunes (Feb 2005). Most musicians today carry an iPod or some variation with them on the road. It is much easier than carrying a CD collection around.

Remarkably (but not surprisingly), iPod accessories and digital voice recorders are being released at a furious pace. Many of these can be taken advantage of by the songwriter to capture ideas.

If it is with you all the time – use the iPod or Olympus Digital Voice Recorder as your personal song idea recorder. There are several competing products out there today that provide voice recording capability on your iPod, and various digital voice recorders from Olympus to fit your needs and budget.

Currently I use a WS-321M Olympus Digital Voice Recorder. I used to use an iTalk with my iPod, but now I am exclusively using my Olympus.

When I want to listen through my impromptu recordings, I will put the memory stick from the Olympus Recorder into my laptop and migrate over the .WMA files. When I open them in iTunes it asks if I want to convert them to MP3. Of course I do.

The beauty is when I pull them into iTunes.

Melody Lines and Chord Progressions

If it was a chord progression I recorded I can add notes and chord progression in the “Properties” page of the audio clip. If I capoed my guitar, or if the chord progression was an open tuning, I’ll make a note of that here too.

After I have a handful of clips I’ll either (a) put them into an iTunes playlist or (b) burn the clips to CD to listen to while I drive my car.

This gives me a chance to come up with melodies, phrases, or whatever to accompany the audio clip. If I do, I also use the voice recorder to make audio notes of that.

Lyrics and phrases

If the audio clip I recorded was simply a lyric or phrase, with no implied melody, I will transfer it to my notebook when I am home and delete the clip from the iPod. I usually try to delete lyrics or phrases from all my capturing devices as soon as I get them to my notebook so I don’t have “lyric fragment clutter” (LFC). “LFC” is where you have tons of scraps of lyrics laying around and you don’t remember which ones you have captured to your master notebook or not.

There are many reviews of these devices at various places, like iLounge and Amazon.com. Find the Voice Recorder that works best for you.

Read our own review of the Olympus WS321M Digital Voice Recorder.