mAudio’s Microtrack has proved to be the best mp3 recorder for sound, money and longevity
This week, I took our trusty old mAudio Microtrack I to record a Christmas Carol concert at St. Luke’s church in London. There was no fancy set up – just the natural ambient sound and the Microtrack with it’s little plug-in mic.
I recorded this in mp3 format, 44.1Khz at 192 bits. Since then, it’s been edited and recompressed as an mp3 and uploaded.
The machine is over two years old now and still giving great service. Occasionally it locks on saving a file but so far never loses the file it was saving. The battery was never great – so I velcro a 4xAA usb battery pack onto it. That gives me as much battery as I want to match the 33 hours of top quality mp3 recording.
It’s been a seriously good unit. It’s done seminars, conferences, outside broadcasts, podcasts, video soundtracks, panel discussions… you name it. So good, in fact, that I’ve not even been able to find a reason to buy the next generation Microtrack.
The original Microtrack had poor batteries and only supplied 30 volt phantom power (for those that need it). They have sorted that out in the Microtrack II but you can send your original machine back to have one of the new batteries fitted, they change the firmware at the same time to up the phantom volts to 48 (as it should be). This should give you much better recording time on the internal battery.
That’s good to hear, John – thanks for the comment. The battery in the Microtrack I is pretty poor – but for £6 I got a little USB-ended power pack which gives me endless power.
I’ve not yet tried the Microtrack II but I wouldn’t hesitate to buy it if/when I need another simply because the original is so good. I can even kick it off recording with one hand.
Ok, it takes a few seconds to load its software but that’s a small price to pay for a machine that will do anything from concert soloists (like the clip in my post) to interviewing and podcasting.
Good news about the phantom power (never used it on mine so far as I use either the built in mic or a pair of Rode NT3s with 9v power).