When Rebecca and I went to Kansas City this past summer, something happened with my mobile recording setup. By something, I mean the whole setup vanished. The 2G iPod nano, Belkin TuneTalk Stereo, windscreen, the nearly five year old pair of ear buds, and a sneaky lapel microphone that I never had a chance to try on the line input of the TuneTalk.
Gone. Poof. No trace, and I swear it made it all the way back to Vancouver with us. Probably one of my absolute favorite pieces of mobile recording gear that I have ever come across and the staple of both RadioZoom and The Crazy Canucks podcasts when things went mobile. It was heartbreaking to give up the search and declare all lost, if not stolen.
As I mentioned previously, I was able to replace the iPod nano with the most recent release of the 4th generation model. That was a happy day to have that apart of my daily commutes again, and the backlog of podcasts is something I’m still listening through.
Rebecca went to work and contacted Belkin about our plight. The fact is that we have been very outspoken about their TuneTalk Stereo accessory for the iPod, and I still stand by everything I’ve said about it.
It is true that it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that many audiophiles would like to have. The only functionality that you have is to record in stereo or mono, but the recordings were done in 44.1Khz, uncompressed WAV files. In plain English, that’s really good, high quality audio. It’s perfect for mobile voice recording like interviews or on location for events, and I’ve mentioned this numerous times when people ask me about the gear I use or the various speaking engagements that I’ve been apart of, such as Northern Voice or Net Tuesday.
So we were very fortunate to have this package arrive in the mail about a month or so ago.
Thanks to Belkin, we have a replaced the lost TuneTalk Stereo. Even better, it works with the 4G iPod nano.
I have yet to make many ventures with the device and really test it out, but preliminary tests have been impressive. You can hear some evidence of it in episode #68 of The Crazy Canucks. Listen for the organ at the beginning and the “secret track” at the end to get some samples of some live audio I captured at GM Place.
With hope, a new episode of RadioZoom will roll out soon. With this second chance to do some great recording, I have to really see what I can do with this sucker.
Thank you so much for this post! I just found out that my current mobile recording device (iRiver 790, w/ a Sony lapel mic) is no longer going to work to record my podcast because the software is no longer compatible w/ Mac OS X 10.5.6 🙁 I’m very bummed out as the quality that it gave me for 2 yrs was great.
I knew that this day would come and I figured that I would use a Nano and hoped (crossing fingers) that the Belkin Tune Talk would work with the Nano 4G, and you say it does! I’ve owned the Belkin Tune Talk since 2006 🙂 My question is, has the Tune Talk been updated since then? I hope my ‘old’ Tune Talk works with the Nano. So happy to hear that it seems to be working for you! Love it! I’m also a great fan of the Belkin Tune Talk, for it’s quality, but primarily for the ability to put in an external mic, as I teach during my podcast and need to have my voice be as clear as I can get it w/o being intrusive to my students.
Thanks again for sharing!
iPod nano is very good as a walkaround mp3 player. my only complaint is that the included headphones lack good bass. I replaced it with the Sennheiser CX-300 and the sound was awesome.
I’ve bought mine on http://www.ipodmicrophone.eu. Wich is way cheaper and probably even better.