Advice Sought: Digital audio recording devices

[lazyhour]

Now, what I want is a digital recording device (preferably under £120) which can record nice-quality audio (via microphone) and upload said audio to a PC (via USB?).  The obvious answer is obviously "google," obviously, but I was wondering if any 'Whores have a recommendation for this kind of thing?

Can you upload audio from these newfangled NetMDs to PC, or only the other way 'round?

And advice would be much appreciated.

[Gazeuse]

I take it you need a portable thing which is why you're not going directly into the PC.

Have a look at www.madplayer.com . It can record at 44.1kHz and you can then upload the .wav file via the software that comes with it. A word of warning though...The mike input is a mini jack, unbalanced and no phantom power and you're limited to a max of 128Meg on a flash card which you'll need to get as an extra. I'm pretty sure that the mike input is stereo.

That's not it's primary function though...It's a generative music composer with a built in synth. Basically, you press a button and it comes up with a unique track in a preselected style.

It's really good fun...I believe it's about a hundred quid.

[lazyhour]

Great, thank you.  I'll go have a peek at the website.

Any other possibilities.  I want to make field recordings and stitch them into my compositions on the 'puter.

[didgeripoo]

A friend of mine uses a little MiniDisc recordable walkman thing for his field recordings and it's not too bad. We used it the other day to record some vinyl hisses and glitches. Can't upload via USB though. And I'm not sure how much they cost these days.

Erm, not sure what else you could use....be interested to see what other people come up with to be honest, I could do with a portable doo-dah myself.

[lazyhour]

God, I've been hunting and hunting on the interweb, and nothing appropriate seems to be coming up.  About the only non-$500+ devices which will upload your audio are crappy 'voice'-quality dictaphone things.

Grr.  And it looks like Net MD will only upload to the player, not to the computer.

didgeripoo, how does your friend capture the MD output to his computer?  Is there any significant loss of quality?  And how high-quality are MD recordings anyway?  Is there no hiss?  Did you use a mic or did you connect the record player directly into the MD recorder?

Answers, people!

Edit (21st Feb 2006): Gosh, I was so young back then.  So full of questions.  *wipes away tear*