G7 sound recorder - surprisingly good

[puttick]

I suspect not many G7 owners have really explored this feature. It is not just for voice memo, it can deliver a surprising degree of fidelity for music. Set at 44.1 kHz, though mono obviously, and using only the inbuilt mic, I have recorded two national-standard choirs that my daughters sing in. When these wav files are burnt to CD, they are perfectly listenable with astonishingly good quality for a "free" feature. There is a propensity for the mic to pick up nearby sounds, unsurprisingly. If you leave it set on auto mic, loud music can cause distortion - but you can set the sensitivity manually. If there is no natural background noise, the auto gain creates a slight echo-ey hum but it's not really objectionable and is masked when the music starts.

A huge benefit is that nobody realises you have a sound recorder - a real stealth feature. They don't even think you're using the camera.

Ideally I'd like to EQ the bass up a little and the treble down a touch before burning, but haven't worked out how to do this yet (trying Audacity).

Try it - you'll be pleasantly surprised.

[ph.viny]

The drawback in G7 sound recording is that it is in wav, I would really prefer mp3 like my old casio exilim. mp3 files are at least 10 times smaller, allowing you to record 10 times more stuff.

[puttick]

2 hours per file not enough? And several times that on the card? Most would have at least a 2Gb card in the camera.

You can burn direct to CD at full quality, no resampling. or convert to mp3 later, very easily.

I suspect the Casio used mp3 because of memory restrictions, now a thing of the past.

Cheers
Nigel

[dhigbee]

I've just ordered a G7, simply for the better sound quality. I've tried 2 different SD700s, and the audio on the video recordings was simply terrible. I'm hoping that the G7 will be better. One of the main attractions of these cameras is the ability to take videos, and leave the camcorder at home. The terrible audio of the mini SD700 negates that for me.

Dana

[Ripskin]

I havnt messed with just the audio features. But I was very surprised when I heard the overall quality off a video.

[puttick]

I've just made a 55 minute CD of the National Youth Training Choir of Great Britain performing in Tewkesbury Abbey. Obviously I had to edit somewhat to remove applause, announcements etc and produce continuity. I use Feurio for that, then burn to CD. The result is perfectly listenable and better than anything I made in my student days with a Uher Reporter reel-to-reel and expensive microphones (which cost around £1000 in 1975). The fantastic acoustic of the abbey helped, but the dynamic range was immense and the G7 coped very well. Nobody knew I was recording (my daugher was singing), I just held the camera in my lap.

When I bought the G7 I didn't even know it could do this. I would keep it even if I didn't take photos with it!

Nigel

[dhigbee]

This is good news. I hope the one I've ordered has similar audio quality to yours, Nigel. I hadn't actually planned to use it to record music, although I am a musician. Originally, all I was concerned with was the audio quality on videos.

[dhigbee]

Just received my G7. It does have a background hiss in the audio, whether I set the levels on auto or manual. It's a less objectional hiss however than the SD700, which sounds distorted and uneven. It is not related to the zoom or image stabilization.