Giant Squid is a brand. Just do a search for Giant Squd microphone. I think that price is a little high.

Mike

You can get the Giant Squid mic's from here:
http://www.giant-squid-audio-lab.com/gs/gs-mono1.htm

Be sure to get the ones designed specifically for the iRiver since the mic input on the iRiver is unique. This allows you to record mono (all voice is mono anyway) thereby doubling the amount of time you can record on an iRiver.


Here's an Ebay link for someone I am told is reputable - don't take my word for it though:
http://cgi.ebay.com/iRIVER-iFP-795-5...QQcmdZViewItem

Regards

Jeremy

Joe, I use the iRivers for ceremony's and have never yet had a problem. The audio quality is good and is clean.

Use in conjuction with a Giant Squid omni, you can't go wrong. The units are extremely small and will easily fit into any shirt or jcket pocket.

You start the record, "lock" the record and you're set to go. A iRiver 795 will give you about seven hours recording in mono which is more than sufficient for ceremony's.

I mic the officiant and groom about 15min to 1/2 hour before the event and don't worry about them till after the event.

I sometimes also place one on the podium. I started using these specifically after encountering freq problems with venue equipment and if I do, I can kill the Senny and have still got my audio on the iRiver and from my shotgun

you can get the 799 for less than 100$ here
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=9709664214

while 60$ for the 795 is even better if you do not need more than 10 hours of recording.

just check the firmeare version when you receive it.
The UMS firmware is great because it lets you use the iriver like an USB key, but unfortunately it limits the recording to very low quality.
You can revert to the non-ums firmware at any time to get back full recording capability.

additionally, you can store some piece of music on it so, sometime you can provide some song (national anthems , well known wedding music, ambiance music) to the party if needed.

In light of all the options into recording audio...just remember...would you like to have your wedding vows and speaches (weddings aren't do over events) be captured on a iriver or by a high grade wireless system....just something to ponder on.

the wireless system is a lot better and should be the first solution( i use the sony UWPC-1), but you would feel a lot better if you know there is a backup system (anyhow cheap it is) somewhere.

I'm curious to know about this UMS firmware:

1. What exactly is UMS firmware?

2. I saw that the website has firmware upgrades -- so would it be a mistake to upgrade?

Thanks for any info you can give me.

rgb

Rob--Check and see what improvements, if any, you'll be getting with the firmware updates. Personally, I would NOT go with the UMS firmware if it limits the sound quality choices because using the highest bitrate in mono (160kbps) gives you recordings good enough to use as additional inputs to a good wireless system. Any lower would bring it down into an unacceptable range, at least to me. Wedding I did on Saturday--Azden UHF channel one wireless lav on groom, second channel handheld for speakers and singer, one iriver/giant squid combo on each pastor (they had two). At 44khz,160kbps settings the iriver mp3s sounded really good. Don't think I'd care to go much lower. Besides, the IRiver Manager software works perfectly well for transferring and converting the files onto your hdd. What would be the reason to downgrade the sound quality just to use it as a usb key? If you need a usb key, pick up a 1gig for next to nothing...if you wanted to, you could use the IRiver to store any kind of files with the Manager software.

While I was a little annoyed by the manager aspect, no, I don't think it's worth sacrificing sound quality for convenience.

I will use a short 2 foot squid lav mic and scotch tape it all the way up the podium mic . It doesn't pick up the rustling papers.

This may be helpful: Something I downloaded many moons ago. I did not realize at the time I had not copied the author;'s name.


Upon initial use, hold down the record button (far right of top three buttons) until you get the 4 selections to choose from (Mp3-Radio-Voice-Line in). Select "Line In"

Timer (manual section 5-17)

- Sleep power off - OFF / Beep OFF
- Stop Power off - 60 min

Control - (manual section 5-22)

- Line in recording mode:
Mono
44.1KHz
160 Kbps

Stereo
44.1 KHz
320 Kbps

- Line In Rec Volume: 45 (Giant Squid Mic) 50 (MT830 mic) 50-55 (Azden 503)

- Line In Auto Sync: OFF

- Line In / Ext Mic: EXT MIC

***SETUP***

1. Connect mic to line-in jack
2. Set line in rec mode as above (SETTINGS)
3. Press and HOLD "Mode/Rec" button
4. Select Line-In mode
5. Press "Nav/Menu" button to go to PAUSED record mode
6. Press REC
7. Engage the LOCK!

***STOPPING***

1. Unlock
2. Press "Mode/Rec" button
3. Press and HOLD the STOP button

Expected record times based on 512 Mb model (256 will be half...1Gb will be double the record time below)
In mono:
44hz 32kbps = 35 hours: 31 minutes
" " 40kbps = 28 Hours: 25 minutes
" "" 48kbps = 23 hours: 21 minutes
" " 56kbps = 20 hours: 18 minutes
" " 64kbps = 17 hours: 45 minutes
" " 80kbps = 14 hours: 12 minutes
" " 96kbps = 11 hours: 50 minutes
" " 112kbps = 10 hours: 09 minutes
" " 128kbps = 8 hours: 52 minutes
" " 160kbps = 7 hours: 06 minutes

In Stereo:
44hz 64kbps = 17 hours: 45 minutes
" " 80kbps = 14 Hours: 12 minutes
" "" 96kbps = 11 hours: 50 minutes
" " 112kbps = 10 hours: 09 minutes
" " 128kbps = 8 hours: 52 minutes
" " 160kbps = 7 hours: 06 minutes
" " 192kbps = 5 hours: 55 minutes
" " 224kbps = 5 hours: 05 minutes
" " 256kbps = 4 hours: 26 minutes
" " 320kbps = 3 hours: 33 minutes

Links to external microphones for the iRiver:

Giant Squid
MT830
Azden 503
Sennheiser e604


The Sennheiser e604 has been successfully used by many to capture audio from the DJ's PA stack. This cardoid instrument mic is designed to handle very high sound pressure levels. To connect to the iRiver, you may use a Mono XLR to Dual Mono 1/8 and record in stereo or XLR to 1/8" male with the "+" of the mic connected to the the ring to record in mono

The source of this information would be Mark Foley and Doug Graham, both artful wedding videographers who know their stuff:

http://videouniversity.com/iriver.shtml

Actually, the source (except the section on the recording times) is me, in a post from August 6th 2005:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=dummies

But, of course, the source is really the iRiver manual which I used to make my little cheat sheet for a wedding.

:-)

Then a personal thank you to you John for delving into the iRivers. They work perfectly for me with all this info.

I have a couple of iRivers I currently use for back-ups for my Senn G2 and for podium recording. I've been wanting to try them out on the church or DJ's sound board but, frankly, have no clue on how to do this correctly.

If anyone is successfully using an iRiver to capture sound from a mixer board, please share your settings/technique and how you do the hook up.

My apologies in advance if this has been covered elsewhere. Thanks for any help.

Kevin