[LAU] [OT] Open Source Portable Recorder?

[Len Ovens]

On Sun, January 6, 2013 5:57 am, Johannes Kroll wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> This is kind of off-topic here but I thought if there is such a thing,
> some of you guys might know.
>
> I'm looking for an audio recorder where the firmware and/or the
> hardware is hackable. Ideally, this would be similar to the Tascam
> DR-05 in price and features, but with free/libre firmware and hardware.
> Maybe someone knows of such a project?
>
> Alternatively, is any of the "closed" devices such as the Tascam DR-XX
> known to have modifiable firmware?

The price point would be the hard part. Any of the open hardware projects
I have seen are more expensive than the closed projects, just because they
are small and don't have the price cuts of large scale manufacture. The
Open Moco is a great example in the smart phone world (one of the few that
got to a usable/buyable product). And may actually work for you... though
I don't know that it has stereo in.

What I would suggest is to take something like the dr ($60 is cheap) for
the case, mics and display and add one of the small open general purpose
mother boards that are around. The gumstix or something similar would fit
the case... there may even be an atom based board that would fit.... or
would fit in a box not much bigger. The question would be how much time do
you personally want to send hacking? (hardware hacking) How much can you
spend? The computer swapout alone would more than double the price.

As for hacking the unit itself, the first question is why. Not so much why
you want to, but why would others want to. Before something gets the
firm/software hacked there generally needs to be a reason at least a few
people want to do so. Some extra functionality that is obvious (the smart
phone has so much locked functionality it is frustrating so there are lots
of hacks). The dr already seems to me to anything I would think of using
it for,



-- 
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net