Roland R-05 [Review]

September 1, 2010 By

Roland R-05 audio recorderThe Roland R-05 is a versatile beast… an audio recorder and player with the capacity to loop audio, alter the playback speed without changing the pitch, auto-start and split songs. There’s loads to this device and I’m grateful to Roland UK for loaning me one to test. I want to concentrate on how the R-05 could be used by podcasters, so it’s the recording ability I’ll be looking at today.

The R-05 is a nicely sized handheld recorder with a stereo microphone, SD card slot for expandable storage, and simple controls that should have you up and running with little or no reference to the manual (always a good thing). I was surprised at how light it was but the batteries add enough weight to make it feel sturdy in your hand.

I realise podcasts, and other recordings, take place in all sorts of places. I tried the R-05 in several different scenarios, to get an idea of how it performed in each:

  • A quiet room at home: I set the R-05 down and spoke directly at it. The sound quality was excellent, even allowing for the fact that I hate the sound of my own voice when played back! It picked me up perfectly from a distance of one and a half to two metres, and even managed to cope with the occasions when I decided to wander round as I talked. The R-05 certainly works well as home studio recorder.
  • In the car: The car is a challenging place to record. There’s engine and tyre noise, traffic, all sorts of clicks and squeaks and, in my situation, two small children in the back seat. So to try out how the Roland R-05 would do in a car interview, I recorded my wife and me having a conversation. I have to say, the effect here is actually really good. I got the engine noise in the background, all those little sounds, and the occasional interruption from the children. All that served to give some good ambience to the recording but, crucially, the main conversation sat nicely in the mix and was very easy to pick up.
  • Outdoor ambient: I just wanted to see whether I could collect some ambient sound that could be used as a background. So I headed out to the main road and recorded a few minutes of cars and people passing. Other than a few odd looks and having to up the recording level a bit, the experience was pain free and resulted in a good recording.
  • Recording in a crowd: Interviews and cosy chats sometimes happen in crowded places, so I wanted to see how the Roland R-05 would handle recording in crowded conditions. A trip to a coffee shop and a quick chat with a friend yielded another recording with plenty of ambience. The background noise can be a bit intrusive, but it’s pretty much a case of realising if the background is annoying in real life it’ll be annoying on the recording too. Sitting the recorder in the middle of a conversation also yields a wide stereo effect which you will have to watch if you’re planning a podcast: I’ve known people complain before because they listened to a podcast by sharing earphones with a friend… and each person only got one side of the conversation.

How do I get the audio onto my computer?

The R-05′s headphone playback sounds great, but you’ll want to get the audio onto a computer at some point. Just plug it in with the provided USB cable and it mounts as a flash drive containing WAV files. You can then just copy the files over to edit with your favourite software. Nice and simple.

Conclusion

I’ve been really impressed with the Roland R-05. It’s simple to use, performs well in a variety of situations, and sounds good throughout. I can see this being a top-notch device for podcasters, and I haven’t even started on using it as an audio player, or music rehearsal tool. If you’re in the market for a portable recorder, the R-05 is well worth a look.

The Roland R-05 is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Filed Under: Media, Tech Tagged With: , ,

Doctor Who Adventure Games: City of the Daleks

June 7, 2010 By

The first of the BBC’s Doctor Who Adventure Games is out and, if you’re in the UK, you can download it for free from the Doctor Who microsite. It’s currently available for PC, with the Mac version coming on the 15th of June.

I played it through on Saturday night (well, it was that or watch Britain’s Got Talent) – so what’s it like?

The story is that The Doctor and Amy arrive in London in 1963 but all is not at it should be. Instead of exploring a swinging city they discover the entire planet has been taken over by Daleks and most (possibly all) of humanity wiped out. So begins a session of sneaking past Dalek patrols, solving point and click puzzles, and navigating maze mini-games. As you proceed through the story you’ll depart from Earth and explore Skaro, the Daleks’ home planet, to find out how they’ve altered time and find a way to put it back.

The story’s not bad, actually. You should be able to get through the entire game in an hour or so, so don’t expect it to be an in-depth epic, but since this is meant to be an official part of the series we can assume the story explains why Amy didn’t recognise the Daleks in Victory of the Daleks. It does feel kind of like a television episode, but with you playing your part instead of just watching while it happens in front of you.

My computer (I was playing it on a laptop) failed the compatibility test because the processor is slower than required, but all that happened was the graphics were turned down to “medium”. At that level the graphics were acceptable. The characters were well recognisable and the Daleks still looked good. Actually, one of the effects of playing City of the Daleks is that I feel better about the new tutti-frutti Daleks than I did on their first appearance. They initially seemed totally ridiculous, but now I’ve seen them a bit more they aren’t so bad.

So the graphics were good enough, but the sound was better. The musical score is just wonderful. Matt Smith and Karen Gillan both lend their voices to the game, although I think you can tell they haven’t done video game voicing before. They seem a little unnatural, but once again I came back to the fact that I got this game for free… if you don’t count my TV Licence fee.

I did, very much, enjoy exploring the Dalek city of Kaalann. It was nice, in a strange way, to see the Emperor again, but surrounded with new style Daleks. I was a bit confused, though, about something called the Eye of Time. This is apparently a space/time event that the Time Lords harnessed… which sounds very similar to the Eye of Harmony, a black hole the Time Lords harnessed to give them the energy for their time travel experiments. Have the Who team decided to just change stuff without thinking anyone would notice? Or are they just calling everything the “Eye of xxxxxxx” these days? Dunno – but I kept thinking there had been a mistake somewhere along the way.

Oh yeh, I nearly forgot to mention the controls. Most of the control is by mouse, although keyboard alternatives also exist. The stealth/sneaking/hiding sections worked well, while the point and click puzzles tended to be a case of opening the inventory and using x on y. The maze mini-games were a bit tricky with a laptop trackpad, as I tried to guide a small item around a maze where touching the walls would result in failure. The controls are obviously as simple as possible to allow children easy access to the game, and generally they work well. There are just a few moments when you wish they were more precise.

In general, though, City of the Daleks is a good effort. It’s excellent for a free game, and great fun for Doctor Who fans. I think if I weren’t a fan I’d have lost interest, and if I had paid for it I would maybe be a bit miffed at how short it is, but I enjoyed playing it through. If you’re in the UK, head on over to the Doctor Who site and grab the game – don’t expect a super-high quality product, but do expect to have a bit of fun.

I’m looking forward to the next episode already. How about you?

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Ghostbusters [xbox360 review]

January 26, 2010 By

I’ve been enjoying a bit of a Ghostbuster renaissance lately, all started off by playing the demo of the Ghostbusters game on Xbox Live. I ended up downloading the movie from iTunes* and loved re-watching it. It was the first film I ever saw. Well, most of it. My mum would cover my eyes at the scary bits so I missed a fair bit of the storyline!

In true geek style, I also decided to see whether you can get replica Proton Packs. You can, but they cost around £1000!

But anyway, this is supposed to be a review of the Ghostbusters game on xbox360, so let’s get on with it.


Watch on YouTube

Ghostbusters sees you, as a new recruit, being shown the ropes of busting when a huge paranormal event takes place and pretty much throws you in at the deep end. Your induction takes a back seat and you’re straight out doing what the Ghostbusters do best! It’s a great start to the game. When I play something new I need to be shown how to play (does anyone ever read the game manual?) but also want to get to the good stuff as quickly as possible. Ghostbusters manages to do both very well, moving quickly from introduction to on-the-job training.

The game mechanics are pretty simple. Some ghosts can simply be destroyed by shooting them. Some are susceptible to the different types of beam your proton pack can produce, and you’ll find out their particular weakness by scanning them with your PKE meter. By far the most fun, though, are the ghosts you must trap in the “traditional” way… weakening them by any means possible, then getting a capture stream on them. Stun your target by slamming them into walls, floor or ceiling and then get them into the ghost trap. I absolutely loved this and was a wee bit disappointed by the number of ghosts that you could defeat without trapping them.

There are some brilliant set-piece moments throughout the game, like battling the Marshmallow Man, and quite a few jumpy moments too. I’ll admit that I’m not good with scary games but the horror in Ghostbusters fits with the film’s comedy genre… it’s jumpy but ultimately not going to give you nightmares.

Ghostbusters is fun to play whether you’re a fan of the films or not, but I have to say that if you are a fan it adds an extra nostalgic angle that makes it brilliant. I kept firing the proton stream just to hear the sound and it was great to be able to play at being a Ghostbuster, even just for a little while.

My recommendation? This one’s a buy it!

Ghostbusters is available from Amazon.com* and Amazon.co.uk*

*affiliate link

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Release your inner race driver with Formula 1: 2009 [Wii]

January 18, 2010 By

I still remember one of my best Christmas presents of recent years… a chance to drive a single-seater race car round Knockhill circuit in Scotland [photo]. I love Go-Karting, and watching races almost as much as driving. Often when I watch the Formula 1 Grands Prix I think how great it would be to have a go in an F1 car.

Well, I’m not quite there, and playing Formula 1:2009 on the Nintendo Wii is probably about as close as I’m going to get. Don’t take that as a complaint, though, because F1:2009 is a great game!

There’s something about driving around the circuits I’ve seen on the TV so many times that’s just amazing, seeing the same views as you would from the camera pod, finally understanding how the circuit fits together, and racing alongside all the cars I recognise from this season.

There are several options for going racing: a quick start will let you jump in a car on any track and choose to take the place of one of the current F1 drivers, giving you the chance to drive your favourite team’s car straight away. You can opt to play a full race weekend, from practice through to the race itself. Or you can try to aim for the championship over one season or three… building up your reputation and skill as you go. The options are many – plenty to keep F1 fans busy! I certainly understand a little of how drivers must feel during qualifying now, wondering whether that lap you put in will be enough to get you through to the next session or if someone’s about to come and knock you off your spot.

There are a few oddities to be noted, though. Firstly, all cars have KERS. Secondly there’s little indication of the dominance of the Brawns or the terrible start of the McLarens, all the cars seem to be around equally competitive.

I think this highlights a problem with this sort of game: we all know how the 2009 season went. Brawn started well but tailed off (although they had enough of a headstart to win overall). McLaren started poorly but got better. Massa was knocked out (literally) part way through the season, and not every team opted to use KERS even though they were allowed to. Codemasters, of course, couldn’t know all of that when they published the game… even if they had restricted who was on KERS the teams kept changing their minds! And could you remove a character from a game halfway through because of real-world injury, or would that just be insensitive?

None of that is a serious concern, though, because it’s all about the skill of the player and the enjoyment of taking part in your favourite sport, even if only digitally.

One thing I struggle with, and I’m not sure if it’s because the Wii controller isn’t attached to a steering column, is that I find it quite hard to steer! I’ve found the same thing with driving games on the iPhone too. I often over-correct at corners, although I’m getting better with practice.  I’m glad to know I’m not the only one having difficulties though – Chris Garrett mentioned on Twitter that “the tracks and cars make you feel like you are there even if crashing a lot doesn’t ;)”

That pretty much sums up my experience of the game. It does a great job of capturing the feel of F1… the races, the tension of qualifying, and being able to drive around the tracks I’ve watched others navigate so often are all fantastic! But, my goodness, I spend a lot of time in the barriers. Better get some practice in then.

F1:2009 is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com (affiliate links). Check out Codemasters for more information.

Have you played F1:2009? What did you think about it? Share any tips or even just tell us your favourite track in the comments.

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On the hunt for good value web hosting

January 14, 2010 By

Post image and thumbnail by Mayhem
This is a paid post – what does that mean?

If you do any kind of business on the Internet, or even if you just maintain a personal or hobby site, you’re going to want decent web hosting. It’s a fine balancing act between paying for high reliability and features and, well, not paying so much that you end up being unable to afford hosting at all!

I’ve always thought that the best way of finding a good host is by word of mouth: the host I use for this site is one I was introduced to by a friend. Now that I think of it, the hosts I used for my previous sites too were also ones I was told about by people I trust.

What if you don’t have anyone who can give you a reliable recommendation though? Or what if all you’re getting from your friends is, “Don’t use my host, they’re terrible”?

4CheapWebHosting profiles over four hundred Cheap Web Hosting packages, ranging from 99 cents (US) per month to well over a hundred dollars. If you don’t want to incur foreign transaction fees you can always use the power search to find a host that operates in your local currency (and who will most likely be located in your own country too).

What about that balancing act between price and quality though? Each hosting package has a rating based on “value”. Value is assigned to each host on a sort of PageRank scale… a host is given a base value depending on the number of people linking to it, and then a further rating depending on the features offered in each particular package. While this means every host is treated the same, it would be nice to see some way for users to rate their own host depending on their experiences. Without that feature, I would be tempted to see 4cheapwebhosting as a starting point when searching for a host, rather than a definitive review site. In other words, I’d still want to see some actual user reviews before going with my chosen host.

One more annoyance is that there are a fair few spelling mistakes, or misuses of words (for instance, “Less then $20″ instead of less than). That doesn’t affect the validity of the data, obviously, but it does affect the professional image of the site.

Having said all that, this is a good place to start when looking for a web host. It’ll give you the lay of the land as to some of what’s available, an idea of prices and, with the value rating, an at-a-glance idea of which hosts are cheap but dodgy and which are actually good value for money. I would still Google some customer reviews once you’ve chosen a package, but as far as making that initial choice goes, 4CheapWebHosting is as good a help as any.

Disclosure: I will receive financial payment for posting this article. Please be aware that I will never accept offers of paid posts where I am required only to give a positive review – objectivity is important to me and you can be sure that what I write, even in paid posts, is what I really think.

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Thinking about honesty in blogging…

December 7, 2009 By

On Thursday of last week I reviewed a piece of software that I’ve been using called Socialite. I’ve genuinely found it useful and wanted to spread the word, but after publishing the review I started running into problems that had the potential to make the app unusable. I’d already put a review out encouraging people to buy the app… what do to?

I’ll tell you what I did, but I’d really appreciate some comments on this one too telling me how you would have dealt with a similar situation.

I put a note at the top of the review saying that I was having problems with consistent crashes whenever I tried to exit the app, and that I’d recommend that people hold off buying it until I’d had a response from the developer about a fix. Other than that I left the review exactly as I’d written it, because I thought it was important for people to know the whole story instead of just a little note from me.

As it turns out the fix was pretty simple and I got it all up and running properly, so I changed the note to say I’d had problems but found a solution (including a link) and that I was once more happy to recommend Socialite to anyone and everyone. I thought it was important to leave a note there because I did have some difficulty, even if it was easily solved.

Now, I’m not going to turn this into me blowing my own trumpet, but I do want you to know that what I write in a review will always be what I genuinely think and, if I’m having trouble with something or just plain think it’s rubbish, I’ll tell you! This whole thing did make me think carefully about honesty in reviews and blogging in general, though.

You know how I chose to deal with this, but I’m curious… what would you have done? Let me know in the comments.

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The power of asking…

September 21, 2009 By

Years ago there were a raft of eBay auctions purporting to tell you how to get free gadgets. I was daft enough to pay for this secret information, and it turned out to be surprisingly simple. The info recommended setting up a website, getting a prepay UPS account, and writing to electronics manufacturers asking for review units… apparently these companies would be so keen to get their product out there they’d even let you keep the unit. I didn’t try it at the time, but the principle’s a good one!

Say you’ve got a blog, and you want to do some hands-on reviewing. How do you get hold of items to review? Believe it or not there’s a remarkable power in just asking! In my time writing on a few blogs I’ve received books, CDs, gadgets (which, I’ll be honest, you usually have to return afterwards) and a week-long test drive in a hybrid car. Not too bad, really, when you consider that I’m hardly what you’d call an A-list blogger! Blogging has flooded the online “market” with people who “have a website”, so if you want stuff to review you really do need to put yourself forward and not just hope that people will come to you. A couple of the items I have reviewed have come to me unsolicited… i.e. the manufacturer sought me out… but most of them have been acquired by doing one thing: asking for them.

Book publishers are often most willing to send you a review copy of a book; this is the area where I’ve had the most success. Just find out who the publisher is, do a bit of Googling to see if you can find their press or PR people, and drop them a line. If you can’t find a specific person’s name it’s still worth writing to the publisher’s main address in the hope that your letter or e-mail will be routed to someone who can help you out. Politely introduce yourself, and your site, and ask for a review copy of a certain book saying that you intend to write a review… you’ll be surprised how often you get a good response!

Gadgetry is another great area to try and get units for review. I’ve found that most gadget companies use external PR agencies, but a bit of searching around the Internet is often enough to find out who you need to contact. Alternatively, you might find the company’s own PR/Press department. My success rate is lower here, and I’ve never been allowed to keep a review unit, but its still worth a shot. You get to play with some nice new technology, and the company gets some exposure… happy days!

With cars, what you’re looking for is the PR/Press department or the Press Fleet controller. Most car companies will have a press fleet with the express purpose of loaning cars to journalists. I was lucky enough to connect with the Honda PR guys on Twitter and had a conversation there about borrowing a hybrid Insight for a week. That was a great moment (arguably my best review item) and has spurred me on to contact other car companies and see if they would be willing to do the same.

Time for a reality check, though – I make a large number of enquiries that result in form replies and ultimately come to nothing, or result in no reply whatsoever. It can be quite disheartening when a company whose product you were really interested in don’t respond favourably, but you just need to dust yourself off and move on… there are other companies out there, and plenty of them will respond positively.

My top tips?

  • Introduce yourself properly – these companies don’t know you from Adam. For all they know you’re just some random with an Internet connection. Introduce yourself politely, give them information about your site, and be prepared to show them some of your previous work.
  • Explain why you are a great person to review their product! If you know your readers are interested in what they’re selling, tell them that. If you think a particular product uses innovative technology, and you’re a tech-blogger, make the connection in your e-mail. Don’t assume the PR exec you’re talking to has the time to trawl through your blog and work out the connection for themselves.
  • Keep your contact in the loop. Let them know when you get the item for review, and let them know when your review is up. If nothing else it might make them more likely to remember you next time something else comes out, but it can also result in some extra traffic if they choose to highlight your review to others.
  • Just keep trying. As I said, you’ll get turned down sometimes. You’ll get ignored sometimes. But you’ll also get some good responses that make it worth your while.

Why not give it a go? If there’s a product that would fit your blog well, and you want to give it a review, try writing off and see what happens. You might be surprised :)

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Game reviews for the quick of hearing

December 17, 2008 By
zeropunctuation

Let’s get the warning out of the way first: Zero Punctuation contains swearing. Plenty of it. If you’re into “grading” swearing, it also contains the worst. If this is going to cause you a major problem don’t visit the site – you have been warned!

I don’t know what it is about Zero Punctuation. Perhaps it’s the seemingly never-ending flow of words, or the fact that they come at you so fast you always feel a bit off balance. Perhaps it’s Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw’s peculiar sense of humour or his tendency to tell you straight up if something’s not to his liking (no word-mincing here).

Each episode is accompanied by cartoon graphics that reinforce what Yahtzee is saying and can make each review as good to watch for its humour as for its review value. And if you go back and watch some of the earlier episodes you’re also treated to some great choices of music for the opening and closing credits. It’s a shame that they’ve now gone for a generic theme tune, but there’s still plenty to like.

Yahtzee posts a new episode every Wednesday, drop in and take a look!

Link: Zero Punctuation – part of The Escapist

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Read the latest gadget reviews at Test Freaks

September 18, 2008 By
Test Freaks

Check those gadgets out before buying at Test Freaks.

OK, so you’re a geek. You like, among other things, gadgets, but you’ve only got a limited budget. How do you decide what you want to buy next?

Whenever I want to buy something I kind of obsess over it for a while. I find out as much about it as I can, good and bad, so that I know I’m not about to pay good money to be disappointed. So, it’s off to the review sites to see what’s hot and what’s not.

Test Freaks is one such site, providing reviews of all kinds of tech from games, to sports equipment, cameras, and even calculators (for some bizarre reason). What’s good about the site is that it offers both expert and user opinions, so you get to read what the “proper” reviewers think, and what the average-joe punters like you and I thought. Reviews are drawn from various sources around the net, making Test Freaks more of a review aggregator at the moment. However, this will start to change as more people discover the site and review the items there.

Results can be filtered to narrow down the number of items returned, and each item is given a score out of ten. Rather nicely, each item is also given a rank (e.g. 5 of 149 in Canon/28 of 1498 in Digital Cameras). That appeals to me, being able to see how close to the top of the pile a particular product is!

And a final good feature… price comparison. Well, you want to know you’re getting the best item at the lowest price, don’t you? Whilst it’s still always worth checking out other price comparison websites to double-check, this is at least a good indication of where you’re likely to be able to pick your new acquisition up cheaply.

As for accuracy? Well, that’s always going to be subjective. I’ve got my eye on a camera at the moment that I know is high quality and good value… and, yes, it receives a high score. The xbox360? Understandably, it rates at 7.8 (I’d say it’s good but flawed). As ever, the final choice as to what to buy is yours, but sites like this can be handy in making that choice. If there’s something you’re after, check it out and see what others think about it!

Test Freaks is currently in beta

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