Roland R-07 High-Resolution Handheld Audio Recorder, Black (R-07-BK)

I love this recorder! I use an Zoom H6 recorder for my podcast, which is an excellent high quality recorder. However, I needed something smaller, so I read about the Roland R-07 and it sounded like something that would work for me. Some people are intimidated by the larger recorders, or even a handheld microphone. So I purchased the Roland R-07 and now, because of its portsbility, versatility, and excellent sound quality, it is now with me wherever I go. Slips easily into any pocket, smaller than an iPhone, about the same size as a small flip phone, I’m telling you, it’s now my number one go to unless I have guests sitting around the table and I have microphones in front of them. I also took a chance and purchased this unit ‘used’ from Amazon Warehouse, which was a fantastic deal. The unit arrived on time and was repackaged, minus the booklet, but other than that this recorder was brand spanking new and I would most certainly purchase from Amazon Warehouse as used again in the future. My podcast is ‘Finding Subjects Podcast’ and can be found wherever you listen to podcasts. Also here: Www. FindingSubjects.org If you listen to Episode 3 Season 2, Solari...Oh Oh, you can hear the Rolands recordings. All of the train sounds, the clicking of the Solari board, me interviewing the people, all of that was recorded on the Roland R-07. The other dialog of me narrating is the Zoom H6. The Roland is exactly what I’ve been searching for and will be making the trip overseas for recordings in England, Ireland, Scotland. If you want a high quality, portable recorder that fits in your pocket? You don’t be disappointed with the Roland R-07 PS: in the above photos you will see the size verses an iPhone 6S. Also, you will see where I placed small pieces of electrical tape over the recording lights so when I interview people on the street they don’t get overwhelmed by the recording process.

Takes great audio recordings, and is quick to set up and start using right out of the box. There are a lot of settings to dial in to get it exactly how you want it, but the scene options give you a great starting point. Battery life is decent, but always wish it could be better. Uses 2 AA batteries. Like others have mentioned, the SD card is a little tricky to get in and out, but you can connect to computer via USB, so that's not a huge issue. The bluetooth app is nice for using your phone instead of the device, though it feels like they could have included some better file management features on the app, such as being able to view and rename files on the fly. Overall super happy with it. Already created some music with audio I recorded, and it's thumping.

I'm not sure what issues the first reviewer ran into. I've had no issues. Bluetooth was great for mobile recording. The Roland CS-10em binuraul mics work well. The onboard mics are clean. Make sure you use mic placement to your advantage. The scenes are useful for quick setup. The size is amazing for remote recording where you don't want to make a scene. Roland has a solid product on their hands. -- Edit January 2018: I've been using this recorder for live music and binaural recording with the Rolnd cs-10em. The line in no longer functions. For binuaral recording I'm moving on to the Tascam DR-05. The built-in mics still work, but my faith in the device is down.

I bought this to compare to my Zoom H1. I bought this because I had heard good things and I needed a recorder with quiet preamps for nature recording. It is a great little pocket sized unit for that purpose. I have used it with the inboard mics and with external PNP microphones (EM 172 and EM 184 capsules). My one negative is the very streamlined shape makes keeping a wind muff on the unit difficult. My wind muff covers up a bit of the top of the screen and is easily pulled off putting it in/out of your pocket. Only a minor issue though. Handling noise is something to be aware of, although it is nothing like the terrible handling noise problems of the plastic Zoom units. When this is one sale for $100 it is a best buy. At full retail price of $200 it is still a great little recorder and probably the best in that price point. Once you get over $250, there are others to consider.

As a long time user of the Roland R-05 I was excited for the R-07 as it appeared to be a better version with more features. Having used the R-07 for a number of days now and tinkering with settings and a couple of different MicroSD cards I am ready to share some of my thoughts. If you have an R-05 then you probably don't need this unit unless you want something lighter that allows the use of a remote and a much more obvious standby and recording light display. That said, there are some negatives with this new unit that you should be made aware of. The feature I was most looking forward to was USB bus power. No more batteries while recording at home was very promising. But it wasn't to be. Every single time I plugged the cable(s) in to run the R-07 on bus power it also recorded a terrible clicking sound. This does not happen when using batteries to power the device. Yes, using bus power means that your recordings will be useless. Also, despite changing different settings, I could never seem to get transfer speeds from the R-07 to my computer to speed up to those I get with my R-05. The difference? The R-7 would transfer files at around 700kb/s while the R-05 transfers files at 2MB/s. In layman's terms, that means that files transfer to my computer more than twice as fast with the R-05. How does this new recorder get two stars instead of five? By feeling like a step back in some ways that it shouldn't. Perhaps if they release an update to fix these issues it might be worth picking up, but until then I would say it either wasn't ready for release, not properly tested, or it is a bit of a dud. I contacted Roland hoping to find some solutions or at least get some answers or provide feedback but they never answered my calls or called me back. I may just have to return this. Edited to add: I heard back from Roland support and they admitted that transfer speed from the R-07 to a computer is slower than with the R-05. They add that transfer speeds to the R-07 are faster. Why I would care about that? This is a recorder. The support isn't there for this product. I can not recommend it for any reason.

It doesn’t do averything they claim it does, it took hours of research on line to operate, still can get it to record from iPad, this is for people with recording know how.

I read the 1-star reviews for this product before I ordered it. They don't agree with my experience, now that I've used it. My application is using its line input to record radio programs I listen to later. I experience none of the issues mentioned in the poor reviews - it performs exactly as described. I also own a competing product from Saramonic, and the Roland R-07 is superior in every way. I'm very satisfied with it.

Roland, the recordings are crystal clear. The two AA Ni-MH batteries I can recharge last up to 15 hours. Remarkable! This is an awesome device. Works perfectly with my Apple iPhone SE with the App. I can control the unit at a gig with my phone 30' away and place the unit on a camera tripod because of the mount screw hole on the device. Nice. Placing the recorder and tripod where necessary for the best sound is possible with this device. Big mistake with transfer file speeds. Why the heck did Roland make the USB slow down to what seems USB 1.0 speeds? I can tell it's not even USB 2.0 speeds. I have a USB 3.0 capable mac. If I want the files quickly, I would have to eject the tiny micro-SDHC card, put it into a Micro SD adapter, and then put that into my mac and get the true speed of the memory card. Or I would have to buy an MicroSDHC hub and connect that hub to the mac. In fact, that would be easier than mounting that tiny card into the larger Micro SD adapter and inserting that adapter into my Mac. But both are a hassle. My mac has a built-in SD memory card slot. The easiest method is indeed using a USB cable, but again, expect nearly USB 1.0 speeds. What bean counter over at Roland thought this would be a good idea? It took 1 full hour to transfer 1GB of recordings to my Mac. If you have time to park the recorder and dump it, it's fine. If you're under pressure, don't bet on the transfer speed. Roland, that decision was ridiculous. You almost approached perfection. I suspect an accountant wanted to cut some kind of cost and save $2.00 of expense for a more expensive USB chip. That's my hunch. Or, maybe the chips for USB 2.0 and above would make the remarkable 15 hour battery life a pipe dream due to higher current drain, even when idle. I don't know. Maybe it was the engineers who suggested this to get more battery life? Improvements I would gladly pay extra for: -Make it USB 3.0, or USB 2.0 at the least. Even 10 hours battery life is remarkable for a device like this. -Make a metal case but still lightweight and small. -Keep the door to the battery simple like it is, no complicated door-latch with moving parts like your Edirol R-09 which I bought a long time ago. Complicated mechanical doors to get to the batteries and memory card will break and make the otherwise pristine electronics unusable. You almost had a home-run and you turned it into a run to second-base. Why? All that said, I am going to keep it. I can let it park on my mac to transfer audio as I do other things. If I were doing this for work, under pressure, like a journalist, I might skip this device. But I bought this for music mostly. I like the control of it from iPhone. My guess is the next iteration of this device will be the homerun. Cheers.