Roland R-07

The evolution of Roland recorders

Almost 10 years later, a Japanese corporation has released an updated version of its R-05 portable recorder/voice recorder. We do not know why and how, but the novelty is called R-07, and the sixth version, apparently, was lost somewhere in the process. Like its predecessor, the R-07 stands out for its pleasant design, small size, fairly high-quality stereo microphone, extended frequency range (20 – 40,000 Hz) and the ability to record audio in resolutions up to 24 bit / 96 kHz. Roland says they have tried to strike a balance between simplicity and functionality so that anyone can use the recorder with the same success, whether it be a journalist, student or musician.

Control from your smartphone, listen with wireless headphones

The main difference between the R-07 and its ancestor is the presence of a Bluetooth receiver that allows you to control the recorder from your smartphone and use wireless headphones for monitoring. The aptX and aptX low latency codecs are supported. Instead of a smartphone, recordings can be managed the old-fashioned way using the built-in monochrome display. In R-07 "fool protection" is well implemented. Firstly, it simultaneously records two audio files (WAV + WAV or WAV + MP3), one of which is processed, and the second is pure, with reduced volume. This is necessary for those cases if you used the built-in limiter on a loud source, which is why the recording is very “clipping” (that is, it sounds dirty and overdriven). In this case, you can use a "clean" duplicate without worrying that all the work is lost.

Built-in metronome, tuner and scene mode

Of the other chips, it is worth noting the built-in metronome with a tuner, the scene mode for presetting recording parameters in different situations. In addition to the limiter, there is also a simple reverb on board. All this stuff is powered by two AA batteries (enough for 10-15 hours), and microSD and SDHC cards are used as internal storage. It looks like it could be an perfect recorder / voice recorder if not for one thing. Roland did something wrong with the USB connection: the speed of transferring files to a computer is just a snail, sometimes drops to 700 kb / s. The old R-05 copied many times faster, so the card reader will help. The recorder also provides recording when connected to USB power without batteries, but in this case, extraneous crackling is heard on the recordings.