The Glade 4.0

So I need some recording equipment for personal music use. Basically I want to record myself singing so I can play it back to critique it, etc, and also to send it to friends/family. I've mainly been using my phone for that, but the sound quality is really terrible.

I know nothing about this kind of thing and was hoping to get some advice.

Some other requirements:
- Ability to transfer recording to my computer
- not outrageously expensive...less than $500 for sure.
- it would be really nice if it was somewhat portable, so it's own storage and didn't have to be hooked up to a computer to use.

Anything out there like that?

something like this?

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones- ... 90&sr=1-15

lots of options...

The dedicated recording devices are really good these days...

I have a Zoom H4N
http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-Handy-Portab ... B001QWBM62

They have decent internal stereo microphones, and have XLR Mic inputs if you want to upgrade to something more like what you'd use when performing.

I record in raw wave format, to the local SD card, and then copy them to my computer and process them locally with Audacity or something similar.

The USB Microphones like the Blue YETI, and such are pretty good too. They are USB sound devices, and primarily designed for podcasting and such. You would just record directly into something like Audacity, and save yourself a step.

There are advantages to both. The portable digital recorder is a bit pricier, but I think the quality is probably better, especially if you use your own mic's. They are also, well, portable... which can be handy if you want to record on site, or take it out caroling with you....

Thank you for the recommendations. The Zoom H4N certainly does everything that I need it to do. The Blue YETI looks good too, but I like the idea of portability, as I can see several situations where that would come in handy.

There are several similar devices to the Zoom, and they have different models. Be sure to do some comparison/feature shopping before you pull the trigger.

And don't forget to read some reviews

Early on, before we went multi-track, we also used a Zoom, this model:

http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-H1-Portable-Digital-Recorder/dp/B003QKBVYK/ref=sr_1_3?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1355781998&sr=1-3&keywords=zoom+recorder

Either this or the model Midgen recommended will do everything you (currently) need, this one is smaller and more portable, but that one is more full featured.

So I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the H4N. I checked out the Sony, but it was too expensive. Also checked out another one that was cheaper, and would work, but it wasn't that much cheaper and had a lot less features.

I tried out the H4N and it is awesome. I am really impressed and this is exactly what I was looking for.

I lubs my H4n.

Yup, that is a solid little recorder. Congrats on the new gear!