JOE WALLACE: I'm Joe Wallace for Gearwire.Com. We're in the floor of Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany, and I'm with Julian Tritsch of Edirol. How are you?

JULIAN TRITSCH: I'm very well. Thank you. How are you?

JOE WALLACE: Good. Now, we've got the Edirol R-09 with some accessories coming out. Tell me a little bit about the R-09 and what you guys have new for the show.

JULIAN TRITSCH: Absolutely. Well, the R-09, which is right here, is actually has been our best-selling product last year. It's a very, very popular compact field recorder. Very, very straightforward to use, and at Frankfurt this year, we're basically announcing some new color variations of it so there's one red R-09 which just started to ship, and also our white R-09 which is basically our new product for Frankfurt. Also, what we're doing is that we're actually putting out some new accessories basically for the existing users of the R-09's, all the new ones as well, so we'll be introducing a small pouch, which is here. Very good quality. You know if you want to take your R-09 and record on the field, obviously these things are quite expensive and valuable, so what you're looking to do is protect it so as you can see, you can just really put it here to transport it. Even if it falls on the floor, it'll be safe and it'll be there.

Also, we'll actually do some Edirol-branded earphones as well. Again, these are high-quality headphones especially designed for the R-09. They basically come in black with a little carry case as well which matches the pouch so it's all very, very fashionable, and off you go really. The R-09 really for us has been a tremendous success.

We started the field recorder business with the R-01 about a couple of years ago. The R-09 has basically replaced the R-01 and we also have the R-04, and the R-04 broadened the range, so for us in the field recorder market is very, very important, and that's why you'll see more and more products from us towards that market.

JOE WALLACE: Now let's talk about the applications of the R-09 for a minute. These things are getting smaller and smaller but the fidelity is getting better and better. When somebody purchases the R-09, what can they realistically use it for in the field?

JULIAN TRITSCH: Well really, the R-09, anywhere. Obviously, one of the most obvious applications for it is journalists that would like to get interviews on the road, that sort of thing, very, very straightforward to do. Also, a lot of musicians actually purchase the R-09. People that play classica guitar or brass instruments and want to practice an interpretation, that's a very good application for them. We have students as well recording lectures as well. In terms of where you can use it, well really the answer to that is anywhere. The R-09 actually has a built-in limiter which you can just switch on so even if you're going to a gig and you're recording the band playing, you can use the internal microphone, put in the limiter, and basically it'll take any level you fit into it that you can use it anywhere.

JOE WALLACE: Do you have any advice for musicians who want to do that sort of thing? Using the limiter? What about distances from amplifiers and things like that for using the built-in microphones?

JULIAN TRITSCH: Well, you can certainly use the built-in microphone. On the R-09, there's actually a couple of inputs as well which are we got line input, so if the amplifier has a line output, you can actually put it in and get a stereo signal at line level directly into it. If you actually have a condenser microphone separate, you can actually also plug in to the R-09 and record it separately. We actually do ship a small stereo condenser microphone called the CS-15 for people that want to use a special type of microphone. In terms of an R-09 for musicians, the great thing is that the sound quality is so high they can literally record an acoustic piano or guitar then import into your DAW software and use that as actual recording. You'll really have a studio on-the-road sound all the time.

JOE WALLACE: All right. Great. That's the Edirol R-09. I'm Joe Wallace on the floor of Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany, for Gearwire.Com.