Sampling The World Around Us Options

[DEVIOUS]

I wonder if I am posting this in the right section?

The thing is I am a complete newbie but my ideas are developing more and more everyday I think about the portable studio I want to set up. Something occurred to me the other day however. I am keen on sampling- cars going by, a girl crying, everything. I want to have a neat small piece of gear to take everywhere with me so I can bring fresh sounds from everywhere. Does this exist?

I have looked at some samplers but they all offer very small recording times and too many knobs and fiddly stuff. All I want is a way to grab sound and then put it on my computer to be messed about with. I am thinking of a digital 4-track- there are a couple around at the mo that record to smartmedia cards, yet in terms of importing files I am unclear- some say it is converted to mp3 and no mention of being able to import individual tracks. The thing is what I really want is one of those digital dictaphones with 44.1HZ recording and the ability to connect a high quality microphone.

Any ideas? This would really open up the world of music- I really believe solving this problem could be a breakthrough!

Thanks people!

D.

[DEVIOUS]

Thanks for the useful advice. I reckon, with my budget being on the thin side I might go for a second hand md recorder. I was hoping to get something which recorded into wav format or an equivalent so that I could just drag it straight into my project, but then again it's not so much trouble to record it in. I have been looking into the new mp3 flash players with recording functions- www.iriver.com - they look pretty well kitted out for this job yet I am not sure whether they can only encode to mp3 or whether I can keep it uncompressed. The types of samples I want are short but clean and high quality.

Thanks again

D.