About

The Solo was developed as a serviceable field recorder for use in a remote tropical rainforest, where importing commercial equipment and returning broken hardware for servicing is difficult and costly.

Additionally, it was important that the device was:

• inexpensive - so we don’t care if it’s dropped, stolen or trampled
• servicable in-situ - we assume no access to customer service / returns
• available - components are available as widely as possible
• no configuration required at point of installation (settings can be changed in the lab/office, and don’t need to be set in the field)
• versatile (any microphone, any battery etc…)
• affordable to projects, people and organisations of all sizes in all countries
• modular - broken units can be repaired and maintained
• modifiable, tailorable, extensible - you can make changes to hardware and software to suit your needs

Feedback, questions, help and contributing

Although the Solo has been in use for a few years, it remains under active development to keep up with new hardware and software.

If you have ideas or a request for new functionality, email r.c.whytock@stir.ac.uk . If you can code - look at the github site. If you have a success story, let us know.

Solo was developed by James Christie. Robbie Whytock (r.c.whytock@stir.ac.uk) contributed to design and conducted field testing during development.