Recorders are electronic devices that are used to record audio, pictures, or video. Recorders are a great way to store memories permanently. The earliest recorders could record only audio files such as songs, speeches, and any other acoustics. They were made of boxwood and very simple electronic components.

Earlier recorders used magnetic tapes for recording. These days, there are quite a few other modes on which the recorded data can be stored: CDs, DVDs, floppy disks, memory cards, hard drives, cellular phones, cameras, and so on.

Magnetic tape recorders use a tape head with a strong electromagnet that captures fluctuating signals. The signal is captured onto a magnetic tape wherein the original signal is realigned in the magnetic material on the tape. The recorded audio can be played back by running the same tape where the original signal was recreated. Most recorders have recoding as well as playing capacities. Tape recorders are of many kinds, depending upon the size and the options. The data can also be stored for a long time on these tapes. The video tape recorders were a development over the audio tape recorders, as they use a rotating magnetic head for more bandwidth. This allows faster movement of the tape over the head.

Digital recorders are very common these days. Digital recording is much more efficient, faster, and cheaper than tape recording. These recorders use the analog-to-digital converters for that convert the signal into binary digits. Recording data onto CDs or DVDs can be done by a CD- recorder, or by CD-recording drive on the computer. Another kind of recorder is the hard-disk-based recorder. These days, recorders are so advanced technologically that they can do many more functions than just recording, including compression of data and even data protection. DAT, minidisk, and solid state PC card are some of the digital recording media available today.