recording voice

[berry120]

For this sort of sitaution I'd seriously consider going down the USB route - have a look at the Samson C01U. Cheap (around £50 ish from memory) and a nice quality for the price. The USB mics are a huge step up from the mic pres built in, all the amplification / digital conversion has to be done before it hits the USB socket, so all of that's provided for you in the mic itself - doesn't have anything to do with the soundcard at all.

 

Providing you've got all the drivers installed, should just be a case of firing up audacity, selecting the USB mic and hitting record. ;)

[nothingatall666]

Just a quickie,

 

The Exam board for languages (which one our school uses for langs I have no idea (I do media )) is now requiring the oral exams to be recorded in digital format.

 

The head of department (knowing the technician person I am) talked to me about this. she paied a stupid £250 for a simple, Dictaphone Mic and headphones. I told her I would find a much cheaper way to do it.

 

So I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions (yes its one of these awful questions) or tips on how to recored voice (by this I don't mean basics, im no sound reject).

 

The two main ways I have thought about are;

 

A setup like the one they have already invested in. but cheaper (Dictaphones can be brought from £35 upwards. along with a pretty cheap mic) but what is the disadvantage of cheaper Dictaphones? what should I look out for?

 

one of these USB mics recorded in audacity. (mics from £50+ I was looking at this) but I have no idea on the quality of USB mics? if they're anything like computer mic inputs then it wont be satisfactory.

 

 

Any help muchly appreciated!

[Killyp]

Agreed. If you're interested in going a step up, you could always go for a Rode Podcaster, which is a little bit more than twice the money. However, I would expect it to last significantly longer than the Samson (simply going by how poorly Samson kit I've bought has lasted).

[revbobuk]

How about something like the Zoom H4? Records straight to mp3, has stereo mics built in, and will take a 4Gb SD card - stores hours of audio. It'll mount on a tripod, and is a piece of cake to operate. Only downside is that you'd need to use the mainis PSU - otherwise you'd be changing batteries all the time - oh, and it's small enough to get nicked!

 

but transfer to pc afterwards is really easy.

[the kid]

We have some Zoom H2's at work and they have fantastic quality, and like bob says just take out the SD card and put on the pc. We think they should be about £140 now.

[PDD]

For this sort of sitaution I'd seriously consider going down the USB route -// should just be a case of firing up audacity, selecting the USB mic and hitting record.

 

 

but transfer to pc afterwards is really easy.

 

Here is the problem. A language oral is dealt with by one teacher. There is very rarely a technician involved. They probably do 20 - 30 plus examinations in each session. There isn't time to faff around with a computer - and, without causing offence, would the average teacher be inclined to do this? They are used to simply having a compact machine on the table, pressing record and sending/keeping the tape with everyone's recordings on it. No need to set-up, download or mix on computer.

 

Hence, I like the suggestion of something like the Zoom H4, although probably even that is over-complicated. I would look at the digital-dictaphone market as you are doing. Don't go too cheap: clarity is important. Especially if the candidate asks for a re-mark.

 

What does the exam board mean by "digital"... onto a CD? onto memory card? onto a computer? to send to them electronically? or just for archiving in case of queries?

[Andrew C]

The exam boards DON'T KNOW what they mean. When we asked for clarification (and a ruling on whether we could copy to CD from a Zoom or equiv) last summer the reply was "Errr, we'll get back to you". They haven't. We're still asking.

 

As PDD says, these teachers struggle with cassette recorders... In our busy week, we will have 5/6 teachers doing 1/4 hour exams all day. Something like 250 exams in 5 languages at three levels. I really don't want to be copying this lot from dictaphones or what-ever to CD. Writing direct to CD seems the only way forward (if we can find suitable kit that we can afford 6/7 off to allow a spare.

[Alec]

We have some Zoom H2's at work and they have fantastic quality, and like bob says just take out the SD card and put on the pc. We think they should be about £140 now.

 

After I'd wondered about a Zooom H2 for a while, a mate just bought one. Very impressed, except one thing: you *don't* appear to be able to take out the SD card and put it on the PC.

 

We used it to record a rehearsal, and he gave me the SD card for me to deal with the audio files. Neither PC I had with an SD card would even recognise the card. A closer look at the manual indicated that the only transfer interface was via USB to the unit itself. So I had to get hold of the H2 and connect it up before I could extract the audio.

 

This seems really stupid and limiting, as I can't see that this kind of device should need anything more than a FAT32 file structure. Transferring via USB was relatively slow, certainly slower than a fast SD card reader.

 

Or was I just missing something?

[revbobuk]

Don't know about the H2, but this certainly works with the H4 - I do it regularly. And recording is easy; once everything is set up it's just 'press the record button twice to start, then again to stop.'

 

Another product would be the Coomber CD recorder - ideal for school use. Look at the 6120 model. But it's expensive - nearly £300 - and you'd need to add a cheap microphone (maybe a CPC boundary layer to sit on the desk)

 

It would at least record straight to CD, and be easy for a busy teacher to use.

[Andrew C]

Just opened my Canford calendar and noe of the flyers with it is for a Marantz PMD620 recorder kit with AT8004 mic, phones, batteries, card reader, stand, 2Gb SD card and case for £320. Not done any price comparisons yet, but it seems OK.

[nothingatall666]

the subject leader has been trained to use audacity and a simple podcast setup (she is one of our school podcast mod's) she is able to teacher the other staff how to use such equipment.

 

I am really trying to find something cheapish (as it will mean there can be more exams simutaniously) they do have a coomber CD recorder (which I recently fixed) but they want to have the same method of recording and spending so much for a few days of exams (we're only a 800people school with 2 main languages taught)

 

everyone really seems to think that the dickaphone idea is the one to go with, has noone had experiance with USB mics as this IMO the easyest way to do it!

 

 

thanks for your posts so far!

 

 

 

(spelling may be a tad poor)

[paulears]

When I was Principal Examiner for MusicnTechnology A level, we did the "No more analogue recording" change. We asked for CD or MD. You would not believe the number of unfinalised CDs or MDs recorded with odd mon, lo-res settings that wouldn't play on anything other than clever machines - or obviously analogue recordings dubbed onto CD. The other snag with the language thing is that the dubbing stage from format to format means more chance of getting them mixed up!

 

The Canford package looks the simplest way - do the board accept solid state memory as one of their approved formats though?

[Bobbsy]

Violating all my best principles of BR posting, I'll start by saying I have no personal experience of USB microphones. However....

 

On several computer recording forums I visit regularly, the number one problem asked about is software/driver incompatibilities between USB microphones and recording/editing software. Now, we only hear from people with problems so there are probably lots of happy users out there but I've seen enough people with issues for it to ring alarm bells, especially if ease of use by a novice is important.

 

If computer recording is your goal, I'd go for a cheapish basic mic and cheapish basic sound card (one step up from Soundblaster). Otherwise, you can add me to the list of people who like the Zoom recorders.

 

Bob

[timtheenchanteruk]

the main problem I see, is having every persons recording as a seperate track, the couple of direct audio machines I have used (A while ago I admit) don`t have a new track when pause is pressed, only if its stopped, and it takes a while to get going again.

 

this year, I will be doing it the long way round, the teacher is recording to cassette, the being transferred via cubase to CD, the track locator is reasonably accurate.

[Jammie300]

When I was Principal Examiner for MusicnTechnology A level, we did the "No more analogue recording" change. We asked for CD or MD. You would not believe the number of unfinalised CDs or MDs recorded with odd mon, lo-res settings that wouldn't play on anything other than clever machines - or obviously analogue recordings dubbed onto CD. The other snag with the language thing is that the dubbing stage from format to format means more chance of getting them mixed up!

 

The Canford package looks the simplest way - do the board accept solid state memory as one of their approved formats though?

 

Talking from the other side of this.

 

I'm a MusicnTechnology student at A Level. Last year we were told to bounce down a Logic Session to PCM/WAV file. But we weren't told what bitrate to use and when we came to test them on our CD players they didn't work. No-one knew why. I tried rebouncing and got it working. Commercial CD Players are very picky as to what bitrate/filetype/moonphase etc it is.

 

Why have your pride and joy of AS Coursework on anything substandard like MP3 or low bitrates?

 

2p inserted into slot-->

 

James