Mike Giles
Having removed my white, kid leather mixing gloves some aeons ago, may I pick the brains of current practitioners in the audio art with respect to voice recording.
An acquaintance of mine intends to record interviews with various luminaries in the academic and arts fields, some of which may be submitted to the Sound Archive at the British Library and various other repositories.
He has been advised that he should submit uncompressed files and has asked me which is the current flavour of the month for small, battery powerable devices which won’t break the bank. I am slightly surprised at the insistence on no compression for voice recordings, but I am so out of touch that I can only throw myself on the mercy of others to supply an answer. He will probably buy two machines and record in duplicate for safety, so the logic seems to be to buy one full spec for the main unit and a lesser one for the back up.
A brief trawl throws up the Tascam DR-100 Mk3 at around £345 and the DR40 at about £175 ~ are these in the right neck of the woods?
He has a MacBook Pro, which should have Garageband on it as a matter of course, but has never done any editing. I think that will be more than adequate for topping and tailing, unless anyone knows otherwise.
Peter Neill
Why not use the Mac as a recorder?
With suitable software (e.g. Audacity – freeware) he can record, monitoring on headphones if required, top and tail and then save files in whatever format is preferred onto a USB stick or whatever.
The only issue is that modern MacBooks don’t have a mic input, but that is easily solved using a 3.5mm jack to USB converter. Griffin make a good one, but cheaper alternatives are available on eBay.
John Howell (Hibou)
I can recommend the little Roland R-05 recorder. It records wav or mp3 files or both at the same time.
Batteries seem to last for ages and it has two quite respectable built in mics, also it has a camera mounting thread for use with many stands. It seems to be available for £100 – 200.
Brian Curtis
I use a Tascam DR-40 for my interviews for my weekly programme on Vectis Radio (www.vectisradio.com) and it works very well.
Nick Ware
Only a few days ago I had the tables turned on me to be interviewed for my contribution to a local history sound archive project.
The person interviewing me used a Zoom H4N (just shy of £200) using its own integral mics and it sounded absolutely fine. We were in a quiet room and the recorder was sitting on the table about 15″ from me. Tascam, Olympus, Roland and others all do similar products, all competitively spec’d and priced.
I see no point in suffering the encumbrance of a laptop, recording software, wondering how long the battery will last, and all the plug-in bits. All of today’s pocket recorders record to SD cards, and there’s really nothing to go wrong. There shouldn’t be any need for a second recorder as belt and braces provided that proper data backup is done from the SD card, just as you would with any other important data.
I think it’s true to say most recent SD card recorders close the file properly in the event of imminent battery failure, so nothing is lost if that happens.
For my interview, and just because I could, I sat my own Olympus LS-10 next to her H4 and subsequently sent her a tidied up much shorter version with my all my hesitations, waffle, and other wandering off-topic garbage edited out.
Bearing in mind this was done in my house, which is full of pro audio gear that could have been used but wasn’t, take this as a recommendation for the simplest and least intimidating approach. I was initially sceptical about what seemed amateurish to me, but soon realised it was absolutely the best way to go about it. A lesson learnt this late in the game!
Of course though, if the interviews are going to be in noisy surroundings it might be wise to re-think that and hire a Pro!
If the preference really is for using a laptop, there are various inexpensive USB microphones around now that plug directly into the laptop’s USB connector. No adaptor needed.
By asking for it uncompressed, I suspect they mean data compression (WAV, not mp3) rather than compression as in dynamic range compression, which is best done later with proper loudness matching (hopefully) to other material.
Pat Heigham
A friend of mine, who sings in a small choir, uses the Tascam DR-40 – which seems pretty good. It also has a tripod/stand thread on the back, and accepts external mic/line on XLR/TipRingSleeve 1/4″ jack via the clever dual XLR sockets.
Brian Curtis
Actually, the External Mic Dual XLR – Jacks are very useful on the Tascam DR-40 and I have used them with a pair on Sennheiser Shotgun Mics for recording choirs. In actual fact I have also used the “Internal Mics” to record a choir as the whole unit could be placed discretely on the stage on a short mic stand in front of the conductor’s podium! It produced a very satisfactory result!
It is even possible to create a “four track” recording using the “External Mics” and “Internal Mics” together!
Also another useful facility is the ability to “Dual Record” which means that you can record “two versions of the same material” – one version with the gain set for say 0dB and a “replica track” but with the gain at say -10dB. Useful if the interviewee gets over excited and their level go up drastically!
Oh and “No I don’t work for Tascam!” – just delighted by a very useful and practical piece of kit at a very reasonable price!
Nick Ware
The Tascam DR40 and Zoom H4n are direct competitors with almost identical features. Either would do equally well.
Even Nagra are getting in on the act, except that with their offering you pay £850 and have to pay extra for clip-on mics and an optional input XLR adaptor. I know which I would go for!
John Nottage
I’m very happy with my Olympus LS12. I’ve added a Rycote mini which helps a lot with the wind noise. Got some great atmos recordings using the built-in mics in the Brazilian Pantanal. A bit of Hyacinth Macaw sound attached as an example.
Mike Giles
Many thanks for some very helpful information and suggestions.
I think Moe is quite well regarded in academic circles and has mentioned amongst his acquaintances such people as Patrick Dromgoole and his daughter (I think) Jessica, whose name I often hear on Radio 4.
