GeekNights 070730 - Handheld Audio Recorders

Rym

Tonight on GeekNights, we return from our "week of awesome" to resume the show. Rym, however, is ill, and thus tonight's show is somewhat sub-optimal. Expect the show to return to its usual ways tomorrow night. In the news, Fox 11 both fears and misunderstands 4chan et al., and the Cowon iAudio 7 is pretty hot.
Rym's Thing - Read a Book (NSFW) (Source)

Scott's Thing - Racoon Steals Carpet

Rooster

Scott made two Disgusting Mouth Noises at the end of the episode!!! Gah!

Corbin

So I hate to prove you wrong but within five minutes of hearing Scott say "...does not exist!" (and Rym concurring) I paused the podcast and found a mid ranged handheld audio recorder that would work really well for portable podcasting for $300, well $299.99, and from all reviews and everything it looks like almost exactly what they wanted. It's called the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 2-Channel Mobile Digital Recorder. I mean I know that it isn't as good as the professional $500 equipment you have now but it looks like what you wanted in a mid-range rig to do some recording on the go. So... maybe you guys just didn't look hard enough?

Let me know if it isn't on par with what you wanted but that was just a five minute search. It was on the top of this list of recording equipment. Maybe it's just my backround in playing guitar that made it so easy for me to find.

Anyway, back to listening to the ep.

Corbin

You guys also mentioned boundary mics at the end of the episode, here's a couple of options:

The Crown Sound Grabber II PZM Condenser Microphone - $69.99 or two for $119.99

and The CAD ST-100 Cardioid Electret Condenser Boundary Microphone.

HeavyCruiserLost

Sorry guys, I couldn't resist . . .

MitchyD

Huh?
 
Mad confused.

cosmicenema

Huh?

Mad confused.

Didn't listen to the episode.

Jason

Kilarney

Haven't listened to the episode, but I've always been less than impressed with the quality of boundary microphones. The capture a ton, but the quality of what they capture is not so hot.

I use an Olympus voice recorder, and am very impressed. It's not meant to be Hi-Fi, but man... does it catch stuff well.

Apreche

Haven't listened to the episode, but I've always been less than impressed with the quality of boundary microphones. The capture a ton, but the quality of what they capture is not so hot.

This is true, but without a boundary mic how can we easily record 10 people sitting around a table? 10 microphones is not the answer.

Kilarney

This is true, but without a boundary mic how can we easily record 10 people sitting around a table?

It's a catch-22. Hard set-up versus crappy audio quality.

Apreche

This is true, but without a boundary mic how can we easily record 10 people sitting around a table?

It's a catch-22. Hard set-up versus crappy audio quality.

Even if we did the hard setup where we gave each person their own microphone, it wouldn't work. When people are discussing or role playing or whatever, a microphone in their face will distract people and they will be less genuine. Also, the people will have poor mic discipline and quality will still suffer. There really isn't a solution here.

Kilarney

It would cost money, but wireless would solve that problem.

Apreche

It would cost money, but wireless would solve that problem.

Wireless what? Lavalier mics? Not perfect by any means. If you have a lot of people sitting very close to each other, there will be lots of problems with peoples voices getting picked up on each other's mics.

aresef

Finally got around to listening to this one. Thought I'd chime in. I use the XtremeMac Micromemo for my iPod. It's really cheap, it plugs into my iPod, and I get pretty good high quality wav's. It's served me well at a few cons.