need something to record sons voice lessons with?

[Tom Mobley]

My eight year old recently started voice lessons along with the piano he's benn at for three years. All we have is this little POS COBY cassette recorder. it sounds terrible. It's making the teachers grand piano sould like something from the toddlers dept ar Sears or something.

Id there anything reasonably priced that might do better?

[DrWho]

The Sony mini-disc recorders always sounded rather decent (almost CD quality), but MDs never really took off so I'm not sure if they're still readily available. But it was certainly a very cheap way to get quality recordings (I had a friend who would record his classes...I think he spend $100 total which included a mic and a thing to hook up to his computer so that he could copy it over in real time...then burn an audio disc).

another option...would you happen to have a spare laptop available? It'd be real easy/cheap to get a decent mic to attach to it and then you can record onto the laptop.

Adn this does have to be a portable option right?

The only other approach I can think of are those portable digital recorders (that basically record onto a stick of RAM...a backwards function of mp3 players). My grandpa uses one for interviews and he's got a mic to go with it that he uses (he uses the recordings so that he can later quote people and get his facts straight). I think this runs in the $200 region, but again sounds real nice.

[ben.]

As far as mics go, I'd suggest an inexpensive PZM. The Rat Shack ones were under $50 and quite usable. Mine are the older ones made by Crown, and sound super. PZMs minimize phase cancellations from below-average room acoustics. I think Shure makes the new ones.

I've got an MD recorder & it sounds pretty good, but I'd probably get a solid-state or removavble media format now.

[Jay L]

look at many of the portable HD players/recorders. can be had for about $200-300. or older DAT recorders are usually sub $200 but require media. for mics look at www.soundprofessionals.com or build some mics from panasonic capsules for about $5 a piece from digi-key.

[Tom Mobley]

Thanks guys. So there apparently isn't some kind of decent cassette option any more?

I guess I'll have to get out to the stores and look around.

Any other bright ideas?

[colterphoto1]

There were recording walkmans for a while. They didin't sound that great and were taken over by the minidisc.

You could use a home stereo cassette unit (which you probably have to listen to tapes on?), but would have to get mixer (radio shack has some nice simple ones) and mics.

What's your budget and how good do you need it to sound?

I would think it might be nice to mic the piano and voice separately, pan them slightly to L and R, that way you could listen to more of little Johnny or drown him out, as the case required.

Here's another option. Do you have a digital camcorder? The sound on those is awesome- it's digital. You wouldn't even need to aim the camera (probably just make him nervous). I have a Canon unit that I bought $50 shotgun mic for, it keeps the room noise (echo) and audience noise out of the recording. Then you bring it home, dump it on computer, and mix down to CD right there!

Michael

[colterphoto1]

Tom, I have an old Sony mixer, its very simple, just knobs for volume controls, uses high-impedence mics (the mini-plug, size of walkman headphone jack 3.5mm I think). If you just need a simple mixer for use with home style cassette recorder (with 1/4" mic inputs) , I'll send this to ya. It's been on the shelf here since high school. Looks like new, if you can use it, you're welcome to it.

And tell him to stay at the piano lessons, I have been sorry my whole life that I gave it up when it came to reading key signatures. It'd be such fun to play at parties. My Mom always said I would be sorry and I am. Sorry Mom. (She loved to play piano.)

Michael

[Tom Mobley]

Michael,

Thanks for the offer. I'm still looking around, trying to find something my wife could work with (read: simple) since the lesson is while I'm at work. I do have a digicamcorder, I might try that. Good idea.

BTW, I'm replying to that guy you referred to me.

[colterphoto1]

Tom, definitely go the shotgun mic route if you can get an affordable (ie not pro) one. The sound quality difference is astounding. Mine has three modes, super directional (mono), slightly directional stereo, and wide stereo. All are much better than the built in mic.

Michael

[Trey Cannon]

You will need a small mixer and mic, but for some of the best and easy to use recorders are VHS-HIFI.

You can get many hr of recording and is very easy to use. The dynamic range is very good and quilty is close to a CD.

THats all we ever used at band practice. We could record the whole thing and if we came up with anything good it was easy to share.

http://www.crownaudio.com/pdf/mics/137203.pdf

http://www.behringer.com/UB502/index.cfm?lang=ENG

[ben.]

I used those PZMs that I mentioned above to record a friend's wedding last month. The audio quality was much better than the digicam's built-in mic.

For these purposes, mono may be a better idea, avoiding phase issues. (If they are primarily for evaluation)

[WMcD]

Just to point out that cam-corder audio is very good, save perhaps for the microphone quality. If you have one, you have a recording means.

If the people are camera shy, you can leave the lense cap on.

OTOH, there are shareware programs to record onto a laptop. Look for audacity (sp?) Someone else can comment on it. I fooled around a little and don't have it here.

Gil

[Mighty Favog]

Back in the 80's we used to use something called a Porta-Studio (cassette). Can't remember who made it though.

[Tom Mobley]

Gil,

funny you should mention Audacity, I'm using it right now to make CD's out of some of familys' cassettes. It seems to be very good at what it does. Nice thing about it, it's free software, not shareware. that's free as in free speech, not freee beer. Cool deal. I bought one of those M-Audio Audiophile 2496 cards, have a Nakamichi tape deck plugged directly into it. Some of these cassttes are nicely recorded, I'm really impressed with quality of the resulting CD.

I'm using a free software CD burning tool also. It's CDBurnerXP Pro 3, very nice program.

Also making the top of the list is a freeware utility for ripping CDs, Exact Audio Copy. Totally cool, it cleans errors in the data stream like timing errors and whatnot. It'll read the blocks several times if it thinks it needs to. You can rip to to .wav or MP3 or other formats.

I'm really impressed how nice this stuff is. I'm used to seeing really nice free software in the Linux universe, but finding this really decent stuff for windows is new to me.

BTW, looks like I'll be shopping for one of those shotgun mikes, thanks to all for posting the info. Do I need a mixer for the plugging the shotgun mike into the camcorder?

Thanks again to all who posted. Nice to see Trey in here as well.

[crazytubepower]

Nagra...any thing nagra, I have a portable that does, over 320 cycles a sec!!! They cost alot though, your looking at about $1500, but if you love your son..... Just kidding man

[Marvel]

Tom,

Cameras with the miniDV format will record audio at 16 bit 48Khz. OR, as is the default on many cameras, it will give you 12bit audio at 32Khz. Using firewire or usb, you can suck the audio over to the PC and clean it up, edit it and it will do fine.

Some cameras do not have an external mic input. Bummer really, as the less expensive ones need an external mic even more as the motor noise is often picked up by the built in mic. Depending on your camera, and the mic(s) you get, you may or may not need a mixer. They can be had for under a $100. Behringer, Alesis, Samson, Nady, Rolls.

The Rolls Playmate MX56S is ugly, small, has one XLR mic input, a couple of line inputs. But it is BATTERY paowered. With it and the camera, you wouldn't have to plug anything else into the wall.

Bruce