Dear Mike and co vocalisters
Many people pointed out that the microphone is important, and they are
right. The Sony small ones are more ore less ok and the Shure is not a
bad name either as Karen pointed out. But approx. $ 100 is about the
minimum for a mike. (You see, sometimes using Caps has advantages).
Important is, that the microphone, or the combination microphone and
recorder doesn’t have an automatic recording volume adjustment,
otherwise from a certain point on, everything will be equally loud. In
general this is a problem with cheap tape recorders anyway.
Very important: no matter what you buy: try it at home.
For the rest: have a look at this matrix and make up your mind.
(I use a professional audio hard disk recorder myself, but that’s of no
use for your students, because then you still have to make a copy of
your recording.)
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Stereo video recorder
Pro:
-Very good quality, especially for play back.
-very universal medium, almost everybody has a video recorder
-combined with a camera (you can use the camera without it’s own tape
and just connect it to the video recorder, even a faulty camera will do)
you can show what your students do
-Media very cheap per minute
Against:
-May not last as long as md player or cassette with every day usage.
-needs a small mixer (costs ca. 50$ or more, and a microphone you can
connect to that mixer (no extra costs). In fact this is the best way to
work anyway.
- Finding a specific place on a tape can be pretty awkward, but auto
indexing helps a lot.
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Cassette
Pro:
-Cheap
-Many older students will have a cassette player.
Against cassette:
-Finding a specific place on a tape can be pretty awkward.
-Recording quality and playback quality on your own player will be not
great. Play back quality on other players will even be worse: heads of
cassette players all have a different azimuth: means higher frequencies
will differ largely from player to player, mostly they are much to weak.
-Not everybody has a (working) cassette player anymore.
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Minidisk:
Pro:
-Very easy handling (they make tracks automatically and you can jump
form track to track, cue very comfortable, and even very easily cut and
paste things.
-Better quality then cassette, depending on playback md player even very
good.
-Easy copying (1x) to Recordable disk.
-Many younger students will have a md player
-Standalone models are quite inexpensive.
Against minidisk:
-Not everybody has a minidisk player.
-Portable models are more expensive than tape recorders, the media are a
little bit more expensive (but your students will pay them).
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CD recorder, audio (standalone or portable, the latter also useable for
pc)
Pro:
-Best quality, especially for play back.
-The most universal medium, everybody has a cd player
Against:
-May not last as long as md player or cassette with every day usage.
-More expensive than stationary minidisk or tape(s).
-Are going to disappear in favour of DVD recorders.
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CD-writer from pc:
-Best quality, provided soundcard is good, especially for play back.
-The most universal medium, everybody has a cd player
-Quite cheap (about the same as cassette player, also the media)
Against:
-May not last as long as md player or cassette with every day usage.
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(I did not mention DAT, but it has the same problem as hard disk
recorders and is less sturdy.)
I would use the cd-writer from your pc, provided your soundcard is more
or les ok (or buy a better one) and buy a new one every now and then if
necessary.
If you have many students, you could think about a professional
standalone cd-recorder: great quality, also for playing your own cd’s
(payed by the tax man!), more expensive, but with a guarantee that it
lasts, at least during that guarantee (with normal models the guarantee
might not apply if you use them professionally, besides that they are
not so well built). After that: sell it and buy a new one (you will have
the money because you have so many students.) Those recorders also can
use computer cd-recordables, which are cheaper and easier to buy.
Last but not least: your students might like to get cd’s much more than
cassettes.
Best greetings,
Dré
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