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Topic: Recommendations on a recorder for phone interviews
| Author | Message |
| mkelly | Posted – 10/7/2008 5:44:24 PM | show profile I need a device that records a phone interview as an MP3 file, which I could then upload to my computer for some editing and ultimately post to our magazine's website. Any suggestions? |
| lilah78 | Posted – 10/13/2008 12:55:34 PM | show profile | email poster I recommend the Olympus 311 (maybe it's 311M?) -- it's a great little recorder, which also doubles as a USB device, so it's easy to plug into your computer and transfer files. It's both Mac and PC-compatible. (I have a Mac, and it works beautifully.) To use it to record phone interviews, you can buy an Olympus phone ear piece. They only make one, so it should be easy to find on Amazon -- it's probably even recommended as a product to buy with the 311. It runs about $15, if I remember correctly. Just plug it into the mic outlet on the recorder, stick the piece in your ear, and put your phone over your ear. The recording quality is great, and it's got a long battery life and plenty of space for recording. Hope that helps! |
| chucho | Posted – 10/13/2008 6:27:35 PM | show profile Any recorder + a phone recording device from Radio Shack (won't work with mobile phones, about $15). I second the Olympus -- the built in USB connector is great. On the downside, that AAA battery life can be used up fast -- it only takes one AAA -- so you always need a spare AAA or two and you end up replacing the AAA before it's depleted to make sure you don't run out of juice during interviews. I simply keep partially depleted AAAs to use up on playback, but if you do a lot of recording and playback you burn through AAAs and can get partially depleted ones mixed up with fresh ones (I mark the partial ones with a Sharpie so I don't have to keep them in separate pockets). This is preferable to recorders with built in lithium batteries that cannot be swapped out if you run out of juice. There is a higher-end Olympus recorder with much higher recording capability, a little larger, that takes two AA batteries, so I'm guessing you get much more recording time. But it's about $320. Still the cheaper $100 Olympus is a very useful tool. You can find them for about $50 with 256megs instead of 1 giga, and that would probably suffice -- still leaves a good amount of recording time. Also I've heard that the latest Olympus recorders (not sure if all of them do or not) have little mics with a sucker that can be stuck on mobile phones. |
| chucho | Posted – 10/13/2008 6:35:22 PM | show profile Sorry, forgot to add: I still see radio reporters using Minidisc recorders. Early Minidiscs were unreliable. They didn't "write" to the disc until after you pressed stop -- so if you accidentally eject the disc during recording, or lose power unexpectedly by dropping it and having the battery pop out unexpectedly, you would lose what you were recording at the time all the way back to the last time you pressed stop. But people I know who have recently purchased them swear by them and say they don't seem to have this problem (they write as they go, apparently, but I would check that). Minidiscs are another option, especially if you want hard copies of the recordings. And the quality is supreme. It's the equivalent of recording raw audio (huge file sizes), whereas digital recorders write directly to compressed MP3s -- practically speaking this should make little difference, but in loud, crowded auditoriums, a raw audio recording will have more depth whereas an MP3 might lose the speaker if s/he's far away. Most reporters won't have this issue, unless they want ambiance for radio. In radio uncompressed audio recording would be preferable. (Good analogy: better to have family photos as large RAWs or TIFFs rather than lo-rez web-only JPGs.) |
| BurbGrrl | Posted – 10/13/2008 11:24:24 PM | show profile What about for cells? Chucho mentioned that the Radio Shack phone attachment won't work with mobiles. Are there any phone recorders that do work with cellular phones? I'm trying to think ahead and consider not only what I need and use frequently now, but what I might need to be using 5 years down the road so I don't have to buy another device. Any recommendations? |
| lilah78 | Posted – 10/16/2008 10:02:44 AM | show profile The Olympus phone earpiece does work with any phone -- I used it almost solely on a cell phone since that's my primary phone. |
| Santa and his merry band | Posted – 10/17/2008 12:52:19 PM | show profile Two ideas As far as recording calls on your mobile phone, check to see if your phone has a record function. I have inadvertently recorded calls on my Nokia E-62 due to the fact the record button is on the side of the phone. Nice quality recordings it yields and the files are Mp4's which are easily convertible if you need such manipulation. With regards to land lines, I have used a small contact or pressure zone mic that you can pick up from Radio Shack, tape it to the phone and plug the mic into your computer's mic input on your sound card. Using MS Sound Record or some other software, you can record direct to compuer and convert the files as you need to. |
