Live recordings (acoustic), lectures/speeches

[tibbsa]

Good evening,

I've been sifting through a lot of the forum messages in here already, and have picked up a number of useful 'tips' and 'tricks' that could be of use down the road. I am completely new to the whole taper phenomenon, at least from the taping point of view, and at this point don't even have the MD unit in my hands. (I'll most likely be going for the Sony MZ-NH900, though, mainly for the battery life.)

What is still leaving me a little baffled is, what to do about the microphone(s). I need this for a couple of reasons, one of which is recording lectures/speeches in rooms that aren't quite great acoustically. I used a $99 Sony condenser mic for this purpose once with good results, but that particular mic really mutilated musical recordings.

I'm also going to be in Boston (Cambridge) in November for an acoustic show, and would like to record that. It's a tiny club, and I can't say I've ever been there, so at this point that's about all I can say.

Is there some microphone that would be fairly well suited for both applications? (I may some day need something for recording louder/full band concerts, but that's another question altogether, I suspect.)

Any info would be helpful.

[A440]

You can get fine recordings of music with basic little binaurals from Sound Professionals or Microphone Madness, clipped unobtrusively to your shirt collar tabs.

They give a surprisingly accurate record of what you hear in the room, and they are better and smaller than comparably priced Sony mics. They would be ideal for a show at a little acoustic place like Passim in Cambridge, where you don't need more directional (cardioid) mics because you're virtually on top of the stage. They will also be fine for larger places. I've used them for everything from acoustic gigs all the way up to stadiums.

If it sounds good to your ears, then it will sound good with those mics. Get what you can afford, but you don't have to break the bank.

If you are just recording speech, you don't need as wide a frequency range as you do for music, which may be why your Sony condenser worked well for one function but not the other. Depending on how bad the acoustics are at your lectures, you may do better with the condenser than with the binaurals, because perhaps the condenser simply won't pick up some of the stray sounds.

Also try changing your seat--lots of rooms have acoustics that vary quite a bit depending on where you are. Or if you can, put the mic near the podium (unamplified) or the PA, so most of the sound it gets is directly from the source.

If your recorder doesn't have a Low Sensitivity switch, then run the binaurals through a Radio Shack Headphone 'Volume Control (search this forum) to prevent overloading.

[tibbsa]

You can get fine recordings of music with basic little binaurals from Sound Professionals or Microphone Madness, clipped unobtrusively to your shirt collar tabs.

Sorry for the delay in responding, as I did see this some time ago. Thanks for the response. The general feedback I've received from -everywhere- is that the little binaural mics would be a pretty good starting point (not so much the in-ear ones), so I've got a set on the way, and we'll see what happens. The NH900 should also be on my doorstep sometime this week. I took Minidisc Canada's last one in stock, it seems.

I'll let you know how it goes, whenever I get around to doing some dry runs.