MP3 recording?

January 27, 2009 4:57 AM

I need an easy-to-use standalone MP3 recorder to record council meetings. It would need to have the facility to take input from microphones.

I'm looking to record council meetings so that they can be put onto the internet and listened to by all and sundry at a later date. I'd appreciate help in reccomending a recorder for the job - ideally something which records onto CDRs in MP3 - but I'm not wedded to the idea! Any help from Mefi in improving access to democracy much appreciated!

posted by prentiz to technology (8 comments total)

Your main issue here isn't the recorder. Just about anything on the market will do the job. The main issue is that if you're going to want to use more than one microphone, you're going to need a mixer of some sort to combine all of those inputs into a single output. Behringer makes a perfectly servicable one that Amazon is currently selling for $40. You'd connect your microphones to that, then feed the output into a recorder of some sort. Almost doesn't matter what.
posted by valkyryn at 5:17 AM on January 27

When you say microphone, are you thinking XLR input (large, circular), or 1/4" plugs or 1/8" plugs? Will your microphones be powered or non-powered, requiring phantom power from your recorder? How many mics? And finally, what budget are you using?

I'm sorry to ask technical questions like these but in order to make a recommendation these are required pieces of information.
posted by arniec at 7:21 AM on January 27

The microphones are already there and part of a powered system. We can record to tape at the moment, but we're looking to upgrade. The tape system takes 2 3.5 mm RCA phono plugs (or so google images seems to indicate!) As with every council thing, as small a budget as possible! Thanks!
posted by prentiz at 7:54 AM on January 27

I paid about $70 for a Sony digital recorder that records in stereo direct to MP3. It's not my ideal digital recorder but it works well enough and if you want something that records direct to MP3 your options are limited. Records great from input as well, though the on board mics don't seem to have too much of a range. I highly recommend picking up a small external stereo condenser mic to plug in if you're not recording from input.

If you want to spend more $$$ I hear good things about the Zoom H2.
posted by Heminator at 7:55 AM on January 27

I have a Zoom H2, but it doesn't really have great support for external mics. You can do it, but there's no XLR in, and it only takes 1/8" plugs. Other than that, I'm really happy with it.
posted by azarbayejani at 8:34 AM on January 27

The Zoom H2 or H4 would get the job done. The H4 has XLR inputs, but it sounds like you're just coming off a tape out anyway, so the H2 and a RCA -> 1/8" cable would get the job done.

There are also offerings from M-Audio, Edirol, and a variety of other brands.

Any local music store with a decent Pro Audio / Recording section should have many of these in stock if you want to get your hands on them and try them out.
posted by jjb at 9:03 AM on January 27

I know this isn't specifically what you asked for, but is there a computer with a microphone input available for these meetings? You would easily plug the mics into a computer running Audacity to record the meetings.
posted by bwilms at 10:23 AM on January 27

The Olympus OS-10 is pretty awesome. From what I understand, the preamps blow the zoom stuff out of the water.

Many other digital recorders have a tragic flaw (zooms preamps suck, h4 has popping sounds, h2 is huge, ugly, bad batter, popping sounds). The OS-10 doesn't. It has an annoying file system and the stupid red recording light is annoying, but it's got no major flaw. Uses AA batteries. Can take a stereo input, good preamps for external mics. I have one and I use it all the time for recording music. It's pretty darn good.
posted by sully75 at 12:29 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]