Portable digital audio recorders are essential tools for oral historians, filmmakers, journalists, folklorists, documentary and podcast producers, and sound designers, and when recording high-quality professional sounding audio, the capabilities of the recording equipment matter. Once affordable audio recorders had high quality preamps and recorded at 24-bit/96 kHz , I feel there was only incremental innovation…
Zoom has just released the PodTrak P4 ($199), an impressive recorder with the built-in ability to easily conduct and record high quality telephone interviews. As more of our oral history projects include remote interviewing, most of the focus is on online web conferencing systems such as Zoom or TheirStory. Web conferencing systems add an important…
This is the third post in the series Microphones, Oral History, and that “Radio” Sound in the Field about the microphone options for trying to achieve “broadcast quality” recording when not in a studio. The first post in the series focused on handheld electronic news gathering (ENG) microphones; the second post focused on lavaliere microphones….
The H4n Pro is an update to the very popular H4n which was a very popular recorder. The primary update to the H4n Pro is the improved preamps resulting the overall recording quality. Additionally, the H4n Pro has a better screen, and the XLR microphone inputs are locking. This is a recorder that is attractive…
In my mind there were three tiers of portable audio recorders: the low-end (under $400), the mid/high-range professional ( $401-$1,499), and the super premium recorders (more than $1,500). For years, this tripartite structure worked quite well. If you were aiming for professional recording, I would steer you to the mid/high-range recorders. However, the competition between…
There is a tremendous amount of attention placed on the numerous technical challenges involved when remotely recording oral history interviews; however, the logistical challenges can be of equal importance. One logistical challenge is the simple act of obtaining signatures for consent forms, release forms, or the interview deed of gift. When conducting in-person interviews, there…
As oral history and podcast interviewers around the world look for remote interviewing solutions for conducting oral history interviews during a pandemic, a lot has changed about the way we conduct oral history and our notion of best practices. However, there are aspects that have, indeed, stayed the same. Best practice for recording oral history…
In my earlier post Microphones, Oral History, and that “Radio” Sound in the Field: ENG Microphones I talk about my ongoing quest to achieve broadcast quality recordings out in the field and launch a series of posts that “explores ways to achieve broadcast quality audio with that radio or studio sound.” One of the more…
I have always tried to record oral history interviews in the field that were broadcast quality and sounded like studio recordings. I want to achieve a sound that has minimal ambient noise and gives the listener that close-mic’d sound that you hear when you listen to radio personalities such as the hosts of All Things…
