At 09:09 PM 2008-07-30, Tom Fine wrote:
>Boy do I not miss cassettes for music content, but I think we'll end
>up missing them for spoken-word content. There is little attention
>paid to quality with cheapo digi-recorders of spoken content and the
>digital artifacts of low-grade lossy formats are far more annoying,
>at least to my ears, than a little bit of hiss and/or wow from a cassette.
Being stuck in cassette purgatory (I had a city archive throw 100
oral history cassettes my way a few weeks ago, and I'm doing final
cleanup on them), I must say that I sort-of agree with you.
But ANYONE considering doing oral history with digi boxes needs to
look at these two sites:
http://www.vermontfolklifecenter.org/res_audioequip.htm
http://familyoralhistory.us/
In my experience, every time you improve the quality of an oral
history recording, it adds something.
I have used over the years several rigs that I liked (and you can mix
and match).
2 AKG C451 mics with a ReVox A77 tape recorder
2 Sennheiser MKH-416T mics with a portable DAT recorder
Audio Technica AT822 with a portable MD recorder
2 DPA 4006-TL with Sound Devices 722 recorder
Of these, the AT822 and MD is the worst combination, but it is so
much better than anything I hear coming in on cassette to transfer,
that I heartily recommend it. It is also the smallest and least
intimidating. The mic goes on a flat surface and there's a tiny wire
plugged into the MD about 0.5 m away.
Andy Kolovos's page has some thoughts on some of the compact-flash
recorders and though I don't think Andy likes the Zoom, I think Susan
Kitchens (no relation to the Kitchen Sisters on NPR) in the second
link above likes it.
Story Corps is using a Neumann KMS-105 and now that I own one, I can
see why. Great mic.
I really, really like the Sennheiser short shotguns. The best oral
history recording I got with my Dad was when we spent a whole
afternoon and I had one on him and one on me. Even though the DPAs I
used a few weeks ago sound a bit better and more natural for a room
full of people, sadly Dad isn't as alert as he was when I did the
previous rig. So, even more important, go out and do it. (I brought
the SD recorder and the DPAs as I had been telling Dad about it and
he was full of "you don't say" comments so I thought we'd have fun
playing with toys. He's 92.5 years old now. So, just go and do it
before it's too late.
Cheers,
Richard
Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
