Recommendations for kit and software

[OliReading]

Hi all, apologies for a few 'newbie' questions, wonder if I could draw on your experiences...

My friends and I are going to be producing recordings of radio plays for
broadcast on hospital radio as well as youtube and similar online downloadables.
We're looking to find out what hardware and software would be suitable for doing this.
We have a budget of a few hundred pounds (or dollars) to get something which will
do the job.

We're looking for something which will do digital recording. Since the target is radio
and online, we're not looking for professional ultra-high quality, but also not something
which will sounds scratchy etc when listened to through headphones. We'll try to find a
room which is quiet and relatively free of echo etc for the recordings.

I've seen hand-held dictaphones with built in microphones. Do you have a view on whether the
recording capability of such a device is better than recording through a laptop or a phone or similar?
Is this one of those situations where one should be spending more on the microphone than the
recorder (or is it vice versa?)

We're typically going to have two, occasionally three, people speaking. Sockets for
multiple external microphones would be handy for that. I'm not sure that we need to be
recording each mic on a different channel (though that would be nice) so can we use a device
(such as a laptop) with a single (stereo) mic input but some sort of 'splitter' for plugging
in multiple mics?

If you have views on any particular models of recording devices or microphones then I'd
be interested to hear them, or any features or specifications I should look out for.

I've also tried to find Windows software which I can use to bring together independent
audio clips. My desire was something which would take a series of audio files, do some
degree of adjustment so they all have a similar volume level, then append them
together into a single audio file. I was looking at free stuff and couldn't find anything
which would do that. We don't mind paying for something but don't want to pay out a lot
for a sophisticated package since our needs are very little (I've used WavePad which is
fine for editing, if that would work across multiple files it would be perfect,
I'm not sure if their MixPad product would do what we want).

Hope that's not too many questions for one postings. I don't really know the market at all
so just looking for initial pointers so I don't pay too much for the wrong product.

Thanks,
Oli

 

[ecc83]

Hi Oli and welcome.
I have the very thing, sat sittng here! An A&H ZED 10FX usb mixer.
Now I would normally suggest a good Audio Interface to the home recording bod (NI KA6 of course!) but your needs are rather different.

The ZED10 will allow 4 mics to be used (tho' there are 2 more stereo line inputs so a $50mixer would get you 2 more and still leave a stereo channel for "play ins") thus you can "pan" each actor into their place in the soundstage. The mixer also has some fairly comprehensive monitoring, PFL on each channel plus FX send and AUX send on each channel.

The resultant stereo mix* is then sent out via usb to be recorded on the laptop. Yes, technical peeps, the 10 is "only" a 16bit interface but it is a bloody good one and is more than good enough for "radio"!

Can I also say Oli that this kind of enterprise (far more so than the bedroom wannabees) will need special kit making up, cables, headphone selector boxes, etc. You will need someone with a solder iron and a bit of electronics nouce...Or learn yourself!

*Everything is stereo these days of course..Except when it isn't! You must have the means to check the mix in mono otherwise there is the danger of weird sounds or even actors disappearing!

Dave.