Item |
Description |
Price |
Recorders |
| TASCAM HD-P2 |
This is a really decent CompactFlash (CF) recorder with a SMTPE timecode capability. Really a bargain at $1000. |
$1000 |
SONY TCD-D100 |
It is an excellend DAT digital tape recorder. Very small and dependable. |
$900 |
USBPre |
Digital and Analog Audio Computer Interface. It lets you digitize audio from tapes, microphones, as well as transfer digital signal from the SONY DAT recorder to a laptop. It's a digital I/O "Swiss Army Knife." |
$600 |
Digi I/O-A cable |
Special active cable to connect the SONY tape recorder with other devices via the S/PDIF interface [IMAGE]. Available from http://www.oade.com |
$170 |
Microphones |
| Shure Beta 53 |
One of the three great close-talking microphones available today. The reason I picked the Shure is because of its world-wide availability and good technical support. Be sure to purchase it with a battery-powered phantom power adapter. |
$500 |
AT831b |
Lavalier microphone. Good quality, unobtrusive. |
$160 |
Sennheiser HMD 25-1 |
Head-set microphone. Excellent quality |
$400 |
Earthworks MB30X |
Flat-response, measurement microphone. Does not need phantom power. Omnidirectional pick-up. |
|
A96F Line Matching Transformer |
The A96F transformer connects microphones with an XLR-type connector to the mini-plug inputs. It increases the signal level from the microphone, provides a balanced input, and prevents distortion due to the d.c. bias.[IMAGE] |
$54 |
Preamplifier |
MixPre |
Very small 2 channel mixer to mix 2 microphone feeds |
$840 |
Laptop computer |
IMB (now Lenovo) X-series notebook |
Very small and light laptop. |
$2000 |
Accessories |
DAT tapes |
60 Minute tapes work best, though you may want to buy 90 min. if your interviews are going to be that long. Generally, one tape per interview works best. |
$4 |
Pelican Case |
Those are, lightweight, heavy duty cases to carry your equipment in the field. They come in different sizes. They choice depends on how much equipment you want to put in them. |
$60 |
Cables are as important as all the other devices in the recording circuit. If you use poor-quality, unshielded, unbalanced cables, you are likely to get a noisy recording with a high probability of 60 Hz hum from electrical circuits. Below is a photo of three most commonly used cables in the field. The mini-plug interface is used with the SONY DAT recorder, the RCA interface is, typically, used with the digital S/PDIF standard, and the XLR connector is most commonly used in professional microphone interfaces.
