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#1
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MP3 recording through mic jack?
We are trying to record sermons from the church I attend to an MP3
format to post on the web. All priests wear a wireless headset which is piped into a large amp by the organ. The amp only has a 1/4" headphone/monitor jack on the front. There may be a line out jack on the back but it's in a huge console and not accessible. We don't want the priests to have to turn the recorder on/off so the organist will. I purchased an Olympus VN6200 (which I found out only records in WMA format). As a trial I connected a 1/8" to 1/4" cable from the mic jack on the Olympus to the 1/4" jack on my stereo amp. This results in very distorted sound however. Is this setup going to work? If not can you make a recommendation? Thanks. |
#2
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MP3 recording through mic jack?
Bob wrote:
I purchased an Olympus VN6200 (which I found out only records in WMA format). As a trial I connected a 1/8" to 1/4" cable from the mic jack on the Olympus to the 1/4" jack on my stereo amp. This results in very distorted sound however. Is this setup going to work? If not can you make a recommendation? The mike level is maybe 40 dB lower than the line level. You need to put a pad between them. This may be something in the ballpark although like most RS crap there is not any real documentation so you don't know how much it really pads the signal down: http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2103858 --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#3
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MP3 recording through mic jack?
Bob wrote:
We are trying to record sermons from the church I attend to an MP3 format to post on the web. All priests wear a wireless headset which is piped into a large amp by the organ. The amp only has a 1/4" headphone/monitor jack on the front. There may be a line out jack on the back but it's in a huge console and not accessible. You just have to work harder at this. We don't want the priests to have to turn the recorder on/off so the organist will. Have you discussed this with the organist? I purchased an Olympus VN6200 (which I found out only records in WMA format). As a trial I connected a 1/8" to 1/4" cable from the mic jack on the Olympus to the 1/4" jack on my stereo amp. This results in very distorted sound however. Is this setup going to work? It can be made to work, but you'll need to attenuate the signal coming out of the amplifier. The input jack on your recorder is designed for a microphone which puts out a much lower voltage than what's coming out of the amplifier. From what I can tell, the recorder doesn't even have an adjustable record level (most voice recorders don't) but even if it does, the distortion is a result of overloading circuitry that comes ahead of the record level control. You need to get someone on site who understands these things to make a few measurements and build you a cable that will attenuate the signal coming from the amplifier by an appropriate amount. You can buy an in-line volume control but it will probably cost more than the recorder, and you'll still need special cables or adapters in order to hook it up. This isn't complicated, but it would take hours of writing to provide you with enough detail so that you could do the job correctly yourself. You could buy a different recorder (this would get you over the need to convert the WMA files that the Olympus makes to the MP3 files you want), one with a line level input, but you still need to be careful about that line input. I've seen a few of these handheld recorders, in fact I have one myself, on which the line input can be overloaded by some sources. The Zoom H4n and Sony PCM-M10 are two that can handle just about any line level as long as you set the record level control properly, but they're both in the $300 ballpark. With a $50 recorder that's really designed to record from its own built-in microphone, you have to do the other $250 worth of work. Have you tried just setting the recorder up on top of the organ and recording with its own mic? The recording will probably have a lot of reverberation, but it might work. -- "Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson |
#4
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MP3 recording through mic jack?
"Bob" wrote in message
We are trying to record sermons from the church I attend to an MP3 format to post on the web. All priests wear a wireless headset which is piped into a large amp by the organ. The amp only has a 1/4" headphone/monitor jack on the front. There may be a line out jack on the back but it's in a huge console and not accessible. We don't want the priests to have to turn the recorder on/off so the organist will. I purchased an Olympus VN6200 (which I found out only records in WMA format). As a trial I connected a 1/8" to 1/4" cable from the mic jack on the Olympus to the 1/4" jack on my stereo amp. This results in very distorted sound however. Is this setup going to work? If not can you make a recommendation? The scary part about the VN2600 is how highly compressed its files are. In its highest quality mode, it records over 70 hours on 1 gigabyte of storage. That's 3.5 k bytes per second or 28 K bits per second. For reference purposes, 128 kbits is considered to be a marginal recording speed for stereo music. You are being forced to do low bitrate recording and sound quality will be significantly diminished. If all you want is an approximation of the priest's voice, that is what you will get. Tools that is designed for this purpose might be a Zoom H1 or a M-Audio Microtrack. These devices have inputs that are actually designed for the signal levels that you are trying to use. The Zoom H1 only runs a a few dozen dollars more than the VN 2600 and records at bitrates that will give you a useful range of audio quality levels. |
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