The reporter’s audio gear list
I saw this idea on someone else’s blog (I forget whose) and thought it a brilliant way to keep an up-to-date gear list that’s easy to share with others:
B&H WishList: Audio Gear (Mindy)
Please do not try to buy gear for me — it’s a “wishlist” for other people, not for me!
The one thing you can’t buy from B&H is the ultra-cheap hand-held microphones from Nady, the SP-4C and SP-5. Find them at Musician’s Friend.
Sometimes I get e-mails from reporters (as well as other journalism educators) asking what kind of audio equipment I use. I personally use the Edirol R-09 most of all, but it’s the most expensive of the options on the list. My students use Olympus recorders with Nady SP-4C mics most of the time, although I also have several EV 635 N/DB mics for them to sign out.
You can find a lot of cheap little recorders that look like the Olympus models I recommend. In my experience, the others are not equivalent. Even if they cost the same or a little more, they do not necessarily yield the same quality. Some of them record in strange proprietary file formats, which will make it a big pain to convert the files for editing — so beware!
As for microphone cables, I’ve found the Comprehensive cables to be more durable than the Hosa cables.
Related post: Choice for audio recorders (Jan. 25)
Mindy,
We (The Anniston Star, in Alabama)have just purchased the Zoom H2 recorder and have been amazed at the quality. It uses an SD card (we use a four gig) and the computer recognizes it just like a jump drive. It saves as .wav but can convert to .mp3 on the device itself. It has four built in mics that can record in several different configurations. Not to gush to much, but we really like the quality and flexibility for the $199 recorder.
-aj
April 17, 2008 at 8:18 amThis is me showing the H2 in action for a training class.
April 17, 2008 at 8:46 amhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ9Qw5VDxBE
A training video! Andy — you rock!!!
April 17, 2008 at 8:51 amI wonder why you didn’t do some sort of Amazon thing that would give you a kickback on purchases.
April 17, 2008 at 10:34 am@Craig: Because the Amazon.com pages on this gear change too much — third-party sellers and all that — and B&H almost always has all of these items.
April 17, 2008 at 11:16 am[…] Cheap Editing Tools a Boon for Media Makers. Jennifer Woodard Maderazo has a nice round-up on editing tools for video, photos, sound and music, many of them free. Related: Mindy McAdams’s The reporter’s audio gear list. […]
April 19, 2008 at 11:49 amA lower cost mic alternative is the Sennheiser e825s — 80 bucks at B&H (but out of stock at the moment).
I absolutely LOVE the warm, full sound from this mic — much better than the EV 635a. It’s metal, so it’ll stand up to daily abuse.
(Hard to beat the price on those Nadys though
April 20, 2008 at 12:20 pmHere’s a link to the Sennheiser at B&H — thanks, Dave!
Amazon has it in stock.
April 20, 2008 at 1:11 pm