|
Comments
On the topic of tools and equipment: Richard Hess wrote a note telling me that the mixer is a Sound Devices.
Quoth he:
Sound Devices—it is the same brand as the recorder I’ve gone gaga over. I have the SD722 recorder, the mixer is a 302.
He also asked about the CD Burners and the Microphones.
CD Burners: Tascam CD-RW901 and Tascam CD-RW2000. There’s a Marantz component on top of the two CD burners, and above that, an ATI Multiple Amplifier Array.
The mics were AKG mics. Cardioid, I’m guessing.
Richard also asked if I’d duplicated my CD. Why yes. So far, I’ve made one silver disk copy and two gold disk copies. I’m using one the silver one for my working playback disk.
Thank you for the wonderful write-up of your experience in the StoryCorps MobileBooth. I’ll look into making a space available in the Question Generator so people can write in their own questions, it’s an excellent idea.
Regards,
Dalton
(StoryCorps webmaster)
Hello, Susan,
This is indeed interesting. Thanks for the details. The Marantz unit appears to be a PMD570
http://www.d-mpro.com/users/folder.asp?FolderID=3526&CatID=19&SubCatID=179
This is a digital recorder ($900) that records to compact flash (CF) card. So were they really making three copies? It would seem to me that the CF recordings make a lot more sense as they can then be downloaded without ripping the CDs for the LoC to store in a trusted digital repository.
Now that I have the SD722 recorder, everything in the field gets recorded on that. No more real-time copying of MDs or DATs. I cannot tell you how exciting the move to the data-format field recorder has been.
A recent example: I was visiting a well-known audio engineer who is, alas, now confined to a wheel chair. We were discussing his “downsizing” of his collection of stuff—while providing additional funds for living. I had the SD722 with a Sennheiser MKH416T short shotgun and the Nikon D200 with an 18-200 mm VR zoom. As we talked, I recorded his explanations of the history behind various devices and also took still photos. I generated about 1 GB of data, split almost 50:50 between audio and pictures. I was recording 44.1/24 and shooting 10 MP RAW + JPEG. The two CF cards were downloaded onto my staging drive within about ten minutes of my returning home and the redundant copies were made automatically overnight.
Completing the StoryCorps equipment lineup, the Sound Devices URL for the mixer is
http://www.sounddevices.com/products/302master.htm
The ATI unit appears to be this one:
http://www.atiaudio.com/?fa=product&id=216#
and it’s something I’ve used in many installations as it’s sort of a “Swiss Army Knife”. I’m not sure why they used it here, as I probably would have passively split the audio from the Sound Devices 302 mixer directly into the three recorders (after confirming that was possible) or I would have used one recorder as the A-D converter and used a digital distribution amplifier to distribute the digital signal to the other two…or some other configuration that worked without introducing another piece of hardware. Upgrading to the SD422 mixer removes one box from the signal path while providing multiple outputs. It also provides one additional mic input.
Are the CDs recorded one mic to one channel or as mono?
This certainly is a good and flexible setup for recording one-on-one oral history interviews and all the folks involved should be commended for doing this.
Fascinating…thanks for hosting the discussion.
Cheers,
Richard
Dalton—Cool… Glad to see that you’ll be making that change. Oh, and I’ll add one more. I clicked the “print this” button in order to get questions (main div or whatever) no sidebars, and only the intro part was included. The questions themselves were lost.
I’d suggest, too (my my, we are getting technical, but if I have your attention, I have your attention), that you set the stylesheets for print to go for a larger size. In the end, to get my printout the size I wanted, I opted to import the text from email into a word processor and select the size I wanted. excessive, yes, but the size of the web page printout was just too small.
P.S. I hope you like all the equipment hashing we’re doing, here, too! 
Richard, about the CD audio or mono—thanks for asking, as it reminded me that when I first popped the CD into a player to check it out, it was for that very reason. Mono? Stereo? Split evenly. Mono or split evenly. We didn’t have a facilitator ask questions, so I didn’t get an opportunity to see how that would’ve been.
Glad you had such a nice experience and that you’re interested in the details of our setup.
Here are a couple of notes on what you’ve been discussing on the equipment front:
-The mics we use are actually neumann supercardioids.
-We use the ATI distribution amp to split the signal to the three recorders and to create separate channel routing for the participant copy of the CD (which is summed vs. the stereo split we create for our own archive/production copies).
-We chose not to use a single recorder as the AD converter with the others routed or daisy chained to avoid reproducing any errors in the conversion process (which, though rare, do occur). This way, if we have a digital artifact on the flash recorder copy, we can go back to the CD audio.
Of course, we have the luxury of a permanent setup in our booths. Using the 422, with the extra set of balanced outs is a nice idea and would make for a more portable rig.
-We also love the SD722 and use it for our off-site recordings.
All the Best,
Nick
(StoryCorps Facilities & Archive Manager)
Nick—
Thanks for stopping by and adding comments. Makes perfect sense, then, having one be a final mix whereas the other is a stereo split. I wondered about that when I listened to my copy, thinking that for audio editing, you’d want each speaker in a separate channel. Does that explain the two different models of CD burners?
Am I correct to assume that in cases where the faciliatator speaks during the interview, the audio is mixed into the interviewer channel on your split copy?
Hi, Nick,
Thanks for the detailed response. I now better understand what you are doing and it is very clever. The ATI MLA-800 series excels at this odd mixing requirement. I’ve used a bunch in complex multi-media screening rooms and broadcast facilities over the years.
Glad to hear you’re using Neumann super-cardioids. Are these the KMS-105?
http://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=current_microphones&cid=kms105_description
If so, I’m on the waiting list for a loaner as I am very excited by this mic for voice work. I have a Neumann TLM-103 that I like a lot (and also an RCA 77DX for voice work, but I keep amateurs away from it due to the risk of blowing out the ribbon).
So what is the Marantz recorder used for? How does that fit into your workflow?
Thanks for the details. This is a great resource, along with Andy Kolovos’s page.
http://www.vermontfolklifecenter.org/res_audioequip.htm
Cheers,
Richard