Conference Project

[Ron Edwards]

The speaker wants to record 10 hours of audio at a conference, send me the files, and I would transfer to a C/D for distribution. (he is doing the recording)

He will purchase the recording equipment.

What would be cost effective equipment and workflow to get this gig done?

Can 10 hours of audio fit on one C/D and playback on most players?

Thanks in Advance!

[Seth Bloombaum]

A CD that meets the Audio-CD standard will hold a max of 80 minutes. This is because the standard uses an uncompressed format.

A few home and car CD players will play a burned data CD containing MP3 audio files. All Macs and PCs will, too. That would be the only way to get 10 hours on a disc, but won't play on most audio cd players.

More on the CD-Digital Audio standard at the Red Book (CD standard) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) page at wikipedia.

[Greg Miller]

Originally Posted by Ron Edwards

(he is doing the recording)
He will purchase the recording equipment.

And when the final product sounds bad, who gets blamed? Who has to do a lot of extra work (for free) trying to clean and process the audio to make it acceptable? Who has to fight to get paid?

[Graham Bernard]

I find this truly interesting.

Here we have a client with expectations over and above the technology (why?), coupled with a potential supplier asking if this is even possible.

We have here an example of the need to manage expectations against the technology which is available.

IMO there are 2 immediate distribution solutions:

1] Download - this is THE most up to date, and tried and tested option.

2] USB dongle - relatively expensive but couldn't it be folded into the 10 hour price?

Interesting. As we look forward to, and many already have SSHDs, for booting their computers, here we are fosicking about, attempting to squeeze 10 hours onto a CD! Bizarre.

I do hope the lectures aren't about embracing the new technology of the INTERNET or data transfer?

Seriously? There are other more efficient ways of distribution of large files. And yes, I do still have JJ Cale, Ry Cooder and Vaughn Williams on my NISSAN CD player.

The right tool for the job.

Of course one could always consider doing a 9 CD BOX set? I did say "consider".

Grazie

[Chris Soucy]

Ummmm,

Who in their right mind wants to listen to ten hours of audio from a conference, or, am I missing something here?

There seems to be a total disconnect from reality with this one - conference goers, on expenses, having a whale of a time during the breaks and spending most of their time sleeping during the droning on, suddenly wanting to shill out for a CD set of said droning on?

Er, hello!

10 hours?

Walk away and tell him to get real.


CS

[Graham Bernard]

Excellent, Chris, excellent. Yes, walk away is the other option.

Grazie

[Jim Michael]

Sounds like the client just needs to be informed of his options. I'd start with 'why a CD?".

[Greg Miller]

Originally Posted by Graham Bernard

And yes, I do still have JJ Cale, Ry Cooder and Vaughn Williams on my NISSAN CD player.

Hell, I still have Caruso on my Edison shellac disc (with vertical modulation).

I recall conferences where they took orders before lunch for cassette recordings of presentations, and delivered the dupes at the end of the day. Perfect application for high speed cassette dupes, since surely nobody would ever listen to that drek.

Seriously, I would be very cautious about this project. Obviously the client is clueless if he wants to get 10hrs on an audio CD. Yet he's going to choose, purchase, install, and operate the recording equipment, and dump the masters in your lap. It surely looks as if you're setting yourself up for one big load of hurt.

[Ron Edwards]

I spoke with the client and now they (and I) understand 10 hours of audio on a C/D just isn't going to work. No Problem. Now they are ok with a C/D set (10 C/D's).

Now I just need to know what portable audio recorder is small and light enough for a speaker to use that is moving around. Probably would need SD or SDHC storage large enough to hold at least 12 hours of recording.

TIA
Ron

[Noel Lising]

I freelance for a company that records audio on site, I shoot videos for their CD-Rom offerings but I do see how the audio guys do the record for the MP3/CD offerings. They record with a Marantz deck, taking an audio feed from the PA system board. They edit on site using sound forge and make a master copy, by day 2 they have CDs ready for selling.

This venture has made the owner of the company I freelance for millions of dollars, do the math an Association with 3000 members, include one audio cd as part of the registration let's say $ 10. They split the money, you've just made $ 15K easily. Now multiply that with 4 conferences a month... you get my drift.

Good luck with your project.

[Greg Miller]

What does the client want to record? Just his own voice, as he walks from room to room? Panel discussions? Q&A sessions? Entire meeting including invocation, end to end?

[Ron Edwards]

The speaker only wants to record her voice as she conducts different sessions within the same room. Each session is about 1 hour long. She has no problem clipping a recorder onto her waist and a lapel mic on her blouse. Batteries should last 6 hours or more (she can install new ones at lunch) and the actual recording should be on SD or SDHC or similiar for ease of shipping back to me for transfer to C/D's.

[Harry Simpson]

Have you considered the Zoom H1 "You can feed the H1 32GB micro SDHC cards for up to 50 hours of recording, and one AA battery will get you about 10 hours of record time."

Or get the $300 H4n and couple with an XLR Lav mic......this records to SD cards also.
Battery life shorter on the H4N of course.

[Jacques Mersereau]

Originally Posted by Chris Soucy

Ummmm,

Who in their right mind wants to listen to ten hours of audio from a conference,
CS

I don't mean to jump on the dog pile, but I guess I am just by answering - sorry!
Listening to ten hours of good stuff is one thing. Ten hours of distant, grainy, ambient conference audio is BEYOND HORRIBLE.
To do this gig right is a BIG task requiring a professional audio company to wire a GOOD mic for EACH participant, a huge mixer, splitter system, etc. You will also need wranglers to make sure people talk into his/her mic and that the mics don't get pushed to the side, as lots of people like to do. TEN HOURS record time is still another nightmare with which to deal. I don't know what the client wants to pay, but from what I gather from reading the 'tea leaves' it won't be adequate. Try to do this on the cheap and your reputation will be in serious jeopardy if you don't deliver broadcast quality recordings. I would honestly think this gig over before saying yes.

[Greg Miller]

The audio purist in me agrees with Jacques. But I'm relating that to complex tracks played back at fairly high level on a 5.1 system in a movie theatre.

The realist in me says two things.

First, I doubt that anybody will listen to ten hours of this, certainly not at one sitting, certainly not at high levels, certainly not on JBL theatre speakers in an acoustically controlled environment. Small imperfections in the reproduction won't be terribly fatiguing.

Second, my expectations are higher than the general public's. Twenty million paying subscribers listen to Sirius/SM for entertainment. SXM's satellite channels are typically 48kbps or lower for stereo! Even their internet stream is only 64kbps. Ugh and ugh! Lots of people listen to broadcast radio, which can potentially be cleaner than SXM but usually isn't. And countless people listen to audiobooks via MP3 downloads or even cassette tapes (and believe me, some of those tapes are indescribably bad).

I'm sure the presenter could get an "adequate" Tascam or Sony recorder and some sort of "adequate" mic. (The mic will be the challenge, since many pocket-size pro-sumer recorders have only unbalanced mic inputs.) Even so, a mic on the presenter will not pick up anyone else worth squat. If there's any Q&A or other dialog, it will sound like pants. She needs to acknowledge that, up front.

You can indoctrinate the presenter by explaining that, on a feature film, this sort of recording would be handled by an experienced crew of one or two, and a mic or recorder each costing in excess of $1k. She just can NOT expect studio quality from a DIY setup.

My bigger fear is some sort of gross failure. Levels set terribly wrong, causing uncorrectable clipping. Bad cabling, causing static, hum, or loss of audio. Bad mic; bad recorder, bad memory card, etc. There's no way you can fix any of that stuff, because you won't be there. Something might break on the first morning session, go unnoticed, and cause the loss of an entire day's worth of material.

Sure, you can undertake to do this project. But don't treat it lightly. And, seriously, have a good attorney read the contract carefully; you don't want to get hit with a "loss of profits" lawsuit because something out of your control went wrong, and there were no CDs to sell.

Give her my number... I'll set her straight.