Idea for speech recording

[Peter Riding]

the lack of recording level adjustment is a bit disappointing

That put me off as well, though I did see in the manual that there is an "intelligent noise" feature that maybe can compensate.

But the breaker for me was no tripod mount screw, as with the yammy, because I use friction arms and mini-tripods a lot to place devices near but not on the participants. The supplied Sony lav looks rather large - though you don't have to use it obviously; I find the Giant Squids are fine for wedding work.

The Zoom H1 is bigger than all these but not much bigger and I have yet to find a client who cannot slip one into their trouser pocket. I also carry small belt pouches that just fit the H1's but they never seem to be needed so they just act as travel protection in my bag. You also have much greater headroom in post to push the H1 files if necessary - if you have recorded at a high quality level in the first place.

I always set my H1 levels manually. If close but not on a normal speaker, 90%. If on a lav on a speaker 85%. If on a loud priest 65-70%

All these look like toys to me. For a device that looks the part and is also very compact it has got to be the Sennheiser G3 transmitter. BTW I don't think I've come across a venue yet that is using the new UK Channel 38 for their inhouse wireless.

Pete

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Taky Cheung

Most lav mics are mono only. It duplicates the same content to left and right channels.

I know that & indeed all my other lav mics are mono but this Sony one is labelled 'Stereo' plus 'L' & 'R' but the recorder appears to be mono.

[Roger Gunkel]

Hi Nigel, I think you are missing a couple of basic features on the Sony. You don't need to dive into the menus to adjust the input levels. Just press the 'Scene' button on the front, then the left/right buttons to select between meeting/voice notes/interview/lecture/audio in. They are different mic levels, with Voice Notes lowest sensitivity and Lecture the highest. If you are close micing, set it on Voice notes, for vows I set it to meeting and put the mic low down on the Groom's jacket, to pick up B&G equally. The presets work surprisingly well.

The Sony records normal left/right stereo except with the onboard mic which is mono, and the Sony lapel mic with the 'M' model is definitely stereo. I also recorded a stereo recording from a mixing desk last week, using the audio in setting and it worked very well. If you want to check the lav, just plug it in, press record and lightly rub each end of the mic. On playback with a pair of stereo headphones you will hear it is clearly stereo.

Hope that helps,

Roger

[Roger Gunkel]

Forgot to add that if you plug the usb out of the Sony into a pc, you can access the internal folders for cutting and pasting the audio, and in addition there is an included folder that contains a full pdf manual.

Roger

[Nigel Barker]

Thanks Roger. I assumed that it's actually using AGC or maybe just a limiter. I shall have to do some testing & look at the waveform in Audition.

[Roger Gunkel]

Strangely, there is a limiter on the headphone output, which controls the maximum volume that you can hear even though there is an output level control. You can turn it off in the settings though.

Roger

[Chris Hewitt]

Roger, I used the Sony PX312's at a wedding this past weekend and found them to be good.
The levels were a bit high on the 'Interview' setting, almost clipping, the waveform was pretty packed so I'll experiment with the other scenes and post back.
This may well have been because there was no PA for the speeches so they were havingto speak louder ...it was in a big marquee with all the dead acoustics you'd expect.
Having three of these mics made it all so much easier but having said that, I DO have a small sync drift on the timeline between the Sonys and my AC160.
This could be down to the fact that all my audio is set to wav 16/48kHz except the Sony mics which are mp3 16/44kHz....no option to upscale in the recorder unless I downscale the other audio sources.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Roger Gunkel

Strangely, there is a limiter on the headphone output, which controls the maximum volume that you can hear even though there is an output level control. You can turn it off in the settings though.

Roger

This is a legal requirement so that the young folk don't deafen themselves listening to music at high volume on their iDevices & WalkPersons.

[Roger Gunkel]

Nigel- that would be a good idea until they find the setting that turns the limiter off!

Chris- I recorded a 40 minute ceremony at the weekend and the Sonys stayed in synch with the camera audio. The drift for you could be a difference in the mp3 and wav. files although that seems unusual, but you should be able to adjust the mp3 playback speed slightly on the time line to keep synch, by stretching or shrinking the mp3 timeline file.

Roger

[Chris Hewitt]

Roger, it's only about a quarter of a second out over 50 minutes so I've cut the file at the start of each of the four speakers, made the sync adjustment and it's fine.
You did say 'Interview' for the scene, didn't you? I can't find the original post now....

[Roger Gunkel]

Hi Chris,

I do usually use 'Interview' setting for the vows, with the mic clipped low down on the Groom's jacket. That is the second to lowest sensitivity setting with 'Voice Notes' being the least sensitive. If you do get some clipping, you could try the Voice Notes instead especially if you have the mic near the speaker's mouth.

How didi you find them in use compared to the Zoom H1, I think you said you had one of those? Personally I find the Sony quicker and easier to set up and the sound as good as the Sony.

Next week I have a 4 camera school production shoot and I will be using the Sonys and the Zoom on the stage, so it will be interesting to compare results with my previous efforts. I will probably use different settings on them as a sound check will be impossible.

Roger

[Rob Cantwell]

i'm in the market for another small digital recorder and found this product ICD-PX333M | Notetakers | Features | ICDPX333M.CE7 | ICDPX333M | Sony
Disregard the price as i can get it for nearly €20 cheaper from Amazon (beats me how Sony manage to sell anything here!!)
anyway i was wondering is this similar to the one discussed on this thread just a different model - 4Gig instead of 2 Gig

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Rob Cantwell

i'm in the market for another small digital recorder and found this product ICD-PX333M | Notetakers | Features | ICDPX333M.CE7 | ICDPX333M | Sony
Disregard the price as i can get it for nearly €20 cheaper from Amazon (beats me how Sony manage to sell anything here!!)
anyway i was wondering is this similar to the one discussed on this thread just a different model - 4Gig instead of 2 Gig

Rob, it looks identical to the ICD-PX312M so I would guess that it is just double the memory.

[Rob Cantwell]

good stuff, cant complain about the price.

thnx

[Alan Kelly]

Originally Posted by Adrian Tan

Hey Noa, I've been following your lead on this since I first read you mention this idea months ago. Have purchased two and gaffer them to microphones when I have to (if I can avoid it, I don't -- I don't like seeing them in shot). But -- do you find that the Yamaha C24 is sometimes "temperamental"? Meaning -- it stops recording after a minute for no apparent reason? (And it's not because I've accidentally left it on standby; I've sat there and watched the device and seen this happen.)

This has happened to me a few times. If I reformat the micro SD, that seems to solve things every time (note: I always format all my cards before I start a wedding, so I'm skeptical it's a formatting issue that's causing this). The main consequence is that I can't record, press hold, and forget. I need to come back and check to make sure they're actually running.

Anyway, curious to know whether you or anyone else has had similar experiences.

Hey Adrian this has happened to me too randomly with the Yamaha c24 - it just stops and knocks off resulting in 0kb file - unusable. Its messed up a few speeches for me. I dont really trust it anymore. Not sure if its the micro sd sandisk card. I try and let it run for 30mins prior to speeches to see how its behaving. Sound is fantastic when it does work. Not really practical to mic up every speaker here in Ireland. - there could be 5/6. I'm on the look out for another slim recorder that I can fix to mic.