Looking for a decent Wav recorder

[triger49]

Maybe somebody can point me in the right directon here.

Setting up a system, where a 98se box will running a slave

laptop to operate a slide projector thru VPN software.

I would like to be able to have this same machine do

voice recording from 2 microphones while running the

slave laptop.

The problem is, some of the people who will be using

this are not real technically skilled. Most of the wav

recorders I have looked at would intimidate them.

Anybody offer a suggestion??

TIA

Jake

[chromatic47]

If I am picturing your setup correctly, it sounds like the native Win98 sound recorder would work fine for straightforward voice recording. You'd need two mic inputs on the sound card, or a mixer before the sound card to sum the two mics. The windows recorder is fairly simple; set up the windows mixer beforehand to get the correct levels, then when it's time to record, click a button and go.

[triger49]

If I am picturing your setup correctly, it sounds like the native Win98 sound recorder would work fine for straightforward voice recording. You'd need two mic inputs on the sound card, or a mixer before the sound card to sum the two mics. The windows recorder is fairly simple; set up the windows mixer beforehand to get the correct levels, then when it's time to record, click a button and go.

Thanks ...

To be honest, I was hoping for something a tad more professional

than that. If your not careful, that thing defaults to a 60 sec recording

and shuts off.

but thanks for the reply

Jake

[technoid]

Have you tried Goldwave or Audacity? Those are little more sophisticated when it comes to audio recording/manipulation than Sound Recorder. Otherwise you can go more complex, like using DAW programs, which I use, but then that is what you don't want. There are many more software recorders out there, one's I've forgot, that are just more obscure... or pricey.

As far as mics, you can also try Mic-In, but its quality is less (read: a higher noise floor) than what you can get through Line-In (via an external mixer as aforementioned), or via a USB/FW digital mixer with multiple XLR's/Phone inputs, e.g. M-Audio, Tascam, E-mu, etc. Maybe take 2 cheap mics you can Y-connect into the Mic-In. Granted, this can change the impedance of the connection though. You can also try a USB microphone. A romp through Musiciansfriend.com or Samash.com or Americanmusical.com, etc, might be worth taking too.

I'll do a little bit of Googling or get someone that can help you find that perfect tool.

[Fredledingue]

I'm using Audacity. It has large colored buttons like on a real tape recorder. Your n00bs shouldn't be scared by this.

[tain]

Another vote for Audacity

[chromatic47]

To be honest, I was hoping for something a tad more professional than that. If your not careful, that thing defaults to a 60 sec recording and shuts off.

Yep the 60 second limitation is a barrier; it's only good for short clips.

For longer basic recording I'd second the opinions here about Audacity, it's relatively simple to use.

For the mic mixing you could always pick up a small submixer at e.g. Radio Shack; I have one and it does a fine job with voice recordings.

Edited October 10, 2009 by chromatic47

[Steven W]

I too recommend Audacity however, as an alternate, the commercial Cool Edit 96 works well, I think you're limited to the number of edits you can do in a session without a serial, that's really not that big of a deal just save close reopen and edit again if you don't have a serial.