Advice on voice recorders
What do you want to record with your voice recorder?
A voice recorder is often used to record memos or conversations like interviews. A simple voice recorder is sufficient. If the audio source is further away or when there are multiple people talking, you need a more advanced recorder. For these situation, you can best buy a voice recorder that's optimized for this purpose. For lectures, we recommend to use a voice recorder with zoom microphone and for meeting or conferences we recommend a recorder with omni-directional microphones. This way, it registers multiple speakers from all directions.
Which type of voice recorder do you want?
Voice recorders are also called memo recorders or dictaphone. There are differences between the 2. In addition to these types of voice recorders, there are also specific recorders for audio recordings. These are audio recorders.
Memo recorders
A dictation machine is generally a small, handy, and simple voice recorder with a simple (mono) microphone. Moreover, you can only record in a highly compressed MP3 and/or WMA format. The quality is somewhat lower, but certainly sufficient for just capturing short messages, memos, or interviews.
The more expensive memo recorders offer you more quality, such as high-quality (stereo) microphones that you can use to make recordings over a longer distance in more recording formats than only MP3 or WMA, but they also offer more functionalities with regard to organizing and editing recordings.
Transcription sets
To make it easier to process long recordings, dictaphones often come with transcription sets. This way, you can easily process recordings at your computer. With the help of a foot pedal, you can play, pause, and continue your recording while you don't have to take your hands off the keyboard. With the included earbuds, you can fully focus on your work without distractions.
Record in stereo
You record stereo audio over 2 channels. This way, you can hear the difference between audio sources and place it in the room. Stereo recordings are also useful if you record meetings or music. The downside is that the files are larger.
Which type of microphone suits which situation?
The type of microphone is linked to the choice for mono or stereo recordings. Voice recorders are often distinguished by the directional characteristics of the microphones. This characteristic indicates which sounds the microphones register. This depends on the angle and distance of the audio source.
Memos and interview: directional microphone
A directional microphone is a microphone that's insensitive for sound from the back. This way, this microphone type only registers sound from 1 direction. These microphones are also called cardioid microphones and these are useful when the audio source is directly in front of the voice recorder. Voice recorders with a directional microphone are very suitable to record a lecture or interview.
Interview: bi-directional
A bi-directional microphone is also a directional microphone. This microphone is sensitive to the sound from 2 sides which are parallel to each other. This means the microphone is sensitive to the sound from the front and back. This microphone type is used very little in voice recordings, but it can be useful during interviews when the recorder is in between the interviewer and the guest.
Meetings and presentations: omnidirectional
An omni-directional microphone is also called an non-directional or 360-degree microphone. This microphone type registers the sound from all directions. That's why this microphone type is mainly suitable when you want to record meetings with multiple people. In addition, this microphone type is mainly used in tie pin microphones which you attach to your shirt during a presentation. This way, you can freely move your head without losing sound quality when you turn your face away from the microphone.
Zoom microphone
In some situations, the audio source is further away than ideal and it's impossible to get closer. In that case, a zoom microphone is the solution. Like with a video camera, the microphone zooms in on the audio source in the distance. This can be very useful in lecture halls when you have to sit at the back and you professor is all the way at the front.
Low-cut filter: noise suppression
In some cases, there's ambient noise when you want to record. For example, you can hear noise or wind outside or scratches of a pen or coughs of a person during recordings at the table. Do you make many of these recordings? A low-cut filter can help. It won't register sounds with a low frequency.
In what format do you want to make recordings?
You can create recordings in different formats. Not every voice recorder supports every format, so it's good to know which quality you want the recordings to be and what you want to do with them. This way, you'll know which voice recorder is best to get or not.
AAC Advanced Audio Coding is based on MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 encoding. In this format, it's possible to record audio and visual recordings in low quality.
DSS The Digital Speech Standard is a brand-related recording format from Olympus, Philips, and Grundig. The quality of these recordings is low, but is allows you to include extra information in the file name.
MP3 MP3 is a common file format for sound and it means MPEG Audio Layer III. The sound is converted to a lower quality, which is excellent to make voice recordings. The quality is determined by the bit rate, which can lie between 32kbits/s and 320kbits/s for MP3 files.
WAV PCM Waveform audio File files are uncompressed recordings. This means that the file size is bigger compared to compressed files, but the big advantage is that you don't lose quality. This way, you have a lot of freedom when you want to edit recordings or if you want to use speech recognition software.
WMA Windows Media Audio files are almost identical to MP3 files, but these files are compressed further, the quality is lower, and the files are less useful for edits. An advantage is that the file size is smaller and you can make longer recordings with the same storage capacity.
Which accessories make it easier to use a voice recorder?
In addition to separate microphones, you can find more interesting accessories that make is easier to use your voice recorder on Voicerecordershop.nl. Think of various cases that protect your recorder from scratches or tripods with which your can set your voice recorder down safely without falling over. In addition, tripods make sure you don't record distracting sounds on the table. To improve the quality of your recordings even more, we recommend to buy a deadcat. This prevents distracting noise from wind when you're outside.
