Recording classrooms revisited and revised — Part I: equipment
As part of our new project, we’re refreshing our equipment and revisiting decisions made at the turn of the millennium. Some of that information has been preserved by Sujai Kumar here. So far, we’ve decided to:
1. Use the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCanon-AVCHD-Definition-Camcorder-Optical%2Fdp%2FB000U8HBRW%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Delectronics%26qid%3D1198007997%26sr%3D8-1&tag=timelysnow02-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Canon HG-10 </a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timelysnow02-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> , which is a high definition hard-disk based camcorder that uses the AVHCD format.
2. Use the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FRODE-VideoMic-Directional-Camcorder-Microphone%2Fdp%2FB0007U9SOC%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dmusical-instruments%26qid%3D1198014539%26sr%3D8-1&tag=timelysnow02-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Rode Videomic</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timelysnow02-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> as a boom mike, which is more elegant and easier to assemble than what we’d used before.
3. Adopt the Sennheiser Evolution system for recording sound. We have some but not enough expensive Lectrosonics transmitters/receivers from the last round. The ones we had are discontinued and their new ones are still about twice the prices of the Sennheiser ones. I’m surprised the prices haven’t dropped more than they have. actually.
All of these models use UHF frequencies, which can be interfered with by TV signals. Sennheisers come in A, B, or C sets, and it looks like from their website there’s the least interference around Detroit on the “C” band. Anyway, it ended up being cheaper to get new sets of their “Evolution” system instead of adding to what we had. I was able to get a good price on these from Road Dog Electronics...we’ll see how it works out.
...more later…