The power went out in our building a few days ago. This would no’t have been a big deal but it was on the day of a big event that was going to be teleconferenced to some remote participants. When the power came back, our phone system was fried and not working. Panic ensued.

We discussed a number of different options. We could use a cell-phone conferencing feature, but we judged them to have inadequate sound quality to pick up the conversation in a large conference room. We could purchase a new phone and run a long telephone line to our fax line, the one direct outside line that was working (because it was bypassing our internal PBX system). But that was still judged to have too many risks (using a new phone during an event).

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A few months ago I put together a package of audio equipment for recording our live events at the office. The problem was that we were previously letting our great events go unrecorded, meaning those who couldn’t make it would miss out on our great programming. In addition, when the conference room really filled up, the audience sometimes had difficulty in hearing more soft-spoken presenters.  So we needed both sound recording and sound reinforcement. And we needed it on a budget, because we are a nonprofit with a modest budget.

Early Recordings

So here’s what we did. At first, we purchased an Olympus DS-30 digital voice recorder (~$100). The Olympus has a great microphone in it with a bunch of different recording settings. We chose the high quality (HQ) mono — we didn’t need stereo for what were going to be voice recordings. (I just learned that the Olympus can be programmed to turn on and start recording at preset times. Very handy, and I’ll show you why in a subsequent post.)

Eliminating Distractions with Directional Microphones

We used the recorder as-is very successfully for about a year. But the Olympus has an omnidirectional microphone, meaning it would pick up sound from anywhere in the room. That means lot’s of distracting noises were picked up — coughing, paper rustling, doors shutting, etc. So we upgraded to some directional microphones, which accept sound only from one direction. When they are pointed at a presenter, they pick up his or her voice well but they reject sound that comes from “off axis” (meaning sound from the side or behind a microphone).

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