New Taper Suggestions

[StoneKid]

I am thinking of starting to tape. Well I guess tape is the wrong word, but I am sure you know what I mean.

I am going to start with some local shows that I have been going to, and thinking to myself "Man...I wish I had a copy of that show!!" Then MAYBE some of the fests. Although I think that will be a lot more involved, time consuming, and constant worrying about my equipement.

I have a couple of initial questions:

Where/What is a good source of technical info...e.g. what formats to use. There seem to be a lot of alternate formats such as FLAC, RAW, CD Quality, etc. I know I probably have one or two wrong here, and that there are many morel, but you get the drift.

I also need to learn about different hardware and software, as well ss good sharing websites.

I have seen a recorder/mic combo unit that looks pretty good. It looks almost like a tazer with two prongs on the front that must be the mics. Anyone know a brand name, or again website I can go to?

That's it for now. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!!! I will probalby have more questions down the line.

[NJFunk]

THE source of information on taping:

http://www.taperssection.com

The tazer looking thing that you saw was probably a Zoom H4:

http://bruitages.be/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/zoom_h4.JPG

This is definitely a versatile, (relatively) inexpensive all-in-one unit to start with. If you get more serious (and more rich...) and start looking into external mics and recorders and whatnot, be sure to lean on the TS.com community to make informed decisions.

You want to record in .wav format, which is the standard sound file type. There are two aspects of the wav file that determine the "quality" of the file. One is bit depth and the other is sampling frequency. 16/44.1 is CD quality (that is 16 bits, 44.1k samples). DVD quality is 24/48. The quality determines the size of the file. FLAC is a data format used to compress and store the wav files.

Good luck, dude.

[StoneKid]

Thanks for the info NJFunk!!! I just set that site up as a favorite. I will probably register later this afternoon!!

That looks like the unit I have seen a couple of times. Again, I will most probably look into that later today as well.