[Bob]

We are trying to record sermons from the church I attend to an MP3
format to post on the web. All priests wear a wireless headset which
is piped into a large amp by the organ. The amp only has a 1/4"
headphone/monitor jack on the front. There may be a line out jack on
the back but it's in a huge console and not accessible. We don't want
the priests to have to turn the recorder on/off so the organist will.

I purchased an Olympus VN6200 (which I found out only records in WMA
format). As a trial I connected a 1/8" to 1/4" cable from the mic jack
on the Olympus to the 1/4" jack on my stereo amp. This results in very
distorted sound however. Is this setup going to work? If not can you
make a recommendation?

Thanks.

[Scott Dorsey]

Bob wrote:
I purchased an Olympus VN6200 (which I found out only records in WMA
format). As a trial I connected a 1/8" to 1/4" cable from the mic jack
on the Olympus to the 1/4" jack on my stereo amp. This results in very
distorted sound however. Is this setup going to work? If not can you
make a recommendation?

The mike level is maybe 40 dB lower than the line level. You need to put
a pad between them.

This may be something in the ballpark although like most RS crap there is
not any real documentation so you don't know how much it really pads the
signal down:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2103858
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

Bob wrote:
We are trying to record sermons from the church I attend to an MP3
format to post on the web. All priests wear a wireless headset which
is piped into a large amp by the organ. The amp only has a 1/4"
headphone/monitor jack on the front. There may be a line out jack on
the back but it's in a huge console and not accessible.

You just have to work harder at this.

We don't want
the priests to have to turn the recorder on/off so the organist will.

Have you discussed this with the organist?

I purchased an Olympus VN6200 (which I found out only records in WMA
format). As a trial I connected a 1/8" to 1/4" cable from the mic jack
on the Olympus to the 1/4" jack on my stereo amp. This results in very
distorted sound however. Is this setup going to work?

It can be made to work, but you'll need to attenuate the
signal coming out of the amplifier. The input jack on your
recorder is designed for a microphone which puts out a much
lower voltage than what's coming out of the amplifier. From
what I can tell, the recorder doesn't even have an
adjustable record level (most voice recorders don't) but
even if it does, the distortion is a result of overloading
circuitry that comes ahead of the record level control.

You need to get someone on site who understands these things
to make a few measurements and build you a cable that will
attenuate the signal coming from the amplifier by an
appropriate amount. You can buy an in-line volume control
but it will probably cost more than the recorder, and you'll
still need special cables or adapters in order to hook it
up. This isn't complicated, but it would take hours of
writing to provide you with enough detail so that you could
do the job correctly yourself.

You could buy a different recorder (this would get you over
the need to convert the WMA files that the Olympus makes to
the MP3 files you want), one with a line level input, but
you still need to be careful about that line input. I've
seen a few of these handheld recorders, in fact I have one
myself, on which the line input can be overloaded by some
sources. The Zoom H4n and Sony PCM-M10 are two that can
handle just about any line level as long as you set the
record level control properly, but they're both in the $300
ballpark. With a $50 recorder that's really designed to
record from its own built-in microphone, you have to do the
other $250 worth of work.

Have you tried just setting the recorder up on top of the
organ and recording with its own mic? The recording will
probably have a lot of reverberation, but it might work.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

[Arny Krueger]

"Bob" wrote in message


We are trying to record sermons from the church I attend
to an MP3 format to post on the web. All priests wear a
wireless headset which is piped into a large amp by the
organ. The amp only has a 1/4" headphone/monitor jack on
the front. There may be a line out jack on the back but
it's in a huge console and not accessible. We don't want
the priests to have to turn the recorder on/off so the
organist will.

I purchased an Olympus VN6200 (which I found out only
records in WMA format). As a trial I connected a 1/8" to
1/4" cable from the mic jack on the Olympus to the 1/4"
jack on my stereo amp. This results in very distorted
sound however. Is this setup going to work? If not can
you make a recommendation?

The scary part about the VN2600 is how highly compressed its files are.

In its highest quality mode, it records over 70 hours on 1 gigabyte of
storage. That's 3.5 k bytes per second or 28 K bits per second. For
reference purposes, 128 kbits is considered to be a marginal recording speed
for stereo music. You are being forced to do low bitrate recording and
sound quality will be significantly diminished. If all you want is an
approximation of the priest's voice, that is what you will get.

Tools that is designed for this purpose might be a Zoom H1 or a M-Audio
Microtrack. These devices have inputs that are actually designed for the
signal levels that you are trying to use. The Zoom H1 only runs a a few
dozen dollars more than the VN 2600 and records at bitrates that will give
you a useful range of audio quality levels.