In some countries and cultures, it’s very hard to find or create quiet places to record interviews. The vibrant street life may be so noisy that it’s audible from inside buildings, or the extreme climate may cause sounds such as pelting rain or creaking roofs expanding in the sun.

Outside, everything from barking dogs to street hawkers and blaring music can mean it’s impossible to find a quiet corner. As a journalist, you’ll need to work around this – after all, it’s not possible to ask hundreds of motorists to stop tooting!

OnMedia’s Lesley Branagan has tips to help you get good clean audio that will edit up nicely, no matter what the situation.

Indoor environments

• When you first make contact with your interviewee, ask them if it’s possible to do the interview in a room of the building that doesn’t face the street.
• If all the rooms get a lot of street noise, seat your interviewee away from the window, and seat yourself so that you have your back to the window. That way your microphone won’t be pointed at the source of all the noise.
• Close any windows and curtains in the room to deaden any sound.
• Use a directional microphone (shotgun or cardioid) or set your usual microphone onto a directional setting, so that you don’t pick up background sound from all directions.
• Ask for the airconditioner or fan to be turned off because it just sounds terrible. If it’s exceptionally hot and the interviewee is still reluctant, I often suggest breaking the interview into two sections, and turn on the AC/fans for a few minutes in the middle to cool down. Most interviewees will agree to this compromise, especially if you frame the uncomfortable heat as something that you will ‘endure together’ to get a good outcome.
• In many countries, doing an interview in someone’s home means the kitchen is very close by and is often in use. Request that no one uses the kitchen during the interview, as you don’t want the sounds of clattering saucepans as an accompaniment to your interview.
• Having a journalist visit can often attract lots of visitors but these can make editing your audio a problem. Don’t be afraid to close windows and front doors. If a colleague or family member insists on sitting in on the interview, advise them: “I will need you to be very quiet during the interview and not to move at all.”
• Make sure you record plenty of background atmosphere, which matches the atmosphere of the room during the interview. For example, if there were lots of cars tooting at a distance outside, try to record the same sounds, but without your interviewee speaking this time.

Outside

If you are recording an interview outdoors, for example, with a shopkeeper in a noisy bazaar or a protester at an election rally, there is no way you can avoid noise. On the plus side, a market or village square’s dense sound atmosphere contributes to the character of your documentary and transports the listener to this vibrant scene. But if it’s too loud, your interviewee just won’t be heard which defeats the point of making the recording.

• Try to find a place where the background noise is at a consistent level behind your interviewee. If there are no jumps in the background levels, it is easier for the listener to tune their ears to focus on the speaker.
• Position yourself with your back towards the source of the noise – that way your microphone is facing away from the noise.
• Moving to the back of a market stall or around a corner can sometimes make a world of difference in dampening the sound.
• Try to do your interview away from groups of people talking or shouting, and away from noises with sudden increases and decreases, such as generators or children.
• If sudden noises happen during your interview and drown out your interviewee’s voice, then that portion of your recording won’t be usable. You will need to request the interviewee to go back and repeat the last sentence. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ll have to get you to repeat that. You were saying?”
• Make sure you record some good atmos of the background sound by itself, and you can use this to patch over any edits and make the background sound appear seamless. Unexpected sounds like sudden shouts may add a lot of character to your piece, but try to record those separately so you can have more control when you are editing.
• Be aware of whether the natural atmos changed over the duration of the interview. For example, did the bazaar go from being very bustling to very quiet when people started their prayers? If so, you need to try to record both types of sounds. Did the background generator sound stop during the interview? If this is the case, you’ll need to record the same generator sound later, and then place it underneath the second part of the interview when you are editing, making sure you keep the levels consistent or fading out the background sound slowly.

For more about recording audio, take a look these onMedia posts:

Top 5 mistakes recording audio

Digital audio recorders for journalists: what to look for

Six tips for selecting powerful voice clips

Written by Lesley Branagan, edited by Kate Hairsine

(photo: flickr/Bent Kure CC: BY-NC-SA)

The death of radio has been predicted many times in the past decades but guess what? Radio still isn’t dead. On the contrary, it’s booming. It’s true people may not own as many radios as they used to but on the other hand, they are carrying this century’s version of a transistor radio – their smartphones – around with them in their pockets. And these magical listening devices give people the chance to hear a huge variety of radio shows and podcasts when and where they want to.

But besides new convenience, it’s also the extraordinary quality of many new radio programs that’s causing people to tune in to radio again. onMedia’s Kyle James takes a look what is being considered a new golden age of radio.

In the United States these days, something’s going on in the world of audio that I’ve never experienced before. People are waiting with baited breath for Thursday to roll around. No, it’s not for the next episode of some hit TV show like “House of Cards” or “Orange is the New Black.” They’re waiting for a radio program to be uploaded. Yes, you read that correctly – a RADIO program. Every Thursday, the latest installment of Serial is released and it’s being gobbled up by the masses. Hard numbers are hard to come by but the program has topped the iTunes podcast charts since it debuted October 3.

Serial is a long-form radio investigative journalism show during which Sarah Koenig, a producer of the acclaimed radio program This American Life, brings listeners along as she investigates a 15-year-old murder. She wants to know if the young man who was convicted, and who is now serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison, is the one who really killed his ex-girlfriend. She explains in this very first part of Episode 1. And since then, radio listeners across the country have tuned in to listen to Koenig go through the case with a fine-tooth comb and talk to people involved. She accesses original police interviews with suspects and witnesses, tries to recreate the sequence of events around the crime, tracks down old schoolmates of the victim and the convicted murderer, and speaks at length with the man convicted of the crime.

But what makes Serial different to other kinds of documentary is largely its tone, which is similar to that used in other innovative radio shows popping up across dials and on podcast feeds; it’s casual, first person and sometimes a little uncertain. Gone is the authoritative, distant, neutral narrator normally associated with radio documentaries. It’s been replaced by a voice that reveals emotion and even insecurity. Listen to Koenig question herself in the following clip. Similarly, in the third episode of the podcast StartUp, which follows a man who knows nothing about business as he starts one up, host Alex Blumberg has kind of a breakdown on mic. “I’m about to quit my job!” he says to his wife. “I’m just one guy with this stupid little plan, and there’s a gazillion people out there with better plans that are going to make more money.” These kinds of characteristics have led some media observers to comment that radio is having its own “New Journalism” moment. New Journalism was a style in the 1960s and 70s that relied on solid reporting mixed with more dramatic literary techniques and a generous dash of subjectivity.

And Serial is not afraid of drama – obviously a murder case can be pretty dramatic but the producers milk it for all it’s worth by teasing out the information, building up suspense and then leaving listeners dangling at the edge of a cliff at the end, waiting for the next installment. Although, truth be told, it’s come in for some criticism for just that from some corners of the journalism community; is it a manipulative drama or is it is investigative journalism? It’s kind of both, actually.

Serial and StartUp are just two of the relative newcomers in this new wave of high-quality radio. Others include Love + Radio, a prize-winning interview-driven show; Strangers, true tales about the good, bad and ugly ways people relate to one another; and the upcoming Invisibilia, which weaves brain science together with personal stories.

As Slate magazine wrote: “Just like New Journalism in its early days, the shows are sometimes brilliant, sometimes frustrating and self indulgent, but always exciting and fun.” In a sense, these latest programs are piggy-backing on the success of older siblings, namely shows such as This American Life or RadioLab, which laid new radio ground, moving away from the traditional acts-and-tracks story model and taking more chances with topics, presentation and the use of sound.

Easy listening

But also what’s helped these shows get produced in the first place is the new ways of distributing audio, especially podcasting. Although podcasting has been around for more than a decade, and growth in listenership was stagnant for a while, it’s now experiencing a comeback.

According to Apple, subscriptions to podcasts through its iTunes platform reached 1 billion last year and the numbers are still growing. Many believe the future of radio listening is moving firmly from the radio set to the smartphone, especially as the devices have become ubiquitous and people get used to on-demand media consumption. More people are listening as they commute, work out at the gym or do household chores.

(photo: flickr/Doug CC:BY-NC-SA)

In addition, podcasts can be cheap to produce. There are fewer administrative issues to deal with, and they can get by with a smaller staff and a smaller budget. Plus, producers are finding that podcasts create strong bonds with their audience, which makes them attractive to sponsors and advertisers. With its combination of easy distribution, flexible formats, and what seems like a thirst for long-form reporting and good storytelling, radio is back in fashion. And this isn’t just the case in the US – look at what Radio Ambulante is doing across Latin America.

Once again, all those rumors of radio’s impending demise seem to have been greatly exaggerated.

Written by Kyle James, edited by Kate Hairsine

The show was inspired by a reporting trip novelist Daniel Alarcón made to his native Peru on assignment for the BBC. While investigating migration there, Alarcón travelled across the country recording personal stories from a wide range of people. But when he later heard the final mix, he was disappointed that the producers had largely highlighted the English speakers he talked to, leaving out much of the compelling material in Spanish. He wondered what the result would be if there was a place where Spanish-language voices could be heard.

In 2012, with the help of a successful Kickstarter campaign, Radio Ambulante was born. Programs have featured a transgender Nicaraguan woman living with her wife in San Francisco, a Peruvian stowaway describing his frightening journey to New York, and an Argentine who was jailed during that country’s dictatorship and given the choice to either work or to die. “Ambulante” can mean traveling or itinerant but also refers to “ambulantes”: street vendors who sell all kinds of wares in many Latin American cities.

While Radio Ambulante has a growing list of terrestrial stations that carry it, the show is largely distributed digitally. In early October, Radio Ambulante was awarded the Gabriel García Márquez Journalism Award in the innovation category. onMedia put a few questions to Radio Ambulante’s co-founder and executive director, Carolina Guerrero, about how the show’s format has been received in Latin America and where the show wants to go to from here.  

Carolina Guerrero (photo: Radio Ambulante)

onMedia: It’s been said that Radio Ambulante’s goal was to produce long-form audio stories, a format that largely didn’t exist on Spanish-language radio. Is it too simplistic to say you wanted stories along the lines of the popular and critically acclaimed US radio program “This American Life”, but in Spanish?

Carolina Guerrero: We are huge fans of This American Life, and that program was certainly one of the inspirations for Radio Ambulante, but we’ve created our own style, and our content is different too. Some people have called us, “This Latin American Life”, which is very flattering, but we hope our listeners now see the complexity of having created a transnational podcast in a different language, and how Radio Ambulante is still a unique podcast.

How has this new form been received in Spanish-speaking countries and communities across the Americas?

We are thrilled with the positive response we have received from our listeners. Our audience keeps growing, as more Spanish-speakers learn about podcasting and audio storytelling. Obviously, it has taken time for us to build an audience, since radio in Latin America has been mostly used to listen to music or news, and Radio Ambulante’s stories are long-narrative pieces that require time and concentration. We have around 100,000 monthly listeners, and 84 percent of those listeners are between 18 and 45 years old – 45 percent of them are in Latin America. Young Spanish-speakers are digitally savvy and interested in podcasting and in these new forms of audio storytelling.

Your audience target area is enormous. How can you be sure that all your listeners can relate to the stories you produce? Are you worried the cultural differences are too large?

Our target area is enormous since the number of Spanish-speaking people in the world is almost 400 million – but of course we don’t need to reach all of them to be successful! We hope to reach as many as we can with quality, well-reported, impeccably produced stories. That’s universal. Everyone loves a good story. And so, yes, there are cultural differences among Spanish speakers, but we believe that our stories are capable of moving audiences anywhere Spanish is spoken.

How have you found your producers over such a large area? How big is your network of contributors now?

At the very beginning we reached out to journalist friends from Latin America to find stories, and a few months later we opened a Call for Pitches that brought us many more stories from independent radio producers in the US as well. It’s the kind of thing that becomes easier as time goes on: now we have a body of work that we can point potential contributors to and people come to us with great ideas all the time. During the last two years, we’ve seen our network of producers and contributors grow and expand all over South, Central and North America, and some other countries in Europe or Asia.

Novelist and Radio Ambulante Co-Founder Daniel Alarcón (photo: flickr/Esther Vargas CC:BY-SA)

The Gabriel García Márquez prize committee praised the collaborative nature of the project, saying its strong journalistic guidelines had given the stories a distinctive voice. Is there a common sound that you’re after?

The common sound we are after is that of great storytelling. Our editors work closely with our producers for long periods of time and we have a very distinctive format where, most of the time, we have a narrator alternate with the characters telling the story. That gives the stories a dynamism that we are always looking for since listening to the same person speak for a long period of time could be boring. We try to find a balance in the way we tell the story. Ambient sound, music and sound effects are also key elements.

The committee also pointed to the economic model of Radio Ambulante. I know you got Kickstarter money at the beginning. How are you financed now? Do listener contributions make up a significant percentage of that?

We still receive support from our listeners, and expect to launch another Kickstarter campaign early next year. But most of our funding comes from different foundations in the United States. We’re also starting to get underwriting and hope to find a few sponsors now that our audience is much bigger.

You have several methods of distribution – broadcast on radio stations, your internet site, SoundCloud, etc. Which is the most popular?

SoundCloud is the platform where we upload our content, and from there it is distributed to other platforms. So every time someone listens to our story on our website, via iTunes or via Stitcher, they actually listen to us in SoundCloud. We receive specific stats and metrics from them. But we also have a partnership with BBC Mundo, and they have their own platform and analytics, but bring half of the listeners to most of our episodes as well. We are also growing in terrestrial radio stations around Latin America. In essence, however, we’re a digital project. From reporting to production to distribution, we rely on the most current digital tools to do our work. Our very nature is transnational. So without them, we could not exist.

You’ve experimented with different formats, including live shows, multimedia and English-language specials. Are there other ways you are looking at to expand your audience and interact with your listeners?

We are always looking for new ways to grow our audience and engage our listeners. Earlier this year we launched an interview series in English with PRI (Public Radio International) called Radio Ambulante: Unscripted, where Executive Producer Daniel Alarcón interviews Latino and Latin American artists, thinkers and innovators. With this series we hope to reach those listeners who are interested in topics related to Latino and Latin American art and innovation, but who might not have the Spanish-language skills to access that information through Spanish-language media.

We also hope to expand our presence on the radio dial by distributing our content to more terrestrial radio stations in the US and Latin America. KALW, the local public radio station from the San Francisco Bay Area, just starting broadcasting our content in Spanish – which is huge! We’d love to see more radio stations around the country follow KALW’s bold move. Live shows are a big part of our mission, too. We have the forth one coming up in San Francisco, and we know it will be a success. It’s all part of our mission to bring diverse, complicated, moving stories from Latin America to the audiences that crave them. With that goal in mind, we’re willing to try every avenue available.

Interview conducted by Kyle James

What is the iRig app?

These days, journalists with smart phones have a wide array of tools to use in their reporting. For those who need to record and send audio, the free iRig Recorder app for iOS and Android is worth checking out.

I had never heard of the iRig Recorder app until Austrian public broadcasting, ORF, called asking me to do a Q&A on post-election protests in Cambodia, where I’m based. “Sure,” I said, but pointed out that I didn’t have a land line (as relatively few in Cambodia do) and that the audio quality of a mobile phone interview might leave a little to be desired.

No problem, the producer said, pointing me to iRig Recorder, a nifty app that, while not perfect, offers pretty good sound quality, a simple interface, and lots of sharing options. The ORF producer and I could talk via Skype and I would use the app to record my answers and then send the audio to Vienna.

I downloaded the free version from iTunes (it’s also available for Android), and was initially a little worried seeing the middling reviews there. But the ORF producer seemed enthusiastic.

Easy to use

The app has an intuitive interface. On opening it, you’ll see a screen with a large blue RECORD button near the bottom. One touch of that and you’re on. A large time display shows how much you’ve recorded and you can stop the action with the PAUSE button, then start up again where you left off. At the bottom on the screen, a waveform is generated as you record so you can make sure the sound is coming through. I thought the levels seemed pretty low, but found there was a way to boost things later.

When you’re done, touch RECORD again, and you’ll get a list of the recordings on the phone. The default name is the date and the time of the recording. But the app lets you give each recording a unique name if you want. Just tap the file to type.

Then, hit the blue button next to the date and a processing screen opens up. On the free version, your options are limited to boosting your levels. But iRig allows you to determine what percentage you want to the increase the volume and whether you’re working with speech or music.

There are a bunch of optional processors available, such as tone optimization, cleaning up background noise, slowing the speed and changing pitch, among others. But the processing package costs $4.99. If you want to edit what you’ve recorded, you’ll also have to shell out a little cash. Trimming and making internal edits will set you back $4.99. Or, you can buy a package with all the added functions for $7.99.

I didn’t need any of that, since I was sending over my audio to the Austrians, and they edited out my stumbles at their end.

Sharing is simple

Once I’d finished my recording, I hit the EXPORT / SHARE symbol at the top of the file list screen. I could email the audio, use iTunes file sharing, share it on a local wi-fi network, FTP it, or upload it to SoundCloud. Most options gave me the choice of exporting high-quality (.wav file, 44.1 kHz), medium-quality (.m4a file, 96 kbps) or low-quality (.m4a file, 32 kbps) files. The email option limited me to an .m4a file.

ORF had sent me their FTP settings beforehand, and my three-minute Q&A went over fairly quickly, despite my less-than-stellar internet speed.

As you might expect, the audio is not going to be exactly studio quality. You are using your smartphone’s mic, after all. But I found it acceptable, and of course so did Austria’s ORF.

The company behind iRig, IK Multimedia, makes a slew of accessories. The ones most interesting to journalists are the compact microphone that plugs into your phone’s audio jack and a larger handheld version. But they’ll cost you around $30 or $70 respectively.

The downsides

The iRig app is free, so you can’t expect perfection. Some complain that the paid add-ons are almost a necessity to get the quality and flexibility you might need. There is some truth to this. And without a high-quality mic, you’re audio is not going to be top notch, granted.

Using iRig to record my side of a Skype Q&A

Plus, you can’t take a phone call and then turn on iRig to record that conversation. As I mentioned, I Skyped with the station in Europe on my computer and recorded my side of the interview into my iPhone. So you’ll need to be able to work with that limitation.

I had forgotten to put my phone in Airplane mode when I started recording the Q&A with Vienna and got a phone call right in the middle of it, which put a quick end to things and crashed the app. Luckily, we had the time to do the interview again. Be sure to always engage Airplane / Offline mode before recording audio or video with any app.

But overall, for quick recordings, and especially Q&A’s with a studio that has more advanced audio editing equipment and can fix glitches and level problems, iRig is more than adequate. It’s simple to use and has a clean interface.

What else should journalists know about iRig?

Cost: Free, but the add-on packages for audio processing, editing and other features cost between $2.99 and $7.99.

Sharing: It’s easy. You can choose email, iTunes file sharing, local wi-fi, FTP, or upload your file to SoundCloud.

Support: IK Multimedia has an online FAQ and a support contact page.

Language: The interface is in English.

Author: Kyle James

Photo: flickr/SonnyandSandy CC BY-NC-ND

There are many options out there for journalists wanting to buy a digital audio recorder. But before spending that hard-earned cash on a new device, you should think about what you’ll be using the digital recorder for. Are you going to be doing your recording in the Amazon rainforest or in your local mayor’s office? What’s most important for you? The sound? The size? Or do you need a lower-cost audio recorder that won’t empty your bank account?

onMedia’s Kate Hairsine and Kyle James have been working with digital recorders for over a decade. Here they go through some of the characteristics worth considering in a recorder and tell you what’s personally important to them.

Size and weight

Recorders come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and weights. Before buying one, consider what kind of recording you’re going to be doing, and where you’ll be doing it. This can be important when deciding how big and heavy your recorder should be.

Kate: I won’t buy a recorder I can’t put in my jeans pocket. I’ve recorded stories while riding a bike, climbing a cliff and rounding up sheep on a motorbike, so the last thing I need is a bulky recorder bumping around my neck or having to fish it out of a bag. It needs to be light too as I’m often holding it for long periods. I also find it much better having a small recorder in tense situations, such as a protest or election rally. It isn’t as obvious, and you can quickly hide it if things start to escalate.

Kyle: I agree with Kate all the way here. I’m old enough to remember having to carry around a professional cassette recorder that was so heavy I had shoulder pain at the end of the day. These days, my microphone is bigger and heavier than the digital recorder. I also find that the less obtrusive your equipment is, the more at ease the people you’re talking to tend to be. I don’t want bulky devices intruding on the conversation I’m trying to have with my interviewee. My recorder almost disappears in the palm of my hand. 

Battery type

Make sure you’ve got plenty of these on hand (photo: flickr/David Jones CC BY-NC)

Some recorders only come with an internal battery. This can limit your flexibility so you need to think about how long you need to record. Others come with external batteries – and some have both. Many journalists who work out in the field will only buy recorders with AA batteries because whether they are in the Australian desert or the Cambodian jungle, they will always be able to find replacements. If you are working somewhere with a regular power supply and know you can regularly charge your batteries, having AA batteries is less of a deal.

Kyle: I get nervous working with only internal batteries. I’m absent-minded enough to sometimes forget to recharge them. Then, if my interview is in 20 minutes and I realize the on-board battery is dead, I’m stuck. So I’d opt for the external battery option or a combination. Plus, in rural Cambodia, electrical outlets for a quick charge can be a rarity. Having extra batteries in my pack means I have one less thing to worry about.

Kate: Because my recorder has a long battery life, I’m not so stressed about having AA batteries (my recorder takes a flat, rechargeable lithium battery). I have 15 spare batteries though, so I always have extras when I’m working in West Africa where power outages are common.

Battery life

Some recorders just suck the juice, which means they aren’t a great option for those who go out on longer reporting trips or reporters who don’t have access to regular power supplies to recharge. It’s less of an issue if you’re just going out to recording an interview and coming back to the office.

Kate: Even if you have spare batteries on you, there’s nothing worse than being in the middle of breaking story and having to put in new batteries.

Kyle: Yes, think about how long you’ll be in the field, or how long the interview will be. While missing important sound during a breaking news event because you’re switching out your batteries is very frustrating, so is breaking the flow of a fantastic interview. It also looks unprofessional. If I have any doubt about the life left in my batteries, I change them before going out. When I’ve bought recorders, I’ve always made sure to check out the reviews about battery drain.

Recording format

(photo: flickr/pindec CC BY-NC-ND)

Any decent recorder will give you the possibility of recording in the mp3 format – most will also offer the WAV format as well, which is higher quality but takes up much more space on your memory card.

Kyle: I almost always record uncompressed PCM or WAV files. While mp3 is good enough for most of my clients, it isn’t for everyone. The US public broadcaster NPR, for example, wants WAV format – mp3 is considered too “lossy” since elements of the audio signal are removed when the data is compressed for an mp3 file. WAV files are of course much bigger so I make sure I’ve got a few good-sized memory cards with me, and I record in mono.

Kate: I pretty well only record in mp3 because it uses less memory and it’s quicker to upload. This is especially important if you are filing from a location with slow internet. Deutsche Welle and the BBC both take mp3, although occasionally a producer will ask me if I can record in WAV when it’s for a special event.

Memory

Some recorders only have in-built memory. Others have expandable memory where you can add a SD or an SDHC memory card.

Kate: I wouldn’t consider buying a recorder without expandable memory. It means I can record as long as I want in whatever format I want.

Kyle: Make sure you get expandable memory. No question here. Why impose unnecessary limits on yourself that can result in lost sound and lost stories?

In-built microphones and hiss

Looks easy, but be careful if using built-in mics (photo: flickr/Scott Schiller CC BY)

Many journalists love the ease of being able to do away with an external microphone and just record with the in-built mics. Something to be aware of is that many recorders generate a hiss, sometimes called the “floor noise”, which isn’t great in quiet recording situations. The internal mics also tend to pick up lots of handling noise made by your hand moving on the device. Some even pick up the sound of the button when you manually change the levels, which can be a major problem. For this reason, if you’re buying the recorder for its internal mics, it’s important to find a review where they have an audio example of the floor noise, handling noise and any noise occurring when you change the levels.

Kate: A while ago, I was desperate to buy a recorder that was high enough quality to use without an external microphone even though they tend to be more expensive. I borrowed one from a friend to try out and I quickly discovered only using the inbuilt mics wasn’t for me for two reasons: I like to keep an eye on the recording levels, which you can’t do if you have the device stuck under an interviewee’s nose; and it picked up handing noises which I found inconvenient because I’m usually moving around with the recorder.

Kyle: I began my radio work before using internal mics were even a possibility. I mean, it would have meant holding up a dictionary-sized machine to someone’s mouth. Not ideal. My current recorder does have internal mics but I think in four years, I’ve used them twice, and then only when my external microphone’s batteries died (and I didn’t have extras…shame on me). While these days, the technology has improved to the extent that you can get pretty good sound on them, it’s not going to be as good as a good-quality external microphone (which you should have). And, like Kate says, the danger of getting handling noise is simply too great. I’d use the internal mics only as a backup.

External microphone jack

The most common types of jacks are XLR plugs or mini-jacks.

XLR is the highest-quality connection you can get. It’s sometimes called a balanced connection because it has a + and – pin which means there is no problem with interference from electronic signals. XLR cables tend to be more robust than mini jacks.

3.5 mm mini-jacks are the most common type of input. Their disadvantage is that they can pick up interference from electronic signals, which will ruin your recording. The mini-jack cables also tend to wear out more quickly, which can lead to crackling in your recording – although if you’re wearing headphones you will hear any interference or noise.

XLR connectors are more robust, but bulkier (photo: flickr/Jonathan CC BY-NC-SA)

Kate: I’ve never had a recorder with an XLR plug because they tend to be bulkier and having a small recorder is important to me. I have had problems in the past with the mini-jack cable wearing and making intermittent noises in my audio. For this reason, I always used to travel with spare cable when I went on a reporting trip. But I now seem to have solved the problem by using a microphone cable that has a spring just above the plug, reducing wear. In ten years of reporting work, I’ve only once had a problem with interference, which I picked up immediately on my headphones.

Kyle: The XLR connectors are better overall, no doubt about it. But I just think they’re much too bulky for everyday use. I’ve been using mini-jack cables for years and have never had serious problems. If you’re out recording in situations where the recorder is going to be bumped around a lot, it might be worth your while to get a more robust device with the XLR connections. The mini-jack connections are the weakest link in my recording setup, and I make sure I remember that when handling my equipment.

Back-lit LCD display

Most recorders have an LCD display, but some are backlit and some aren’t.

Kate: For me, this is absolutely essential and I can’t believe it isn’t mentioned much in reviews. From recording in a dark concert hall to reporting in the forest at night (stories on bats and migrating frogs who only move after sunset come to mind), my recorder absolutely has to have a back-lit display so I can check that I am actually recording, what the levels are, and how much battery power I have left.

Kyle: I with Kate 100 percent here. My Olympus has an option where you can turn off the backlight, but I can’t imagine ever doing it. You should be checking your levels regularly while recording, and make sure your counter is moving. A backlit display is absolutely essential.

Boot time

This is the time it takes for a recorder to turn on and start recording.

Kate: It’s not something I really thought about until I was recently at the beach in Australia. I had my recorder with me because I wanted some wave sounds. Suddenly, the shark sirens started blaring and the lifesavers were yelling through megaphones that the swimmers should get out of the water. Luckily, my recorder started instantly, I got fantastic audio and could sell the report.

Kyle: This is a great point and one that I’m not all that satisfied with when it comes to my own recorder. It takes about seven seconds to go from completely off to recording, and if I don’t have it on when something happens, I miss the beginning of it. This has happened more than once and it frustrates the heck out of me. Now I turn on the recorder way before I think I’ll need it and leave it in pause mode so I can instantly start recording if I need to. Still, it’s not ideal. For my next machine, I’m going to make sure the startup time is shorter.

T-mark

Gives you the option of tagging your audio track as you record without affecting the sound in any way.

Kate: I never use it. I make note of the time in my notebook if someone says something profound.

(photo: flickr/Scott Schiller CC BY-NC)

Kyle: Personally, I really miss the t-mark option, since it’s not a feature on my current device. With my former mini-disc player, if something interesting happened or was said, I could just press a button and it would set a tag. I found it very convenient, since I have a hard time writing in my notebook when my hands are holding a mic and the recorder. I’ve tried glancing down at the counter and remembering the time when that golden quote was uttered, but I always forget it. I would have saved myself some time if I could have marked it and then gone immediately to it when logging tape. 

Pre-record buffer

When you press the record button on many professional digital recorders, the recorder readies itself to record but doesn’t actually start recording. It just sits there on pause primed to go. If it has a pre-record buffer, it will automatically keep recording several seconds of sound in this ‘paused’ state. This means if something unexpected happens nearby, and you hit the record button, you get to capture a couple of seconds of extra sound.

Kate: My recorder has this, but it’s not something I’ve ever considered when making a purchase.

Kyle: This record-ready mode got me in trouble once after I’d just bought my digital recorder. I hit the record button once and the red light started blinking and I had good levels, so I plunged into the interview. About ten minutes in, I looked down and noticed the counter was still on 00:00. Without panicking (on the outside), I reached down and subtly hit the record button again. I had to go back and ask questions I’d asked before, which confused the interviewee. At least I could try to get what I had missed and wasn’t at some event where I would have been out of luck. So while I understand that these buffers help you set levels before you actually start recording, make sure you remember you are NOT recording until you see the numbers on your counter start moving.

Ease of operation

While you might think a recording button is a recording button, don’t underestimate the importance of having a recorder that’s easy to use, where you can change the levels in a snap and see clearly what’s going on in the display.

Kyle: When I was shopping around for a new recorder, I looked around, read reviews and tried a few out. I was surprised to see how clunky or complicated some of the controls where. One model hid the level adjustment two levels down from the main menu. If you’re out in the field, you’re not going to want that. Another’s display was hard to read. Then another had the record button dangerously close to the stop button, and I could see myself crying over missed tape due to a slip of the finger. Make sure you like the way the controls are set out and how you adjust the settings on the fly. My current recorder has a wheel that controls the levels on the side of the device, and my thumb is always on it, ready to make adjustments quickly if needed.

Kate: I make sure I have a recorder with a record button that is obvious and easy to hit so I’m don’t have to fiddle in the dark or a high-stress situation. I also want to constantly adjust the levels, so that needs to be easy to use.

Adjustable sampling frequencies and bit rates

Sample rate menu on the Olympus LS-10 (photo: Kyle James)

These settings allow you to change how your digital recorder captures analog sound. PCM/WAV sample rates are measured in hertz (Hz) and the value represents the number of samples captured per second to “rebuild” the waveform to play it back. The more samples per second, the higher the resolution, and the more precise the measurement is of the waveform. For mp3 files, many recorders allow you to change the bit rate, which refers to the transfer bitrate at which files are encoded. The lower the bitrate, the more the file has been compressed. And the more you compress a file, more original data gets lost, and so the worse the playback sound quality will be.

Kyle: Since I almost always use PCM/WAV files, I keep mine recorder set to 44.1 kHz, which is considered CD quality and is fine for most radio work. It’s also the default setting on many recorders. I’ve occasionally bumped it up to 48 kHz when I really wanted higher quality sound, but it’s mostly unnecessary. When recording smaller mp3 files, my recorder lets me choose between 128 and 329 kpbs. Since mp3 is “lossy,” I’d opt for the higher setting, unless memory is really an issue.

Kate: I don’t use this option so it’s not something I’d think about when buying a digital recorder.

Built-in speakers

Some recorders have a built-in speaker while others don’t, meaning you have to use headphones to listen back to anything you’ve recorded.

Kyle: This isn’t a huge consideration for me, since I almost always use headphones when listening back to my material. Some of my previous machines didn’t have built-in speakers, which didn’t bother me. My current once does, which occasionally makes it easy to quickly listen to a track without having to grab my headphones. But it’s not a big deal.

Kate: It’s definately convenient, but like Kyle, I always have headphones with me.

Our recorder histories

Kate: The first recorder I bought was a second-hand minidisc back in 2002. Since then, I’ve bought four more digital recorders (and no, I haven’t had so many because I’m clumsy – my toddler stuck a screwdriver in the first one and shorted it out so I needed a new one, then next one got stolen in Liberia, then one gave up the ghost after a week of being kept in a plastic bag in 45 degrees – I was protecting it from the dust of the Australian desert, but I think I probably heated it to death.)

(photo: negativland.com)

Kyle: I started my radio work way back in the dark ages, when people were still editing on reel-to-reel tape. While things were already moving to digital, my first recorder was very much an analog device—a Sony professional cassette recorder (pictured). I moved over to minidiscs in 1999 and was happy with them for years. After briefly using an Edirol digital recorder, I eventually opted for an Olympus LS-10, which has served me well for about four years now.