[thelist] audio hardware question

[aardvark]

> From: Elizabeth Hincks <liz.hincks at tufts.edu>
> 
> Anybody know of a good solution to capture audio for the web?  I want
> something simple that I can hook up and tape a lecture  in a
> classroom...Then I'll download it into my PC and compress it with
> SoundForge.    My co-worker is talking about mixers and microphones
> and tigers...oh my!!
> 
> Anyone have a real simple set up that works relatively good?
[...]

i've been on both sides of this... i've had a few years in the concert 
world of mixing on high-end equipment and i've had studio 
experience as well... but i've also done some sweet stuff on a 
home PC with crappy microphones and freeware audio editors...

your scenario could be simple... you could get by with the 
microphone that ships with the PC, and just record straight to the 
hard drive... you could encode to MP3 or whatever later on... years 
ago, i used the free RealAudio encoder to record and compress on 
the fly for a live broadcast off a cheap mic, and then left the 
resultant file on the server to be accessed via HTTP pseudo-
streaming... worked like a charm...

or you could get a good shotgun mic, a DAT or MiniDisc recorder, 
sample that into your PC, clean and chop, and compress however 
you want...

or anything in between...

remember, after compression for broadcast over the internet, if you 
shoot for lower bandwidths, pristine audio isn't going to be a major 
factor...

ok... hope some of that rambling helped...