If you are a student look at an education version of Adobe Audition 3. It will integrate with your video program.

Otherwise look at Reaper or Tracktion 3.

Yeah, what Jack said. But that won't help your sound. Camcorder audio? Yeachhhh. How many people are you recording at once? Just like television, I would recommend Tie Tack (lavalier) microphones in your environment. Even a Radio Shaft unit would be better than the camcorder microphone and at $20 each US, it's more than affordable for your purposes. Good ones cost as much as any other expensive professional condenser microphones. Although you might find some more affordable by Audio Technica. Then you record without any AVC (automatic volume control) then you will lose most of the acoustics of the room. You'll gain more intimacy in the sound that way.

Old TV gal
Mx. Remy Ann David

Hi,

Thanks for your replies. RemyRAD, I'm not sure you read my post correctly as I stated that I used to use my camcorder. I now use the Edirol. My interviews are frequently round a table with me on one side and the interviewee the other. I guess I'm looking for advice on how best to prepare the room of my boat for recording voice and then what filters I use in post-production. That's what I don't know anything about.

Thank you Jack for your advice on the software. I'm not a student so I'm looking for free downloads.

Reaper is free for trial and only $60 for a non commercial license. Tracktion 3 is often found on ebay new in box for $50-99.

Personally, I feel you should save your pennies and get Audition 3 since it integrates with your video program.

is the camcorder still part of the interview process ?

I would use the camcorder with it's on board mic and the AVC off as Remy said

then use the Laptop with a Tie Tack (lavalier) microphone on each person
as Remy said

use one track for each mic

leave plenty of headroom if you don't have any hardware limiting

this will create more work at the edit stage BUT give maximum flexibility

I can explain more if required

and
I'd just like to echo Remys comment
" Good ones cost as much as any other expensive professional condenser microphones. "

I'm not convinced lav's are available in this case.

There's almost nothing you can do to remove the room from a recording; that I'm aware of.

Sure there is Code Monkey. With 2 lavalier omnidirectional microphones in a one-on-one interview, invert the phase of one microphone. Then you combine both to Mono. That will get rid of a good chunk of your room ambience & noise. Much in the same way as a differential microphone works. You may have even seen a differential microphone in use in some old Grateful Dead footage with Jerry Garcia singing into 1 of 2 Sony lavalier microphones separated by about 2 inches. Differential microphones of that type do cause peculiar frequency response characteristics, generally with a loss of low frequencies more than high frequencies because of their close proximity to each other. But on vocals, that can be desirable especially with loud rock 'n roll ambience in the background.

Another possibility might be a pair of boundary microphones on the tabletop. They have a tendency to eliminate the sound of one of the planes of directional acoustics. And those too can be utilized in an inverted phase differential mono summation application.

I'm preferential to differential
Mx. Remy Ann David