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anonymous 8 February 2005

First, i apologize if this is the incorrect forum to ask this; mods please delete if so.

I am heading a couple of auto races this year (Champcar, F1, ALMS, MOTO GP and maybe WRC) and am interested in making some digital adio recordings of the cars that I can drop onto my PC when I get home. As mentioned I am a newbie, don't really know much about this, but could I have some suggestions as to the best way to go about this?

Specifically:
-Equipment suggestions - can I just get a digital recorder from the local Radio Shack or Best buy (lame I know, but i am a "babe in the woods" here with no real experience.)? Will this do the job?
-Do I need a mic?
-Is it realistic to do this project and spend less than $100.? I imagine the more I spend, the better the recording quality, but i would prefer to not break the bank.
-Any suggestions on how to do this? where to stand? Where to place the mic?

Thank you for your time and suggestions,
mg5904

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Comments

solis88 Thu, 02/10/2005 - 09:40

Well, for a 100 dollars you probably won't get that great of a recording. Mini disc is pretty good but honestly I'm not sure of that method of recording video and sound. If you really want to record a decent video you can buy a digital camera with digital recording and a memory card of about 1 gig for an XD card and 2 gigs for a flash card *flash has already come out with a 2 gig card* 1 gig will give you about 7 min of recording at 620x480 resolution.....it's pretty good actually, it's what you see on television. That same 1 gig will give you 14 min of recording time on 320x240. Lower quality but not very much at all if you're not looking for great detail. the sound is great, but you have to stay away from people talking around you. I use a Fujifilm s5100 camera and it's really good. but that's about 280 dollars online.

Now when the file is actually uploaded to your computer, for 14 min of 320x240 you're looking at an .avi file of about 300 megabytes....now that's a lot, but not even half of a regular cd-r. Good news is that you can easily convert the avi that's stored in the camera into .wmv format. you lose a tiny bit of quality but it's 35-38 % smaller in file size i.e. 300 mb ----> 96 mb

Or just get a canon with a bigger memory card and record longer if you'ud like. you can always just record segments to save memory.

Good luck!

anonymous Thu, 02/10/2005 - 13:47

go with a minidisc recorder. they'll do the job just fine!
what is it your trying to record anyways?
is it the cars going by?
is it pit crew sounds?

if it's the cars going by on the track, then get a stereo microphone for the minidisc., and try to position the the mic so one side is facing the cars coming and the other side facing the cars going. this'll give you a really neat live effect of the cars going by. just be careful with the levels of the recording. there are very high decibals there, and y6ou shouldn't need too much gain on the line input.

anonymous Thu, 02/10/2005 - 17:19

Hey folks-

Thank you for your replies, they have been very helpful. I plan on recording the audio of the cars going by. I am looking to make some quality recording of engine/turbo/gearbox sounds.

The minidisk idea sounds pretty interesting and I was wondering about whether to go with a mic or not. I will look into this.

Thanks again for the help.
mg5904

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