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Hi,
I'm a court reporter from Puerto Rico. I go around lawyers offices and record depositions mostly. I'm looking to replace my standard cassetts recording system with a laptop plus an interface unit that can record a minimum of 4 diferent channels but would like to be capable of expanding to 6 when needed, looking at the Tascam USB 144 at this time.
Need also advice on microphones, the idea is to have one recording everything (think you guys call this omni-directional), and the others focused one in each particular person (uni-directional?), that is mostly to deal with interruptions, listen to a particular channel to block the rest, the mics need only to do the job well, just record voices, quality is not a big issue here.
I have to tell you guys that I have no idea on what I'm getting into, I figure people like you that know the equipment are in a good position to point me in the right direction once my needs are understood.
Thanks in advance and please excuse my English.

Comments

RemyRAD Wed, 05/16/2007 - 22:54

As much as I love computer recording, I'd be quite hesitant to use a computer when dealing with legal issues, depositions, etc. For that kind of situation, I'd rather have a dedicated recorder and use the computer for backup. I wouldn't want to have my computer crash when dealing with legal issues. That's why I would prefer a dedicated recorder.

Not legal
Ms. Remy Ann David

anonymous Thu, 05/17/2007 - 06:48

Thank you both for the imput. Been doing some reading and learning a bit, know now that what I need is a set of shotgun mics for directional recording. The one in the middle I already got, is an inexpensive ECM-F8 that does an excellent job for conference recording.
The other issue, about using a computer for legal stuff, don't worry, I already got a dedicated portable voice recorder as a backup, which is what I end up using as a working copy at the time of making the transcription, but it is a one channel only recording solution. I'm looking for a replacement for the pair of standard cassettes recorder, which are also single channel, and I'm tring to add the benefit of multi channel recording, which would be very useful when one person interrups the other, this last thing is very common.
Thanks for your help.