Travel Technology - Tape recorder for dummies

I did a search so excuse me if I missed any existing thread. I am looking to do an oral history with my father and other older relatives. I've never used a tape recorder and am looking for something very easy to use. Any recommendations appreciated - my husband loved the headphones, BTW. Thanks, LLM.

Not sure if this may help but link below is to a pdf file of a Sony microcassette recorder that includes instructions on how to use the unit which is similar to many other brands.
http://media-server.amazon.com/exec/drm/digital/moleproxy.cgi?name=U29ueSBNLTQ1MCBNaWNyb2Nhc3NldHR lIFZvaWNlIFJlY29yZGVyIE1hbnVhbA==&file=TUFOVUFMMDAwMDMzNjk0LnBkZg==

Manuals for other brands here
http://www.usersmanualguide.com/panasonic/microcassette_recorder

DO NOT use anything digital. DAT degrades rather quickly and as you're looking for something archival I strongly advise you to stick to analog. Thus far, no digital media has had the lasting power of the lowly cassette. Microcassettes can do the job but I prefer standard cassettes due to their superior fidelity.

If you're looking for something simple, you can go to Best Buy and buy one of these (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?categoryid=cat07026&id=1066095402515&skuid=3135743&type=product&ref=06&loc=01).

If you want better quality than that and have a decent budget, I would go with a Marantz PMD 201 (http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PMD201/) and a Crown PZM (http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PZM30D) microphone. These will ensure high quality audio and the utmost of intelligibility as the PZM mic will do a great job of capturing everyone's voice around the table while minimizing background noise. It does need to be on a table for best effect. You'll need cables to connect the mic to the recorder, the retailer I've linked to can tell you what you'll need if you call 'em.

For tapes, I use US recording media (http://www.usrecordingmedia.com/mastpromscca1.html). The Maxell tapes aren't the cheapest but they're proven by time. I wouldn't go over 90 minutes in length. The tape is too thin and susceptible to breakage.

Note that I'm not affiliated with any of the places I've recommended except as a customer. They aren't the cheapest out there but provide the best service. Sweetwater in particular is wonderful to deal with. Call them up, tell 'em what you want to do and they'll tell you how to get there. c

Thanks, kanebear, you always have the scoop. We have a fairly new video camera we used when our son was wrestling - is this kind of thing durable or is the audio tape more likely to survive? Our old videos of his babyhood are not in the best shape.

Hopefully this isn't too long... media archiving is one of my interests.

Video is absolutely not durable... the problem is that the nature of video tape doesn't lend itself to longevity. To keep video for long periods of time, the only options are to digitize it and keep several backup copies on archival CD-Rs (http://www.pictureline.com/product.php?id=968&source=froogle) (NOT DVD-Rs). CD-Rs still aren't fully proven but enough testing has been done to give a level of confidence. You can do analog to analog copies but the generational losses make that a bad proposition beyond the third generation.

Audio tapes are the second best aural archival media known to man. The best are records (shellac). I have numerous discs from the late 1800s that play perfectly today. I also have many many reel to reel tapes from the early '50s that sound better than CDs made from the same masters.

what about just moving it to mp3 and storing it in a hard drive? or for that matter a tape drive?

what about just moving it to mp3 and storing it in a hard drive? or for that matter a tape drive?

Digital media, at present, is all epherma if you're talking about serious archiving. In 50 years, how likely is that hard drive to work? How likely are you to be able to find a piece of equipment to connect the hard drive to that will understand what's connected? If you burn it to CD, how likely are you to find a working device that will understand the MP3 files?

We're seeing proof of this already. Many recording studios made digital masters on decks that used proprietary formatting (Soundstream, Mitsubishi X-86, etc). Now, only TWENTY years later, it's more and more difficult to find working examples of these decks. I believe there are only one or two working Soundstream machines in the world at this point and as none of the parts are made any more it will become impossible to repair them. That media will be, in effect, dead, without a massive re-engineering effort to recreate a machine.

The same holds true for computer media. Try finding a drive to read a streaming cassette backup these days. How about 9 track computer tapes? Punch cards? 8" floppies? Heck for that matter, even 5.25" floppies? Even if you can read the disc, if you don't know the format of the data on the media, it's worthless to you. Take QIC-40 tape which was popular back in the '90s. Even if you can find a drive that works and the tape integrity is ok, you have no idea what backup software was used to create the backup. How do you recover that data? Say you have the software but it will only run on an IBM XT (not a clone) with 512kb ram and 10MB MFM hard drive. How do you find such a machine??

There's also the issue of media degradation. An analog tape or disc is still playable and recoverable with damage. Digital isn't. Error correction will only go so far. I have DAT tapes that have been perfectly maintained over the past ten years that have enough dropouts to render the audio unusable. It gets worse when you shift to the MP3/hard drive paradigm. An unrecoverable error in the wrong place renders the entire media worthless. At least with a CD, a dropout will only mean a momentary loss of data. Even if the Table of Contents is lost, the disc can be read out in raw format and separated into tracks. With an MP3, if the directory structure is gone or any part of those files go missing, it's impossible to reconstruct what was what and decompress them.

Digital media, at present, is all epherma if you're talking about serious archiving. In 50 years, how likely is that hard drive to work? How likely are you to be able to find a piece of equipment to connect the hard drive to that will understand what's connected? If you burn it to CD, how likely are you to find a working device that will understand the MP3 files?

We're seeing proof of this already. Many recording studios made digital masters on decks that used proprietary formatting (Soundstream, Mitsubishi X-86, etc). Now, only TWENTY years later, it's more and more difficult to find working examples of these decks. I believe there are only one or two working Soundstream machines in the world at this point and as none of the parts are made any more it will become impossible to repair them. That media will be, in effect, dead, without a massive re-engineering effort to recreate a machine.

The same holds true for computer media. Try finding a drive to read a streaming cassette backup these days. How about 9 track computer tapes? Punch cards? 8" floppies? Heck for that matter, even 5.25" floppies? Even if you can read the disc, if you don't know the format of the data on the media, it's worthless to you. Take QIC-40 tape which was popular back in the '90s. Even if you can find a drive that works and the tape integrity is ok, you have no idea what backup software was used to create the backup. How do you recover that data? Say you have the software but it will only run on an IBM XT (not a clone) with 512kb ram and 10MB MFM hard drive. How do you find such a machine??

There's also the issue of media degradation. An analog tape or disc is still playable and recoverable with damage. Digital isn't. Error correction will only go so far. I have DAT tapes that have been perfectly maintained over the past ten years that have enough dropouts to render the audio unusable. It gets worse when you shift to the MP3/hard drive paradigm. An unrecoverable error in the wrong place renders the entire media worthless. At least with a CD, a dropout will only mean a momentary loss of data. Even if the Table of Contents is lost, the disc can be read out in raw format and separated into tracks. With an MP3, if the directory structure is gone or any part of those files go missing, it's impossible to reconstruct what was what and decompress them.


AWESOME post.

AWESOME post.

Why THANK you sir. And everyone wonders why I collect LPs and Reel to Reels. :D

Why THANK you sir. And everyone wonders why I collect LPs and Reel to Reels. :D

You mean BESIDES being a geek? :D

Why THANK you sir. And everyone wonders why I collect LPs and Reel to Reels. :D

interesting post. i learned something new today :)

Just thinking out loud...is it possible for LLM to video the interviews, and strip out the audio. The histories can be so much more powerful actually seeing the person talking.

I was about to ask that myself. After all, this is for my great grandchildren who will never meet him.

Very easy to do... just video as normal, play the videos back and connect a cassette recorder or what have you to the audio output of the camcorder. Also, if you do want to do video, I think the best shot you have of having something they can watch 15 years down the line is to shoot the video with a DV camcorder, then run the firewire into a computer so you can compress the video you make, then burn Video CDs. Make two (or even three) copies of the CDs and chances are when the time comes they'll play just fine. Make sure for reference to note the compression settings you used and to be really safe, keep a copy of the program you used to make the videos with the Video CDs (http://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/94288.php).

Thanks again. Our latest video camera uses those teensy tapes. Is there any way to get these onto the computer or CD's?

Thanks again. Our latest video camera uses those teensy tapes. Is there any way to get these onto the computer or CD's?
If it's a DV camera, you can. I've started to pout my DV tapes onto the computer. With a program like Roxio 8, it will previes the scenes on the tape, and you can extract what you want or don't want. You need to use a FireWire hookup for data transfer and to allow the computer to control the DV camera. Those files can then be output to DVD.

Also, if you have a TiVo recorder, it is very easy to use the auxiliarry inputs and make a DVD.

We don't have Tivo but I just fetched the camera (which I have only used once myself - remember, this is a thread for dummies ;) ). It is JVC digital video camera 300X so I think that will work with kanebear's instructions.

Digital media, at present, is all epherma if you're talking about serious archiving. In 50 years, how likely is that hard drive to work? .

Whatever format you settle on, have the information transcribed to ink on paper.

You can do it, enjoy the memories again, and then make up your own table of contents... or pay a professional transcriber to do it. When you want to recall a detail from Uncle Ed's horse trading episode, flipping through pages is a lot easier than anything else.

You still can't beat ink on paper for archives! :D

Whatever format you settle on, have the information transcribed to ink on paper.

You can do it, enjoy the memories again, and then make up your own table of contents... or pay a professional transcriber to do it. When you want to recall a detail from Uncle Ed's horse trading episode, flipping through pages is a lot easier than anything else.

You still can't beat ink on paper for archives! :D

*ROFL* Very true. Notice that above I specified AURAL archiving... I have some serious doubts about the viability of a vinyl disc over a 2000 year lifespan, much less how well a .0005" thick strip of mylar with an oxide coating is gonna fare.

We don't have Tivo but I just fetched the camera (which I have only used once myself - remember, this is a thread for dummies ;) ). It is JVC digital video camera 300X so I think that will work with kanebear's instructions.

If you have any problems just shoot me a PM, I'll be happy to help.

Thx - I am sure I will need help!

Good points -- But if you really want to preserve something for the future, you should go digital, why? Because with digital you can make as many copies as you want with limited costs. Burn several back up CDs for important data. If you don't trust CDs, get an optical drive. Save an extra copy of whatever you have using your flash memory drive.

If you worry that CD-roms will not be around in the future, then just upload your files to a safe place -- for example, email it to yourself and have gmail or yahoo store your file in there impenetrable data vaults. For more professional solutions, there are many commercial companies that can help with data backup or storage solutions.

Digital data is completely recoverable even if it gets corrupted -- provided that you back it up appropriately -- invest in RAID and you'll never need to worry about losing data when a hard drive crashes. How much does a low level RAID 0 system cost -- guess what -- if you're computer can hold 2 hard drives, you can run RAID level 0 without any additional costs! Want RAID level 5 -- this will run about $500... or more, depending on the solution...

How many people actually have a cassette deck now-a-days? Sony walkman? Mp3s are digital and there will always be a backward compatible program around to read MP3s..... even so, when mp3s start going out, there will be conversion software from MP3s to the new standard. btw, CDs are considered digital and not analog.

If you store something in analog format, then you face several problems -- first of all it will be extremely difficult to make reproductions in the future or even now. Secondly, if you only have one copy of your analog data and then lose it, say in a fire, earthquake, water damage, whatever,...well -- you've lost if forever.


Digital media, at present, is all epherma if you're talking about serious archiving. In 50 years, how likely is that hard drive to work? How likely are you to be able to find a piece of equipment to connect the hard drive to that will understand what's connected? If you burn it to CD, how likely are you to find a working device that will understand the MP3 files?

We're seeing proof of this already. Many recording studios made digital masters on decks that used proprietary formatting (Soundstream, Mitsubishi X-86, etc). Now, only TWENTY years later, it's more and more difficult to find working examples of these decks. I believe there are only one or two working Soundstream machines in the world at this point and as none of the parts are made any more it will become impossible to repair them. That media will be, in effect, dead, without a massive re-engineering effort to recreate a machine.

The same holds true for computer media. Try finding a drive to read a streaming cassette backup these days. How about 9 track computer tapes? Punch cards? 8" floppies? Heck for that matter, even 5.25" floppies? Even if you can read the disc, if you don't know the format of the data on the media, it's worthless to you. Take QIC-40 tape which was popular back in the '90s. Even if you can find a drive that works and the tape integrity is ok, you have no idea what backup software was used to create the backup. How do you recover that data? Say you have the software but it will only run on an IBM XT (not a clone) with 512kb ram and 10MB MFM hard drive. How do you find such a machine??

There's also the issue of media degradation. An analog tape or disc is still playable and recoverable with damage. Digital isn't. Error correction will only go so far. I have DAT tapes that have been perfectly maintained over the past ten years that have enough dropouts to render the audio unusable. It gets worse when you shift to the MP3/hard drive paradigm. An unrecoverable error in the wrong place renders the entire media worthless. At least with a CD, a dropout will only mean a momentary loss of data. Even if the Table of Contents is lost, the disc can be read out in raw format and separated into tracks. With an MP3, if the directory structure is gone or any part of those files go missing, it's impossible to reconstruct what was what and decompress them.