Good mic for recording lectures

i have no specific recommendation, but look for a mic with a hypercardioid pickup pattern. you'll also have to see if your mac has a mic pre built-in, i don't know if they do or not.

The mics built into portable recorders are usually fine for the purpose.

onlythecat said:

Is a standard mic really good enough to pick up audio across the room?

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yes, but: unless you get a capsule with some kind of rejection pattern, you'll also pick up other noises, including reflections of the source, without bias.

if you can understand it, great, but if not, there's nothing you can do to save it. best thing you can do is run a test w/ what you've got and see how it works.

Well if you sit at the front you can mostly avoid that sort of stuff. If that's not a possibility I think zims suggestions are quite valid. I would at least try the onboard mike before you made the stretch to some fancy mic that'll just be something else to lug along to lectures.

What about Zoom H2

I recently bought a Zoom H2, primarily for recording my little children's happy ramblings. It's a USB/SD card, external mic/ portable recorder with four little condenser mics for mono, stereo or surround. It records mp3 or wav. Look, for $US 199 it's not bad, and might be okay for the purpose you are describing - I haven't tried it yet in the lecture context, but intend to. It will probably pick up a lot of ambient noise, but I usually find this less problematic than the complete lack of clarity and dismal frequency response common in dictaphone-like alternatives. In my home testing it's head and shoulders above the built-in mic, and only mildly less transparent and pleasant sounding than my entry-level Rhodes mic. I'm sure audiophiles would be able describe precisely how horrible it is, but it sounds more than okay to my ears. Because it runs on batteries and can be computer independent, I've considered placing it at the front of the lecture theatre away from the paper shuffling and mumbling of delegates.