Recording Audio for Business Meeting on an MBP

[Michael73]

I'm leaving this afternoon for the UK (I'm in the US) for a series of business meetings Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday...the total meeting time is about 23 hours.

I'm thinking about trying to audio record the meetings...I'm not the best note taker in the world.

It occurred to me that there is probably some built-in software on my MBP that I could use...GarageBand?

Is the built-in mic good enough to pick up the sound in a boardroom sized conference room with about 6 people sitting around and talking?

Also, what kind of hard drive space can I expect the recordings to take up?

 

[spinnerlys]

You could use Garage Band, QuickTime 7 and X to make audio recording.

As the recording will be most likely uncompressed, and in mono, 5MB per minute will be taken away, so roughly 7GB for the total of 23h (or 14GB if the software records in stereo).

And as far as I gathered, the built in mic is quite good, but if you have a moment or two to test its capabilities, you will know more. Also consider that the room(s) you meet in might have strong reverberations, but if it is an assigned and dedicated meeting place it might not.

 

[Michael73]

So without a microphone the MBP records only mono?

Also, if I'm using GB '09 is there a limit on track length? In other words, can I just click "record" and let it run or is there a max track length like an hour?

If I can just let GB run, can I drop some kind of markers in the track so I know where one meeting topic ends and the next begins?

 

[spinnerlys]

As the microphone is only Mono, why should you waste bandwidth?

Are those meeting so close to each other, that you will not be able to stop the recording and start another one? The failure probability might drop a bit if you stop and start a new recording, than letting it run for eight to ten hours straight.

Have a test run first to see what you will encounter.

 

[Michael73]

I bought the snowball and have been using it in conjunction with GarageBand I have to say it's worked out quite well. It appears that the recordings are using up space at about 1GB per hour.

The only issue that's cropped up is that at several points over the last couple of days, I've gotten a warning that the hard drive is too slow and can't keep up. At that point, even if you click ignore it appears to continue to record without problems. However, I've found that in reality it's recorded nothing past when the warning was first displayed. I've found the cure is usually, saving the file and restarting a new recording. In each case I got this warning about the recording had been going for over and hour and maybe closer to 1:20.

Can anyone tell me what's going on here? I suspect I wouldn't get this error if I switched out the OEM 320GB drive for a SSD...

 

[spinnerlys]

Recording a mono or stereo audio track is not HDD intensive, for example if one hour of audio takes roughly 1GB in your computer, than that is a data write speed of approx. 284KB/s, which even flash memory drives can sustain. An SSD will not enhance that performance.

Maybe it is just better to make more stops and starts during the recording or trying another software, like Audacity for example.

 

[Fishrrman]

Actually, for situations like this, a "standalone" flash-based recording device would probably work better for your needs.

Of course, if you need it RIGHT AWAY, this posting won't be of use to you, but I suggest you look at some of the "ZOOM" handy recorders for future use.

Something like the ZOOM H2 would be exactly what you need. It has 4 built in mics (will capture sound coming from all directions, such as while seated at a conference table), and can save in either mp3 or uncompressed formats. It records to SDHC cards and you easily transfer the audio to the Mac if necessary. Or -- just listen from the recorder itself.