In this second installment for “Digital Audio for Public Historians,” I want to have a look at one of the basic recording options available on mid-range recorders: the option to have a mono or stereo recording. We will use sample recordings from the 1960s to illustrate a few key principals, including recordings of James Baldwin, The Beach Boys, and The Beatles.
Read MoreAs we discussed in yesterday’s class, public historians might use audio recordings for a number of different projects: oral histories, podcasts, audio clips for exhibitions, documentaries, among other things.
We were able to play a bit with different recording devices—from smartphones, to computers, to low and and high end voice recorders.
It became obvious very quickly that both the equipment we used and the recording conditions had a huge effect on the quality of our recordings.
Over my next several posts, I am going to review some of the things that we discussed in class as well as go into a little bit more detail about how to use the hardware and software for public history applications.
Today, I want to talk a little bit about recording devices.
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