Digital Recordings

Another thing you may consider is a digital voice recorder. This would give you the flexibility of recording direct interviews in the field, recording away from your computer, hooking up to a phone anywhere with the proper adapter, and then uploading the sound files to your computer at your convenience.

Look for a digital voice recorder that has a USB cable that will allow you to upload the digital audio files directly to your computer. This makes it convenient, but if it's one of those small handheld recorders then the microphone will leave a little to be desired. When using a digital recorder to create sound files for streaming from your web site, make sure that the recorder is set to the highest recording quality. It won't record as long but the quality may be acceptable.

See our Audio Products page for USB digital recorders.

Cassette/Micro-Cassette Recordings

If you have cassette recordings, you will need an 1/8" (3.5mm) male to male cable to go from the LINE OUT on the cassette player (this could also be the headphone or external speaker jack) to the MIC IN or LINE IN on your sound card.

The disadvantage of using a cassette recording is that you can't just upload it; you have to press play on the cassette player and record on the computer and wait while the whole audio clip plays. That's not bad if you are using short sound clips but can get tedious if you have recorded an hour-long conversation. Also, the sound quality depends on the cassette player quality.

NOTE: If you use the LINE IN jack you may have to go to the Control Panel/Sound and Audio Devices/Audio, under Sound Recording select the Volume button and click the checkbox under LINE IN.