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What should I use?

Posted: 15 Feb 2017 08:17
by calvarado1995
So my roommate's girlfriend is getting evicted from her apartment and moving into our house. My roommate's bedroom has the ceiling of a building, with boards you can lift up and conveniently place a recorder.

I would love to contribute to the community and wondering what kind of recorder I should buy. Something that could record for long periods of time is ideal, but nothing that breaks the bank

Re: What should I use?

Posted: 17 Feb 2017 07:47
by reggind
I would use a cheep USB recorder. Find an 8 gig one on Amazon. I got a couple years ago for under $10 a pop and I doubt they have gotten any more expensive.

If you are at all good with electronics you could dissect the recorder and replace it's (small) rechargeable battery with a larger external one. It would not look pretty but it would allow it to run for a long time unattended. I think one of the 8gb units will run out of battery before it runs out of storage.

Also if you are good with soldering you could replace the decent mic on the unit with a high performance capsule. You can get some very sensitive low noise capsules for about $10 a pop.

The end result might not be pretty but it would record for a long time and be more sensitive than the stock ones.

Re: What should I use?

Posted: 18 Feb 2017 23:04
by physicist
you could always use your phone, they are pretty good with the mic.

or a cheap dictaphone, its possible.

Re: What should I use?

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 20:14
by mjj9994
If it is in the same household I really wouldn't want to risk getting caught by the roommate. Going in an out all the time would be very tiresome and risky. Personally I would just find a spot from outside the room where you can hear relatively clearly and work on reducing any background noise from outside the room if possible then find a location outside the room that is optimal for capturing sounds. Maybe put a nice 'decorative' piece that can house a recorder close to outside the room.