MD equipment query

[Sonja L. Lanehart]

I just got back from NWAV and heard a couple of presentations by a
graduate student at Michigan State named Bartek Plichta
<plichtab at msu.edu> who's research was linguistics but was also techie
enough that he knew a lot about these issues. In fact, his Thursday
presentation was on "Best practices in the digital acquisition &
processing of acoustic speech data." I would suggest you contact him
with your questions. He had a handout with some nice comparisons and
numbers of machines, etc. that was very helpful.   --Sonja

>Alex Enkerli has brought my attention to (among other things) the
>website www.minidisc.org, which provides much of the information
>that I needed; the FAQ pages are quite detailed and helpful, much
>more so than FAQs usually are.  (I recall now that this site has
>been mentioned on linganth before, but I had forgotten about it.)
>
>So--this site takes care of a lot of my questions, and I'm no longer
>a total ignoramus about the ABCs of MD.  I'm still interested in
>knowing what specific hardware and software people are using,
>however, and what successes and problems they've encountered.
>
>Thanks also to Kerim Friedman for reminding that microphones need to
>be chosen carefully (and in some respects are more important than
>the medium you're recording onto).
>
>Paul
>
>
>"Paul B. Garrett" wrote:
>
>  > Hi All,
>  >
>  > I'm in the early stages of setting up a linguistic anthropology
>  > laboratory, and am shopping for recording equipment.  For
>  > audio-only recording, I want to go with MD (MiniDisc) technology,
>  > about which I've heard and read many good things (some of it here
>  > on linganth).  I've never actually used it before, however--hence
>  > this query.
>  >
>  > I'm trying to determine exactly what hardware and/or software one
>  > needs (besides the MD recorder itself) to do the kind of work
>  > that linguistic anthropologists do.  The technical specifications
>  > invariably go on and on about how wonderful MD recorders are for
>  > downloading sound from the Internet and other digital sources,
>  > but nothing at all is said about going in the other direction,
>  > i.e. uploading one's recordings (made in the non-digital, a.k.a.
>  > "real," world) *from* the MD *into* a computer (for analysis,
>  > editing, etc.).  The lab will be Mac-based, by the way.
>  >
>  > Can anyone offer advice?  I recognize that detailed technical
>  > discussions are not necessarily appreciated by those who don't
>  > use the technology in question (or who have already mastered it),
>  > so please contact me off-list at pgarrett at temple.edu.  (Anyone
>  > who *is* interested is of course welcome to contact me as well
>  > for a summary of responses.)
>  >
>  > Thanks,
>  > Paul
>  >
>  > Paul B. Garrett
>  > Assistant Professor
>  > Department of Anthropology
>  > Temple University
>  > Philadelphia, PA  19122
>  >
>  > pgarrett at temple.edu


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Sonja L. Lanehart
Department of English                 706-542-2260 (office)
University of Georgia                 706-542-1261 (messages)
300 Park Hall                         706-542-2181 (fax)
Athens, GA 30602-6205                 lanehart at arches.uga.edu
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