Voice Recording

[Cooltours]

You spend one brilliant day of riding on your motorbike, maybe intending to write a ridereport, describe the tour just to someone else or just want to keep record on it later? But ehhm…. How was it again…. What was the road like on that piece and where was it again to turn left for this nice monastery or where are you supposed to world famous burger place…? Me myself, quiet often I find myself “writing” a report while riding, being funny, cool or just describing…. But when I finally stop to write down “all the things one should memorize for later” , many of the ideas are gone already. So here’s what I was dreaming of during my last 5-days trip all over the Island of Corsica:

Microphone in helmet connected to one of these little recording machines (sorry, don’t find the word in English) which was used years ago to record dictates/letters. For sure it has a MP3 storage nowadays instead of a tape.

So, does anybody of you have a setup which could be recommended for this kind of purpose?

[PhilSpace]

I did it once for Shogs, and it's fairly simple with an intercom system. Either Starcom, Autocom or whatever, you will need to do some custom cabling and have a PTT as well as buying a digital recorder with a VOX feature so you can put it in VOX record mode in standby.

The idea is to build a cable to connect the recorder to your intercom as if it were a two way radio. Then when it is in standby and you press the PTT button and start talking, it will sense the audio and automatically go into record mode and then stop when you let up on the switch. This will give you a series of .wav files with a date time stamp of when they were recorded.

[Cooltours]

Yes, that's how I indeed was guessing to do it, as I have a Baehr Intercom already. It's a vox driven system, no PTT possible. The thing is, that there is allways some (very low anyway) "noise"-level in the speakers which I'm afraid would "open" the recorder all the time. Well, I guess best thing would be, if I'd find a recorder which's vox-level can be adjusted.

[PhilSpace]

Originally Posted by Shoganai

You know Phil, between what you know and did for me and the fact I could take pictures of the assembled final product, maybe we could put together a full document on this subject.

Actually, I have a drawing, the only thing I'm missing is the make and model of your recorder.

As for not using the PTT with the Baehr, that might or might not work, depending on whether you will integrate a cellphone or anything else with it. Also PTT is touchy, some people, like spacewife sing along to their tunes and that does not work well with VOX.

[Cooltours]

Originally Posted by PhilSpace

...make and model of your recorder...

That'd be frome greatest use!

[Cooltours]

bump....
Any new developments in this area? I'm still singing into my helmet without recording it.

[PhilSpace]

Can't find it in my smugmug, it's probably on my windows pc at home, I guess I will have to turn it on and look, haven't paid any attention to the poor old thing in weeks.

Basically it was the generic single plug radio interface cable, which can be modified if necessary and connected to a VOX activated recorder. PTT switch to active it it, just like it was a radio and it's a done deal.

[Cooltours]

Originally Posted by Shoganai

Ok, I found it

Olympus DS-2200


Your turn Phil

Wow! That's what I wanted to know! Thank you very much Shoganai!
Here's what I was thinking to do.


Not sure witch version, but B looks more simple for me to realize if, DS-2200 would have remote switch.

[PhilSpace]

Originally Posted by Cooltours

Wow! That's what I wanted to know! Thank you very much Shoganai!
Here's what I was thinking to do.


Not sure witch version, but B looks more simple for me to realize if, DS-2200 would have remote switch.

Sorry, but I can't figure out what you are hooking up to from your drawing, does VOX mean the your headset interfaces? If so, that's not going to work. I don't know much about the Baehr, but I can tell you that you need to think of the recorder as a two way radio, it's the only way you will get the PTT to work with most intercoms. Also, the PTT switch should be yet another separate connection to your Baehr, you can't just break the mic or speaker side of a headset connection with a switch.

[Cooltours]

Vox = voice controlled switched. It makes the intercome active only if there's a certain level of sound at the input.

My idea was the following:
If the recording device would work also with a voice controlled switch, I would simply have to connect it to the speaker output of the second channel. If I speak than, the baehr intercome would activate the speaker of the second channeld and this would activate the recording device. Now; As my baehr unit anyway allways "leaks" a bit of "noise", eventough it's not activated, I thought it would be a good idea to make a switch in line to my helmet's microphone.

The other option (B) would be, to hook the recording device to the second channel's speaker output as in the first plan, but set the PTT-switch inline to that speaker outlet. Also this would make a recording device necessary which switches on as soon as there's some sound-level on the input.

The easyest way of course would be (C): Hooking the device to the second channel's output and operate the device with kind of a "remote" controll. So we are actually at the point: What I need is a recording device with:

- an external input-plug
- a remote controll on which at least the thing can be started and stoped.

Long talk for an easy thing? Darn foreign language....

[brfinley]

For a stand alone solution, I use an Olympus DS-30 with an Ety-Com headset.

The Olympus has separate external connectors for mic and earphones. Ety-com comes with a VOIP adapter and plugs into the Olympus directly. It has several options for noise cancellation, mic sensitivity, VOX sensitivity, and voice filtering. There is a remote control accessory (RS-29), but it only has start and stop functions. This has the potential disadvantage that you create a separate file each time to click start, as opposed to a pause function where everything will be in one file. These recorders are quite small, so I just mount it where I can reach the controls. But, be careful. It isn't waterproof.

There are also a couple of kinds of external noise canceling mics: the ME52 which is more directional and intended for distant sources, and the ME12 which is intended for close proximity.

The Etymotic headset gives you excellent noise isolation in the earpiece and a good directional noise canceling mic. You can use one of their earplugs in the other ear for noise protection on the highway. This is a silicon in-ear style, so depending on the shape of your ear canal you may or may not like how it feels.

You can also plug the Olympus into AutoComm or StarCom systems. Those companies will give you good advice about how to do it. You could use one of the external noise cancelling mics directly to the Olympus and connect the audio out to your xxxCom. You could also use the xxxCom helmet speakers and mic for everything.

[Norsman]

This is an older thread, but why not add to the collective. If you have an autocom, they sell the connector cord to hook up any digital recorder... VOX or PTT.