Audio Activism

This cool gear list is short. But it packs a punch! It just contains three parts or less.

1) A computer w/internet access – Drop by your local computer technology center, library, or a friends to use their computer.

2) Olympus DS-2 – A wonderful voice recorder with a stereo mic, a mic input, earbud headphones, a external speaker, USB, and software that creates uncompressed versions of your recordings! [Thanks for hipping me to the DS-2 Sooz!]

3) Cheap External Mic – (Optional) The Labtec AM-222 is a good handheld mono mic with a 1/8″ high impedance jack. Works great with the Olympus DS-2 and isolates a persons voice well.

[Check out last weeks podcast One Man Protests Racism at WalMart for an example of this gear in action.]

The Details:
First, I’m assuming that most computers now have a USB port. So does the Olympus DS-2. This is the exciting part of this kit. The Olympus DS-2 records digitally to a internal flash drive. This means when you’re done recording you have a audio file to share immediately. With the USB connection you can quickly copy the audio files to your computer. No more digitizing of your audio. It’s already done. Once it’s on a computer you can upload it to the internet and share.

I like to convert the WMA file the DS-2 makes to AIFF then to MP3. (You don’t have to…) The Olympus software can convert the WMA to a AIFF. Why AIFF? It’s a lossless audio file format. This way I can edit a bunch of audio together and have good sounding results in the end. Plus AIFF is a good archiving format. (BTW…the Olympus software for the PC converts to uncompressed WAV.) You can also just convert the WMA file straight to MP3. (I couldn’t notice any quality loss from the conversion process.) We share MP3s because it’s the most used audio file format in the world.

The Olympus DS-2 has a built in stereo mic. It works great. The stereo left and right channel can be important to create the auditory illusion of space. But for interviews a stereo mic sounds weird. Focusing on one person speaking, like in an interview, sounds more full and clear with a mono mic. (FYI – mono audio still has a left and right channel. It’s just the same signal in each side.) Using a external mono mic with the Olympus DS-2 really helps the sound quality.

This is all consumer audio gear that can produce professional sounding results. This stuff really helps the creative amateur to make and share audio as good and better than pros who spend thousands of dollars more. (Of course if you want to edit several files together and work in the field for days at a time you might need the Ultimate Mobile Audio Creation Kit.)

Mike Outmesguine’s blog entry ‘Sony PSP goes cellular using a JunxionBox gateway’ just reminded me of a really cool idea. At the Mobile media conference he showed us the Junxion Box which is a Wi-Fi to cellular gateway. Meaning you can get a wi-fi connection for your laptop anywhere a EVDO cellular connection is available. I had heard about the DIY Stomp Box that does the same thing, but hadn’t seen the cool commercial one. He also brought a backpack with photovoltaic panels on it. A solar backpack to power your mobile electronics! He casually challenged us to imagine what the future of media creation would be like if grassroots journalist had this gear. So in the spirit of this and because I love lists/howtos. Here is the Ultimate Mobile Audio Creation Kit. It always could be done cheaper, but this is the ULTIMATE kit.

1) Laptop w/wi-fi - pick your flavor, i like macs
Apple PowerBook 12″ 1.5GHz small screen is light

2) Wi-Fi to Cellular Gateway
Junxion Box or make your own Stomp Box w/ Linux

3) Audio Recording Device
Marantz PMD 660 – solid state, no moving parts, records to uncompressed wav on CF cards, low impedance mic inputs, USB

4) Microphone
Shure SM58, unidirectional (cardioid) dynamic, low impedance, bulletproof

5) Headphones
Extreme Isolation Headphones – block out all that unwanted noise in public spaces with these bad boys.

4) Solar Backpack
The Voltaic Backpack

5) Cables – audio, power, usb, powerstrip, etc.

Now if I only had all this stuff so I could write a howto on using it all together. Hint, Hint!