[inkhead]

Since I already bring my macbook pro to the conference room for meetings I've decided I would like to record them. What is the best external mic that i could set on the table and/or would pick up the entire conversation in the room? Also what simple utility would you recommend for recording? I'd like something that goes straight to mp3 or aac so as not to use up huge amounts of disk space while the recording is going on, only to have to convert it later.

I'm a minimilist. recommend something simple and straightforward please. It can be a mic from any company even a music store...

Thanks!

[SSharon]

Do you have Word2004? Why not use the notebook fewature. I used it to record all of my classes on my ibook and it picked up decent audio from across the room with the gain all the way up and it was only 22mb/hour.

[inkhead]

Can you explain the Word2004 Notebook Feature? I have office 2004, I just took a look at that feature. Interesting, but I'd rather use a 3rd party app. Have you seen AudioX? I'm thinking of using that.

But I still would like a mic I can attach... Anybody. Thanks!

[amazing]

I'm assuming you're looking for something like a USB microphone that sits in the middle of the conference table. Also assuming that you've got permission to record, naturally, because otherwise you're heading for a big controversy. Surreptitious recording would be a no-no.

It has to be USB because sound-in in line-in, not microphone-in.

I assume the Logitech USB desk mike is plug-n-play, and it has an 8-foot cord:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...Fencoding=UTF8

Many people love this mike, but it's directional, works with the Mac (do a search on macintouch.com) and more expensive:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...8&v=glance

Try WireTap Pro for recording to MP3. Recording to aiff is free/no restrictions, and you can later convert it to mp3 in iTunes.

[SSharon]

Originally Posted by inkhead

Can you explain the Word2004 Notebook Feature? I have office 2004, I just took a look at that feature. Interesting, but I'd rather use a 3rd party app. Have you seen AudioX? I'm thinking of using that.

But I still would like a mic I can attach... Anybody. Thanks!

Instead of a standard blank document I used the notebook feature which allows you to match up recorded audio with your notes. Basically, every time you hit return and the cursor goes to the next line it saves a marker for the recorded audio. For example in class I would type much less and listen much more because all I had to do was type 'topic 1' and let it record, then once I felt the teacher was moving on to another thought I would hit return and type 'topic 2'. Then when I went back to the document I could click on the audio marker in the margin next to any topic and have it start playing the audio from that point.

I have tried audio x but I don't use it much.

amazing: good point. I always asked for permission before recording people.