Conference recording

[cwileyriser]

Wasn't really sure where to put this...

Does anyone here do audio recording for professional conferences, professional continuing education, etc.?

Having been to lots and having spoken at lots, I know that the quality of the recordings done by most of the companies that do this pretty much sucks. I know I could put together an 8-space wheeled rack of gear, plus mics, cables, stands, etc. for a couple thousand dollars that would blow the usual crappy recordings (still usually done on cassette - even if they're going to end up on CDs for sale) out of the water.

But do the people that put together these conferences and contract the tapers even care? Can someone make real money at it?

At big conferences sometimes you can get CD's later in the day or the next day, but for most of these things, the recordings aren't available for purchase for a couple of weeks, meaning that outsourcing CD duplication wouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, just curious if anyone else is doing anything similar.

[I'm Painting Again]

I record television audio & video for corporate and government affairs every day..but I work for the govenment..and its a civil service job and unionized so its really nice..

as a "freelance person" out there, knowing no one who spends money on such affairs, or should I say if you don't have the connections to get such jobs, I imagine it would be tough to make a living..but the investment wouldn't be so much than an attempt at it would be overly dangerous imo..

did you ever check to see how much a phone book ad is? you might be surprised..you might need to be insured..because god forbid someone trips on a cable and breaks their ass..

I would try to hook up with someone who does what your looking to do and try to watch to see how they operate..

[JGriffin]

I used to do this through a stdio I worked at. We'd generally run a mic from the speaker (usually getting a send from the PA) and throw up a couple of audience mics, track to DAT. IIRC we did speaker left, audience right and then mixed it down later in Sonic (these days, ProTools). The quality was generally pretty good.

As far as insurance, I can't speak to that but dress down your cables!