Apologies if I’m posting this in the wrong place but I’m a clinical hypnotherapist starting to use audacity to record sessions for clients. A colleague suggests that I do this by using head phones with build-in mic and audacity dowloaded on my MacBook Air laptop. However, I’m not entirely sure which headset to purchase as there seems to be some conflicts. Can anyone suggest one or more headsets - with build-in mic - suitable for recording via my laptop for clients. Thanks a mill!
A colleague suggests that I do this by using head phones with build-in mic
This is the poster child for not telling us something. People wanting to record good quality voice for presentation usually buy a Yeti microphone and go make coffee.
Is the real job to record on-line therapy sessions with clients? It’s almost certain you can’t, or at least not both voices. Recording Skype or Zoom or other communication voices is scary hard to do. Can you fill out the question a little more? Are you expecting to walk away with the Zoom equivalent of a face to face session?
Headset microphones are not the best in the world. I have a perfectly respectable Logitech stereo headset. The microphone is highly directional and reasonably quiet (that’s the good part), but otherwise pretty awful. It sounds a little like the operator’s voice on one of those old phones you have to crank.
Koz
Thanks Koz - the idea is to leave the client with a recording of my voice only, so they can listen to the recording at home at their leisure to reinforce the hypnotic suggestions we also did in the session. So I will need to record my voice for around 25 mins and then send the file to the client. Hope that helps expand a bit.
Hope that helps expand a bit.
Yes, thank you.
We are talking about an in-person therapy session, right? That’s super important because the current crop of communication tools likes to take over the computer’s sound services and systems. That forces the computer to choose between two contradictory jobs, and Zoom will likely win.
This is where I present a microphone solution and everybody goes home happy. Not that easy. No matter which headset you choose, you’re talking about an invasive-looking thing sitting on your head with a cord to the computer. If you don’t have the cord, then you run the risk of bluetooth renegotiating a connection in the middle of a session. If you really offended the angels, Audacity will throw up its hands and stop dead.
Do you have face fur? You can get crackling noises on the microphone.
I do think a good compromise might be your phone.
This is a segment of an interview I shot in a crowded, noisy restaurant. This is the iPod version of Voice Memo. I just set it, microphone up, on the table between us. Given all the phones on the table at the time, I’m betting nobody even noticed I did it.
If you’re doing this in a quiet office, it’s pretty much a natural. Do a dry run beginning to end before you commit to an actual patient.
As with all sound recording, there’s interesting ways to mess this up. You can have street or building noises coming up through the floor and table. There’s ways around that, too. A variation of the book/towel method.
In your case, fold over several layers of black felt (Joann Fabrics and Sewing Accessories) instead of an obvious bath towel and use a learned volume instead of Stephen King. Make sure you have a good 3/4 inch (2cm) of felt down there. It should be a hardback book. Good Will Thrift Store?
Use your imagination. “Trephination Through The Ages” perhaps.
Koz