Transferring audio from a Dictaphone recorder - please help.

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hi I am a newbie and I am not familiar with all things audio or technical [although I am pretty proficient on the laptop]

I need to transfer a recording from a Olympus Dictaphone recorder model no VN-750 [It is a fairly basic, old one and does not have a USB connection] to the laptop in-order to send the recording to a third party. It is a speech recording.

I was told that If i downloaded Audacity and connected my recorder to the laptop via the mic socket on the recorder to the mic socket on the laptop and pressed play, it would transmit the recording to the laptop [In ‘real’ time - the recording is approx 15 minutes in length]

I have tried this, but I can not get it to export/transmit and the dictaphone recorder keeps switching off too.

My laptop uses a Windows XP operating system if that is useful info and I ideally need the recording in a MP3 or similar format to easily transmit the recording via e-mail or the internet so that It can be transcribed.

Any advice/info would be VERY much appreciated - it is VERY important - it is needed for a court hearing and I need it asap.

Thank you in advance for your info/advice/help.

2

It’s not ideal.
If you plug headphones into the dictaphone and press play, do you hear the message through the headphones?

3

Exactly. Mic-In on a laptop computer is expecting one of these…

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/computerAnalogMicrophone.jpg

And has special connections to make the microphone happy. It’s possible that’s what’s turning the Dictaphone off.

If you can play the show perfectly through headphones, you may need to connect to a computer with a blue Stereo Line-In (pix of desktop sound card)…

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/soundCardFinal2.jpg

Or find out if your computer can switch one connection between Mic-In and Line-In with Windows Preferences (some can).

But you’re probably stuck finding another computer to do this or getting a stereo line-level USB Audio adapter such as the UCA202 that I use.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/peaveyUCA202Lenovo.jpg

That is the connection between my analog sound mixer and my Lenovo laptop.

Be careful not to buy a USB sound adapter such as a Startech ICUSBAudio. That just duplicates the connections you already have putting you no further ahead.

http://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Sound/USB-Audio/USB-20-to-Audio-Adapter~ICUSBAUDIO

Koz

4

why i reply u i want to know some information so that i asked

5

That’s not a useful reply. Have you worked out what you want to do, or not?

I merged the topics, deleted your duplicate post then moved the topic to the correct board for Windows.


Gale