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You have a number of problems to sort out with the "simple" need of
recording meetings for later use as presentations.
I agree that the mini-disc recorder may be the best recording medium;
because the disks are removable, you can maintain the originals for
later re-mixing.
Next, you should have a small audio mixer with output compatible with
the mini-disk. That way, you can have primary speakers on separate
microphones and adjust the volume of each as you go. Single microphone
solutions are rarely good ones, since they must have the gain so high
to capture everyone's voice intelligibly that every small noise in the
room seems amplified. Rustling papers, people knocking against the
table, coughs--you will be amazed at the variety of noises that tend
to obscure the voices and their quality.
Generally, microphones for voice use have a somewhat directional
pattern--they are much more sensitive in one basic direction than in
others. Often, the response pattern may be a "cardioid" pattern for
this use. I have also known several people who used small "shotgun"
(extremely directional mics used to record from a distance) trained on
speakers with some wortwhile results. These are often used in just the
sort of environments of which you speak...although using only one for
a number of people will not be a satisfactory solution.
So, let us say you have a mixer capable of supporting four or five
microphones. You select some that have adequate quality--perhaps
inexpensive lapel mics for the primary speakers, perhaps at least one
handheld that can be passed from one person to another for those whom
you cannot provide individual microphones. (This is often a good
meeting device, for it serves as a sort of "talking stick" and limits
the times when people talk on top of one another.)
Next, you need some sort of editing software. One popular application
for the Windows PC is called "Cool Edit Pro." (This is now owned by
Adobe and called "Adobe Audition" with, of course, the typically
higher price...). With this, you will first "rip" the audio signal to
a digital one for editing. There are many such applications for just
about any platform.
With the right editing software, you can take out the spurious noises,
alter the ambiance to the most pleasing settings, insert passages into
more logical places, eliminate unnecessary comments...just about
anything you can imagine.
The final result can be converted to audio CD or saved as a digital
file to be played in a media player. Since you are dealing with voice
and not music, you can get very good compression with minimal loss of
quality in this way--making it cheaper and more convenient if the
files are to be downloaded by prospective customers.
This is a very cursory overview of a process that can be quite
complex. If the material is worth it, though, the results would be
clearly superior to any single-mic-single-recorder solution.
Many years ago, I served for two years as audio production director
and announcer for a radio/TV operation in Austin. Every once in a
while, I still do some editing--only now that it is done digitally it
is much less painful than the days of the Editall splicing block and
pieces of audio tape!
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