Help with Audio Bible Recording
This Christmas, I will be blessed by heading down to the interior or Mexico to work on recording the New Testament into Huichol, an indigenous Mexican language. These will likely be distributed on MegaVoice Ambassador portable solar-powered mp3 players. A local church here in Phoenix has offered to donate the microphone; however, I am looking for the recording device itself. I hesitate to record onto a laptop computer because of the noise that I have found associated with all of the onboard electronics (not to mention I don't have too many laptops lying around). After doing a little bit of budget conscious research I am considering ordering the Sony MZ-RH10 (manual can be found here) for recording onto Hi-MD minidiscs. If I cannot get a compatible microphone from a church here, I will likely order this as well. I get free two-day shipping from Amazon, so I will still be able to get it here before I leave. Any advice regarding these devices would be greatly appreciated.Even if you are unable to help technically, please offer your support by praying for this project. There are many thousands in the mountains who have never heard the Gospel and don't have access to the Scriptures. Likewise, many who may have access to a Huichol Bible and desire to read it cannot. Please pray that this recording project would be successful, that the funding would be available to produce the devices, and ultimately that they would be used to bring people into contact with God through the Word of God, both bringing people to saving faith and edifying those who have already been granted repentance and faith.
They claim “Compatible audio format: MP3, ATRAC3, ATRAC3plus, WMA, WAV”. But in the past this has meant you need all kinds of other equipment to get the signal from Sony’s proprietary form into the WAV form that you want for archiving and future production (it’s the only one that won’t be superseded over time, because it’s just the bare wave as it comes from the amplifier), or into the MP3 form for production (and be aware that iTunes now converts to MP4 format, not MP3).
The good old Sony Digital Audio Tape recorder is still what people prefer for work in the field.
You might do well to call their engineering division. The sales people probably don’t know; they just sell consumer electronics.
—Joe