5. Recording

If an interview is worth recording, it is worth recording well. A poorly recorded interview can be transcribed but it can be used for little else. Radio, television and commercial records have accustomed present generations to a fairly high standard of recorded sound. This has also set a standard for any oral historians who wish to use their tapes for the various audio applications which are described in Chapter 12. Even if these uses are not of primary concern, interviewers should take the trouble to use their tools efficiently. Given that recording techniques for the usual interview situation are perfectly straightforward, if becomes almost as easy to make a good recording as a bad one!

Recording Environment

The biggest problem when recording in people's homes is persistent extraneous background noise. If informants live on a busy road or near an airport, for example, there is usually no way in which a good quality recording can be made. Sometimes moving to another room in the informant's house will enable you to get far enough away from the source of the extraneous noise to make a satisfactory recording. Otherwise the only alternatives may be to try to move to the home of a neighbour, friend or relative, or to ask the informant to come to the collecting institution if better facilities are available there.

A good many minor extraneous noises can be and should be silenced. Clocks, fluorescent tubes, refrigerators and other electrical appliances are most common and can usually be stopped or moved. Dogs and budgerigars should also be 'silenced'. To deal with the noise problem interviewers must carefully assess the environment. Listen! If you can hear noises the microphone can too and they will always sound more distracting and prominent on the recording than they do to the interviewer at the time.

The best rooms for recording are those that contain a lot of soft furnishings and such things as curtains, carpets and rugs. This will usually be the living room. Technically, the bedroom is probably the next best recording area! Rather bare rooms, with a lot of hard reflective surfaces will give the recording an echoey, bathroom-type sound and should be avoided if possible.

Microphones which can be clipped to the informant's clothing are best suited to oral history interviewing requirements (see also Chapter 9). Apart from being small, and therefore unobtrusive, they permit almost complete flexibility in the matter of seating arrangements. You should place the informant and yourself in the most 'natural' setting. If the informant has a favourite or usual chair, that is where he should sit. Place yourself in a position where you are comfortable and can make good eye contact with him. In other words, you should arrange a social disposition and avoid 'staging' the interview.

If you are using a table standing microphone, the easiest way to work is to set up the microphone on a table (over which there is a table cloth or some other soft material) at which the interviewer and informant can sit on fairly upright chairs. Try to avoid easy chairs as these tend to throw the speaker too far back from the microphone to obtain a good recording level.

The recorder itself is best placed out of the informant's view (and never on the same table as the microphone), but in a position where the interviewer can see it easily. This is arranged most simply by the machine and the informant being on the opposite sides of the interviewer, so that his body serves as a screen.
Thus, in selecting your recording environment, there are three main considerations:-

a. Extraneous noise
b. The room acoustic
c. The convenience and comfort of informant and interviewer

Often you will have to compromise, because it will not be possible to meet all three conditions. In such cases, (a) and (c) above are the most important considerations for getting a good quality recording.

Microphone Placement

A clip microphone should be attached to the most stable appropriate part of the informant's clothing, so that it cannot swing in response to movements of his body. Thus, a jacket lapel is to be preferred to a tie. The microphone should be placed some six inches (15 centimetres) from his mouth; that is about breast pocket level. Secure the informant's microphone cable in some appropriate way (e.g. by tucking it into the corner of his chair) and make sure, at all costs, that he does not handle it while you are recording.

A table standing microphone should be placed not farther than eighteen inches (45 centimetres) from the informant's mouth. Interviewers should try to get an equal recording balance between the interviewer and the informant, which may require adjusting the speakers' positions relative to the microphone to compensate for the one with the weaker voice. Remember, however, that the informant is more important than the interviewer and at least ensure that you are getting a good recording level on his voice. Do not aim the microphone at the informant. You will get better results (and find it easier to make good eye contact with him) by placing the microphone so that you are both speaking across it.

Using the Recorder

In selecting the recording speed one factor to bear in mind is that the slower the speed the lower the absolute recorded frequency range, and the higher the relative tape hiss level. That is to say that at the slow speeds of 1 7/8 i.p.s. (4.75 cm/sec) and 15/16 i.p.s. (2.4 cm/sec) you may fail to record the higher frequencies of the voice on some machines. As the hiss level increases noticeably at these speeds, this produces an extraneous audible noise at the same time. These two related factors working in combination can produce an unpleasing recording. With a modern machine and an appropriate tape these dangers will usually be avoided and spoken word recordings of a high standard should be achieved at speeds of 3¾ i.p.s. (9.5 cm/sec) and above.

The use of automatic recording level control devices found on many recorders is not generally recommended. There is a case for using them with informants whose voice levels rise and fall dramatically or with a fixed microphone for interviewees who are constantly moving their positions relative to the microphone. But as they can have the result of making certain words sound clipped and may also cause a general and audible rise and fall effect on the recording these automatic controls should only be used under exceptional circumstances.

Interviewers should set the recording level manually, so that at the 'peaks' of the informant's speech the meter level indicator is just below the 100% or zero mark. This means that for much of the interview the needle will probably only be registering in the lower regions of the meter and never - well hardly ever -in the section which is usually marked in red. Set the recording level while social pleasantries are being exchanged and then apart from the occasional glance concentrate on the informant. If the interviewer has made the initial adjustment carefully, then most reasonable quality modern tape recorders will take care of the rest.

Before using the equipment in the field experiment with it at home or in the office. This teaches the interviewer what his recorder is capable of and how to get the best results from it. Such familiarisation exercises will also give the operator confidence in his own competence. The lack of such confidence in the interviewer can have a similar effect on the informant.

Administration

A key point during recording is to speak the informant's name and the appropriate reel number onto the tape and to write the corresponding references on the carton. Neglect of this common sense practice can make a nonsense of transcripts and catalogues.