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The University provides many learning tools to help you during your course.

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Recommendations from the Discipline of Speech Pathology

What to look for when purchasing an Audio Recorder for your course

One of the major tools of a Speech Pathologist is a recording device. There are a range of options and different parts of the profession require different quality recordings, so this influences which choice you might make but you do need to have an option when you start clinic.

Here are the various options:

  • Computer software - You can
    download free     speech acquisition programs that record at 44,100 Hz in wav format
    If you wanted to purchase software for recording and editing sound files then a program like Adobe Audition is what you are looking for but the freeware is fine. If you go this way, spend your money on the best microphone you can afford and make sure the sound card on your computer is of good quality (the newer the computer, the better the quality)
  • Digital Audio Tape (DAT) recorders – these capture the signal up to 48,000Hz sampling rate and are excellent for acoustic analysis of the signal. The format can be transferred onto computer in wav. format. They are expensive however, and only worth considering if you intend to specialise in voice at a later stage
  • Digital flash recorders – most recorders capture in MP3 format as it compresses the sound into a smaller file and some signal data is not collected at all - most common now, useful if they come with speech recognition and transcription software as this will make orthographic transcription of language samples easier. A great option for language transcription and general recording
  • Minidisk – excellent quality for transcription but not appropriate for acoustic analysis as it improves the sound quality when recording
    For all digital formats the sampling rate should be at least 22,000 Hz minimum but most these days are 44,100 Hz (and this is what you should aim for)
    For acoustic analysis and/or use of computer sound editing software, you must be able to save the recording as .wav format (MP3 format loses too much data and minidisc is inaccurate), which means option 1
  • Large format (old style) tape recorders – good for speech and language transcription as rewind is easy but no good for acoustic analysis of speech or voice and hard to transfer from analogue to digital. Cheap introductory tool while you figure out what you need
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Some important points to consider before you choose:

  • For speech and language recording you need to be able to “rewind” easily for transcription so make sure you can “cue” the recording at any point without too much hassle
  • You will need to be able to record 2-3 hours of recording without download so memory or capacity is an issue. Be careful with the advertised “records up to 10 hours” as this means “records up to 10 hours at low quality” – what you need to find out is how much it will record at top quality
  • Recording on your mobile phone is inappropriate (unprofessional) and will result in low quality recordings
  • If you are going to work with young children you will need something which is reasonably robust as it may end up with playdoh on it