CD recording equipment - help please...x

hypno06

Hi there techie peeps, I hope you don't mind me visiting for a bit.

I would be grateful for any help with the following:

I am a hypnotherapist and record my sessions onto a digital dictaphone which I then put through audacity on my laptop and spit out a very basic cd recording to give to the client to take away with them.

This has worked ok up to now but of course the quality is not that fab. Still, it was good enough and cost next to nothing to do.

Problem is that the laptop has finally died - taken it for repair to be told not to bother at all. Can't switch it on or anything.

First thought is just to buy another laptop and to carry on as before. however is there anything else I can record directly onto a CD, or a piece of kit that I can use with my iMac that would be:

a) cheaper than buying a new laptop
b) providing a more "professional" and clearer CD recording
c) ideally portable as I go and work in various therapy centres and don't really want to have to lug masses and masses of kit around.

Any ideas will be gratefully received, thanks in anticipation.

seaweasel

Just plug your dictaphone into your iMac, it should have a line in as far as I remember (if not you can get a cheap USB audio interface). Audacity is still fine, the big factor in the quality of the recording is the microphone and any compression done on the dictaphone.

Alternatively you could get an audio CD-R deck and just plug your dicataphone into that. Instead of the dictaphone you could also go for a better field recording device (there are a few flash and HD versions around I think), or something like a portable Minidisc recorder and mic. Actually, come to think of it you could plug a mic and preamp into a CD deck directly too.

If you went down the route of getting another laptop however your best bet would probably be to get a decent mic and audio interface and just record directly into Audacity (or whatever your app of choice is).