David Looser wrote:
"Mike Scott" wrote in message
...

Any ideas please on the cheapest and/or best way of getting 6 channels of
microphones connected to a laptop?

snip

We don't really need a full mixer - my thoughts are to get the signals in
and do any needed switching or mixing in software, possibly bespoke.

Any other thoughts and pointers welcome.


There seems to be a conflict between these two sentences. Do you want to
input 6 microphones *at the same time*?. If so you do need to do the mixing
before the signals get into the laptop. Only if you are happy to record from
each microphone one at a time can you use software mixing.

Eh? I don't understand that last bit. The current setup has 6 mic's
going into a 6-channel mixer (and thence to tape). In practice the mixer
is almost always just used to switch from one mic to the next as we
change talker; occasionally two or more mic's might be live at once.

We can either emulate the same - a 6-channel mixer but with USB output,
which is going to be expensive for that number of mic input channels, or
we can try to find a cheaper way of connecting the mic's and do the
mixing in software.

I notice there are some mic's with usb output; I'm not sure how well a
laptop would cope with 6 separate simultaneous USB data streams.
Although I suppose the data rate will be highish anyway. Let's see - 6
channels at 44.1kHz times 16 bits - about 4Mbit/sec; well within USB2
capabilities on one data stream.


There are now plenty of small, cheap audio mixers with USB output which you
can simply plug into a laptop and use whichever of the audio editing

Not with 6 mic amps, at least, not that I've found.

software packages available that suits. Bespoke software won't be necessary
(unless you enjoy writing your own).

Or want to de-skill the task. A set of buttons labelled 'talker 1',
'talker 2', etc and automatic level setting would be ideal, not hard to
train people to use, and less error-prone.

David.




--
Mike Scott (unet2 at [deletethis] scottsonline.org.uk)
Harlow Essex England