Subject: From: Date:

Re: [ECS] recommended microphone Ingo Dean Thu, 08 Jul 1999 16:20:40 -0400

---

Ryan Scott wrote:

> I'm just starting to mess around with VR... I'm wondering what I should
> use for 'whole room' voice pickup.  I need a mic/vr program combo that
> will work for the entire room, no matter where I am in the room.  I'm
> willing to speak loudly to the computer, but I'm not interested in having
> to be 12 inches from the microphone.

Everyone seems to recommend Crown PZM mikes (see web pages below).

> And how would one wire up multiple microphones (since I've got multiple
> rooms) to the one sound card?

To do it right, you're going to need to spend some money... first you need a
mixer for the mikes (a cheap RadioShack model is probably good enough), but
then you'll need a limiter/gate if you want to put any mikes in noisy areas
so that the TV in one room won't drown out your voice in another room.

http://smarthome.com/1472MR.html

There was another company that sells microphones with built-in limiters, but
I don't remember where that was.. I think they were around $150/each


> has anyone attempted this type of thing?  I want to be able to call
> out to the computer from anywhere in the house and have it understand me.

Sure, there are a lot of users of the Homevoice system
(http://www.appliedfuture.com) that do exactly that.

>
> Thanks for any info!
>
> Ryan Scott
> PostMasterDirect.com

---