1. Where is the best place in the room to locate the Voice Tracker™ microphone?

Both the Voice Tracker™ I and the Voice Tracker™ II are more sensitive from the front than they are from the rear and sides.

If the Voice Tracker™ is placed on the podium, with the objective of recording the talker and questions/comments from the audience, the Voice Tracker™ can be placed on or near the podium facing towards the audience. It will pick up the talker quite well even if he’s behind the Voice Tracker™ because he is reasonably close.

If the Voice Tracker™ is placed on the conference table, it should be placed near the front of the table pointing towards the far end.

The Voice Tracker™ should be placed as far away as possible from sources of stationary noise like fans or air conditioners. The Voice Tracker™ will filter out the noise from such sources, but if they are too loud they can create some artifact, making the voices sound” under water”. The Voice Tracker’s pickup range is so good that it will still pick up the talkers quite well when the mic is are placed away from the source of the stationary noise.

2. Can the Voice Tracker™ be mounted on the ceiling?

Both the Voice Tracker™ I and the Voice Tracker™ II can be mounted on the ceiling. The Voice Tracker™ I has a built-in ceiling mount. For the Voice Tracker™ I, just remove the weight in the base, revealing four mounting holes. The Voice Tracker™ I is mounted upside down, swiveled to point towards talkers. The Voice Tracker™ II comes with a mounting plate. Again, remove the weight in the base and mount the mounting plate to the screw holes that held the weight.

3. Can the outputs of two Voice Trackers be combined for better coverage?

The analog outputs of two Voice Tracker™ I be combined in several ways. The least expensive way is simply to combine the analog outputs with a 3.5 mm Y. The use of a mixer provides more control of the output levels of the two Voice Tracker’s. An inexpensive mixer is: the Behringer XENYX502 5-Channel Mixer.

The Voice Tracker™ II has both an analog audio output and a USB audio output. The analog audio outputs can be combined in the same way as the Voice Tracker™ I. But if you are using the acoustic echo cancellation feature of the Voice Tracker™ II, both units must receive a sample of the signal going to the loudspeaker, so the reference signal must be split.

4. Can the Voice Tracker’s be connected to a mixer or device that has XLR input?

There are inexpensive, passive XLR adapters to convert the unbalanced mic level signal from the Voice Tracker’s into a balanced XLR signal. For example, the RadioShack 274-017.

5. Can the Voice Tracker™ be used with Macintosh computers?

The audio output of the Voice Tracker™ I is mic level. The microphone input jack on most Macintoshes needs line level. But Macs do accept USB audio input. The analog audio output of the Voice Tracker™ I can be converted to USB audio by a USB adapter (like our part 102). Or, the mic level output can be increased to line level with use of an inexpensive amplifier like the Rolls MP 13.

The Voice Tracker™ II has both USB and an analog output. The USB audio output will be automatically recognized by Macintosh computers.