News

All-in-one recording microphone continues the concepts of the HHB FlashMic... Read more

IBC 2009, HHB Stand 8.E54: The 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics took place in Berlin in August and saw competitors from the home nation enjoying particular success. As a consequence, sports journalists from the local Berlin radio station ‘105.5 SPREERADIO’ were particularly busy recording interviews with winning athletes at the Champions Club, a venue in which competitors came together with representatives of top German and international sports, along with sponsors and guests from the fields of business, politics and the media.... Read more

With Red Nose Day just over a week away, HHB reports that the Comic Relief media team is using FlashMic Digital Recording Microphones to gather interviews from participating celebrities, members of the public, and from those whose lives are transformed by the work of Comic Relief.... Read more

For three months this summer, Icelandic journalist Guòmundur Gunnarsson interviewed more than 300 of his fellow countryman with a FlashMic for his radio program ‘Flækingur’.... Read more

HHB has shipped its 10,000th FlashMic. First launched at IBC three years ago, the innovative Digital Recording Microphone quickly caught the imagination of major broadcasters and news organisations around the world and is now the interview recorder of choice for journalists working in all areas of the media.... Read more

In an unsurpassed demonstration of its sound quality and ease of use, the HHB FlashMic has been used to compile an urban London soundtrack for an arts project executed by members of the public.... Read more

The Mark Twain Elementary School in Wheeling, Ohio is using the FlashMic to record lessons and projects for uploading to the Internet... Read more

Actor Jamie Foxx surprised everyone when he pulled out his FlashMic on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show and proceeded to tell the audience all about it.... Read more

The prestigious Syngenta ABSW Science Writers’ Awards took place at The Royal Society in London and saw New Voice category winner Anna Lacey delighted to receive her prize of a FlashMic Digital Recording Microphone from Mohit Bakaya, Commissioning Editor, BBC Radio 4.... Read more

Classic FM Magazine journalist Sarah Kirkup used the FlashMic to capture interviews with the stars of the classical music world at the Classical Brit Awards.... Read more

Building on a successful project at NAB earlier this year, UK-based media production company Eye-i is again using the FlashMic Digital Recording Microphone from HHB Communications to record podcasts at IBC.... Read more

Writer and director Scott Evans packed his HHB FlashMic when heading for The Shoot Out Boulder 24-Hour Filmmaking Festival, which pits participants against the clock to create a film, from story conception to final Foley, within 24 hours.... Read more

 

Of the 514 students who attend Mark Twain Elementary School in Wheeling, Illinois, 427 come from homes in which Spanish is the first language. The school embraces diversity and seeks to help students succeed in an increasingly technological society. As part of that mission, the school chose Rosa Kuhn to fill the position of computer and IT instructor five years ago. Before assuming her new duties, Kuhn served over two decades as a bilingual teacher in the district. She recently invested in an HHB FlashMic that allows students to make recordings of lessons and projects that are easily uploaded to the Internet. Students analyse their speech at home and share their work with family and friends.

No larger than a standard vocal microphone, the FlashMic combines a professional-grade Sennheiser capsule with flawless automatic gain control and easy-to-use flash storage. It has one gigabyte of memory and can record over 18 hours of MPEG audio. A simple interface on the microphone’s body controls all internal functions, and plug-and-play connectivity to a standard PC or Mac, coupled with HHB’s FlashMic Manager software, makes uploading files to the Internet easy.

“In classrooms around the country, students are regularly given models of fluent speaking, but they’re rarely given the opportunity to analyse their own speech,” stated Kuhn. “With the FlashMic, our students read a piece of text and then listen back to their pronunciation, intonation, tone, vocabulary, and fluency. Students and teachers can analyze the recordings together to identify both the student’s strong points and those that need attention.”

The professional quality of the FlashMic, which has been embraced by everyone from special-interest podcasters to the BBC World News, provides tangible and important benefits to Mark Twain students over standard digital or analogue recording systems. Explained Kuhn, “The FlashMic provides clarity far beyond that achievable with a standard digital voice recorder, which is crucial in addressing issues of pronunciation.”

In addition to language classes, the FlashMic has improved instruction in music classes. The music teacher records student pitch-matching exercises. “Student self-assessment is a powerful way to help them improve,” Kuhn said. The chorus makes regular recordings of the projects that they are working on, which are subsequently reviewed to assess progress. “The students are very excited to hear how much better they have become,” added Kuhn.

Above a strict improvement to pedagogy, much of the FlashMic’s appeal for the students springs from the same love of technology that has catapulted the iPod to the forefront of our cultural lexicon, along with a timeless attraction to hearing one’s own voice in a recording. “To motivate students for writing, our teachers often have the final product recorded with the FlashMic,” said Kuhn. “The kids love it. Because we all agreed that only quality, polished work would be recorded, the kids work very hard on their stories. They love the technology and hearing their work at home on the Internet. Parents appreciate the connection it provides them.”

Importantly, Mark Twain’s podcasts provide a connection, not just to parents but to distant relatives as well. “Most of our students visit family in Mexico and other parts of the world over the holidays,” conveyed Kuhn. “We recently recorded the chorus singing their holiday songs with the FlashMic and we will produce a podcast that they can listen to with their families. Overall, using the FlashMic has given students a greater sense of ownership and pride. That has motivated them to improve. The connection with family both immediate and distant has invested them in the work their children do here at Mark Twain.”