Main recording scenario

For planning details, see the EAGLES handbook, Part I.

The recording session has the following features:

1. Speaker: German male student
2. Language: English as a second language
3. Materials: modified Gourlay elicitation list
4. Elicitation: from paper printout (not computer-paced), one block per phoneme (block length therefore approximately equals number of phonemes), sip of still mineral water between blocks (fizzy is picked up by the microphone...). The alternative would have been computer-based presentation, either self-paced or automatically paced. Each example was paced by a second speaker, who spoke the example twice, followed by the main speaker, who also spoke the example twice, possibly with multiple corrections.
5. Room: Quiet soundproofed (not anechoic) general recording studio
6. Microphone: Sennheiser condenser omnidirectional; this has the advantage of linearity over directional microphones, e.g. cardioid characteristics, but the possible disadvantage of picking up more noise.
7. Recording apparatus: SONY portable DAT recorder, SONY DAT tape 120 mins, 48 kHz ("standard play") sampling rate.
8. Two recording sessions, unfortunately two weeks apart (due to intervening illness on my part), first week: afternoon, second week: late morning and afternoon. (Ideally: same time of day for each session.)

[ picture of setup to appear here ]

Total recording time for the modified Gourlay list was about 5 hours; actual tape time under two hours, as the recording was paused between blocks. Recording sessions were about two hours, with a 15 minute break after the first hour.