MeetingPro Records Work Sessions

9/21/2004 - Clallam County is using MeetingPro and Voice Tracker to record Commissioner Meetings and Work Sessions, improving productivity and accuracy.

Public meetings are often recorded to assure accurate and complete minutes. This presents a challenge to microphone technology, since many of the meetings are held in large, reverberant rooms, where it is difficult to pick up discussion around a table and questions from the audience.

Clallam County has met this challenge through the use of the Voice Tracker™ Array Microphone combined with SoniClear digital recording software from Trio Systems.

According to Dan Engelbertson, County Administrator, “Our meetings are held in a 40’ by 40’ room in an old Courthouse, with hard walls. There was so much reverberation, it was hard to understand what was recorded. The Voice Tracker is a thousand times better than the conventional microphone we were using. We can understand all the speakers around the table during work sessions, and we can understand comments from the audience 30 feet away”

Bob Feingold, CEO of Acoustic Magic notes that “The Voice Tracker™ is a simple and cost effective alternative to installing an expensive sound system with a separate microphone for each person”.

The Voice Tracker™ locates a talker and electronically steers a “listening beam,” like an acoustic searchlight, in that direction. This creates spatial filtering; sounds and reverberation from other parts of the room are not picked up. In addition, digital noise reduction processing removes background noise. This two-stage noise reduction, coupled with the sensitivity of eight microphone elements, gives the Voice Tracker™ outstanding range and sound quality.

Clallam County uses the Voice Tracker microphone with the SoniClear MeetingPro Gov software running on a Windows computer. MeetingPro automatically records from the Voice Tracker microphone and makes it easy for clerks to record meetings, produce minutes, and research action items. The digital recordings can also be archived on CDROM, posted to a network server, and webcast on the Internet, making meeting information accessible to staff, elected officials, and the public.

For more information about MeetingPro software, see the MeeingPro Product Page. For more information about Voice Tracker microphone, see the Microphone Notes Page.