Field recording

gregory.bell · 2018-10-05T16:04:40.586Z

Thanks for that tip, @Olivier - now I can see that mine are in transit with USPS, not stuck at Inward Office of Exchange.

gigasturtz · 2018-10-06T03:07:44.754Z

Yea! Mine are in my town now, hoping they get here tomorrow so I can record some sets at day two of Cropped Out

setfield · 2018-10-06T13:41:27.590Z

UsiPros and Priezor have arrived. Now I just need a week off.

gigasturtz · 2018-10-07T04:07:51.050Z

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Got mine just in time to go record some sounds at an event close to home. This was the kit I took with me. Excited to listen to the Anthony Braxton/Jacqueline Kerrod set…

barnaby · 2018-10-13T11:51:36.869Z

The acorns are falling where I live, so I headed out into the garden with the trusty DR-05 to record some nice particle noise. I’d love to try recording this with lots of mics set up all over the area where they’re falling, then pan the results around a bit – setting up lots of mics and cables in a woodland is just a bit too awkward though.

https://soundcloud.com/barnabywalters/acorns-dropping

I had a lot of fun feeding these recordings into my Ocean Machine and messing with lots of reverb, delays and looping, the results were a bit too clichéd for me to want to post them here though

mola · 2018-10-13T15:23:14.055Z

recording this with lots of mics set up all over the area

That’s a great idea; situations like this are often difficult to record due to the dispersed nature of the event but blending a bunch of close® up recordings would make it ironically more realistic. I wish I had a bunch of mics and tripods and an 8 channel recorder to try stuff like that - if you do: DO IT!

gigasturtz · 2018-10-16T16:50:06.421Z

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Ran into a friend a few weeks ago when I was recording with the Usi Pros. He’s into field recording and mentioned finding out what mic capsules the Usi uses and wanting to try making his own. Long story short we sourced some capsules (Primo EM272J, the updated version of the EM172 that has been used in the Usis) and I made a pair of mics to run off of the plug in power on my Walkmans (cassette and minidisc). The collars are a pretty simple 3D printed part that press fit (after a bit of fjnagling with an exacto knife).
They are wired with stereo plugs so I can use them individually and record to both the left and right channel or plug them both into a dual female mono to male stereo splitter and record in stereo.

Mattb · 2018-10-17T19:47:50.738Z

To reply my own question, in case anyone have been wondering the same, the mikroUcho and mikro Usi are the same microphone.

On a different note, does anyone here own a Zoom H6? Is there a way to link the gain control over the 4 mic pres? Could not find it mentioned in the manual

pleurodesis · 2018-10-17T21:05:40.818Z

I’m wondering too. I have an H6 and will probably buy some mikroUsi when they aren’t sold out. Would be nice to link the gain for at least the pair of them at the same time.

Mattb · 2018-10-18T00:43:02.729Z

How do you like the H6 so far? Any heads up you would like to put out there to a potential buyer?
I have been interested with both H6 and F4

gimber · 2018-10-18T01:20:26.279Z

Has anyone tried LOM mics with a Sony Pcm-d50? Curious what kind of improvement they’d offer over the built-in (other than flexibility of placement).

pleurodesis · 2018-10-18T13:54:42.246Z

Unfortunately I haven’t had time to put it through the wringer yet. It seems pretty sturdy, and the interface is relatively intuitive. With a decent windscreen on it I think it’ll do the trick nicely though and I don’t expect needing to upgrade any time soon.

caulymaculkin · 2018-11-13T21:19:28.396Z

I found some fuzzy craft wire (stem) at a Michael’s ($2.80 with that 40% off coupon). It works pretty well for moldable windscreens.

https://www.michaels.com/fuzzy-craft-stem-by-…/10529831.html

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sam · 2018-11-17T16:27:42.621Z

Would anyone be able to suggest a windscreen for a Zoom H1n? What’s a realistic expectation for the reduction in wind noise from it’s use?

I basically know nothing about field recording and I have been having fun recording things at home, but would like to try some outdoor sounds now. Thus far with my very limited attempts wind noise has been a major killjoy…

mola · 2018-11-17T22:24:58.797Z

I’ve used a Zoom WSU-1 universal windscreen with the h1n (works with a little pull cord). If you use it with the foam windscreen as well it works out alright, but understand that windscreens aren’t everything when it comes to blocking out windnoise. Positioning and understanding how wind moves through and around spaces is just as important.

WhiteNoise · 2018-12-05T15:44:53.000Z

Hi everyone,

I am very interested in starting some serious field recording and I would love to hear from people who are already doing that.

What kind of recorder are you using? A zoom seems to be the obvious choice.

What is your process? What do you do with your recordings?

It would be great to start a project about this in the future.

sandy · 2018-12-05T16:18:18.549Z

A good thread for you here:

Field recording Equipment

a thread for everything related to the practice of field recording! i recorded this today at the place where i work (with a zoom h4n) https://soundcloud.com/nuunnuun/092216-vogels-zorgtuin

mola · 2018-12-05T19:20:10.374Z

I highly recommend starting out with a handy recorder before investing in a dedicated one. Honestly all the main brands are pretty much the same (though a lot of people would crucify me for saying that), but the Sony PCMD100 has gotten a lot of praise recently and I reckon it’d be a good place to start.

You say “serious” field recording; I’d recommend you let your kit develop over time rather than try to get every kind of mic and accessory possible. A humble handy recorder teaches you the basics and you can always try out ext. mics with it to see what kind of setups you’d like to invest in. For example: After messing around and trying all sorts of different kit for almost 10 years now I find myself content with only using 2 different kinds of mics, and I’ve recently instead been focusing more on finding small ways to use those mics better (making custom clothing, buying a new cable because it’s shorter, etc.). I’m lucky I went to an art school where I could rent equipment, but I also bought cheap throwaway shite from electronic shops and tatt markets just to see what they were like. I’m really glad I didn’t waste money on more than 2 mics over the last 9 years.

papernoise · 2018-12-05T21:08:16.374Z

Petty much learning about this myself, but one thing I can say for sure is: it’s not about the recorder, it’s about how good you are at listening. One bit of advice I am trying to follow is to practice listening as much I can and in any circumstance.
The big question is: what do you want to do with field recording? As far as I can tell there’s two big camps (and I should say right away that things are not the dichotomy I am about to picture here, but for the sake of the explanation, it works better this way): the one where it’s all about the recording. It’s what I would call pure field recording. Where your aim is to capture something which is so great that it can stand on its own. It’s a high art and hard to master. It’s also a very deceiving one, because you might think: hey all I have to do is pointing my mic at something and press rec". Again, I think that especially for this one, it’s all about listening.
The other camp is about making recordings which then make up the raw material of your compositions (or part of it). This is the one I am more interested in. Actually after interviewing Matthias Puech on his latest album I realized that I do treat everything like a field recording in some way. Even when I record a synth patch from the modular. My main tool of composition is the DAW I guess and I mostly work by processing, combining, layering and mangling existing recordings. I say mostly, because I’m still kind of trying to figure things out.

sam · 2018-12-06T14:32:11.174Z

I’ve also been interested in this lately… and am a complete beginner, though I at least know which end of the microphone is the dangerous one (I’ve done some PA).

I’ve owned a Zoom H1n for a few months, but I’ve only started to seriously experiment with it in the last month. I went with the H1n because:

It was cheap enough to try things out without committing too much money.
Even if I bought something better later, that it would still have life as a ‘take everywhere’ recorder.

With regards to the first point, it’s succeeded, it’s been fun, not even the recording, but just enjoying listening to the quiet sounds around the house or out the window (I’m very high up, and correspondingly can hear things very far away). I have made some recordings, but haven’t really done anything with them, I’d really like to make something fun for Norns to play them when I have some free time…

On the second point, however the H1n is a bit crap.

There is handling noise, I understand all recorders have this, though I have seen some advertised with shock mounts for the mics. This isn’t such a big deal, as I can use the builtin countdown to start recordings, but there is no way to stop the recording without getting unwanted noise recorded. I can see how using Bluetooth control from your phone would end up being really handy for completely getting rid of all unwanted handling noise.
Worse is the wind noise, which I think is supposed to be particularly bad on the H1n, to the point that I’ve found that using a windscreen indoors is often needed (thanks @mola the WSU-1 and foam have been great). Now I have nothing else to compare it to, and maybe you always need to use a windshield indoors regardless of the handheld recorder. But it’s not very small or discrete once you stick a dead cat on it, and thus it’s less “carry everywhere”.
So far the preamp hasn’t coped well with any external mics when it comes to capturing the quieter background sounds of life. I’ve tried an SM57 (yes, yes I know it’s a dynamic mic!), and 2 1980s vintage battery-powered Audio Technica small condensers (that I literally found in the back of drawer). The hiss is just pretty bad in the last 25% of the gain dial.

Having decided that I do enjoy field recording, I’ve ordered some Uši microphones. They’re omni-directional which should reduce the wind noise as well as being a bit more suitable for ambiences than the builtin cardioid XY mics. I’m going to see how well they perform with the preamp in the H1n.