Field recording

[bharris22]

I read those reviews as well, which is why I bought a like-new LS-10 from someone on eBay. Getting one of these may be your best bet.

[timp]

great interview with field recordist & sound artist Felix Blume
Stealing the silence with Felix Blume

The article has video embeds of some of his excellent work…
love the cellos attached to windmills!

[noisejockey]

kuorinki, I’d suggest the Cortado MK III by Zeppelin Design Labs. It has perhaps the best bass response of any contact mic I’ve used – close to the Geofón – but is a proper full-range contact mic, unlike the Geofón which can’t really capture much above 400 Hz. Worth a look/listen.

[kuorinki]

Thanks! Going to pick up one on Monday for testing.

[siisx]

Hi,

I’m interested in getting one (or two) LOM Geofón (if I can catch them). I already own a Sony PCM-D100 as recorder… which doesn’t have XLR inputs. Apparently I could use this adapter from LOM Geofón / Priezor adapter – LOM but it says “Signal is in left-channel only, right channel is silent. Please keep in mind that for the best performance we recommend using Geofón and Priezor with XLR preamplifiers.”

Not ideal to use Geofón with a PCM-D100, right? That’s why I’d maybe like to buy something else, like a Sound Devices MixPre-6 II.

Could you just make it clear to me that if I want to use two Geofón it’s not possible with my PCM-D100? Thanks!

[ermina]

well you could always make an adapter like that:

using XLR-f instead of XLR-m.
I made a few of those long time ago to record large mixers into portable recorder mini-jack line-ins
and found it was easier to have a single 2-connectors+ground audio cable on each plug and reunite all three cables in a small box (like a film canister) with some strain relief.

[Higaru]

one question:

I would really like to make my life easier with 32 bits (no worry about volume)
so -
will my Lom Uši (small stereo jack) work well with
Zoom F2 ?!?!

thnx

[swhic]

f2 has mono input. f3 works well. you might need the lom xlr adapter

[coreyr]

You will need an xlr to 3.5mm adapter that converts phantom powered to the ~3-5v plug in power that the little electret capsules in those mics need. So make sure the adapter you get does this and isn’t just a simple passthrough. I’ve done that to use my micbooster clippy mics with the f2 and it works great. Really wish zoom had just included a 3.5mm stereo mic input on the darn thing, it’s my only real complaint.

[Durdee]

If anyone was curious about that mini stereo parabolic mic from Dodotronic that was being Kickstarted a little while ago, they did not reach full funding but they went ahead with production anyway. I ordered one and it’s already shipped a few days ago from Italy. It’s currently in France with a tentative delivery of early next week! I have never messed with a parabolic microphone before but I’ll be sure to post here once I’ve had a few sessions with it to determine if it’s any good, at least for my purposes.

[tehfizzle]

On a related note: I’ve got an old Sony PBR-330 parabolic dish and I’m curious if anyone has a suggestion for a fairly quiet low budget omni I could pair with it. I stuck an usi pro in it and the results were underwhelming. I don’t have a specific application in mind, I’ve just got a dish and would like to mess about with it. Cheers!

[bharris22]

This is a very basic beginner question, but I just purchased a lavalier microphone (Clippy) for my Olympus LS-10. Can somebody recommend a good, relatively inexpensive handheld mount for the microphone?

Thanks!

[timp]

I would have thought an Usi Pro would perform well in a dish - I used an MKH8020 in a Telinga dish & it worked well, although being omni there was no rejection. Are you sure you had the Usi Pro at the focal point of the dish?

[tehfizzle]

I think so. There is a guide on the arm. It’s very possible that I’m simply expecting too much from the dish. Thanks!

[mnm207]

I’ve used an Usi Pro in a Wildtronic Pro-mini and found it worked well. I haven’t used the Sony dish, but I’d second @timp 's suggestion on making sure they mic is at the focal point of the dish.

[timp]

Aye, manage your expectations! Potential 15dB gain for some frequencies - when I first got a Telinga dish I went out recording cicadas and slowly moving the dish you hear when a sound/cicada was in the target zone from the gain boost…

from wikipedia

Limitations
"Parabolic microphones are generally not used for applications because dishes small enough to be portable have poor low-frequency response. This is because, from the Rayleigh criterion, parabolic dishes can only focus waves with a wavelength much smaller than the diameter of their aperture. The wavelength of sound waves at the low end of human hearing (20 Hz) is about 17 metres (56 ft); focusing them would require a dish much larger than this.

A typical parabolic microphone dish with a diameter of one metre has little directivity for sound waves longer than 30 cm, corresponding to frequencies below 1 kHz. For higher frequencies, a gain of about 15dB can be expected. But when the wavelength of the sound becomes comparable with the diameter of the parabolic dish, the response falls away."

Maybe a laser pointer could be a useful way to help target specific sounds? (and a terrible way to engage with nature lol) Or put a small sound generator somewhere a distance away from you (eg a metronome or your phone playing music) and try targetting it. You should hear the gain boost when its ‘on mic’

[tehfizzle]

@mnm207 I’ll have to double check the alignment of the mic. Thanks!

@timp Thanks for the suggestions and for taking the time. It’s truly appreciated. One of the great things about lines is being able to interact with people whose work you respect and enjoy.

Cheers!

[tristan_louth_robins]

@tristan_louth_robins

A bit more regarding the reef recordings I made using a pair of AudioMoths over a one-week period. My previous post offered a snippet of what the Moth on the far extent of the reef documented. I thought I’d now share some audio from the location of the other Moth.

This is a 24-minute time compression of a four-hour observation made by an AudioMoth that was deployed in a small seagrass meadow on Lady Bay reef from 23/12 to 31/12/22.

The AudioMoth records in mono and was configured to record at 10-minute intervals for 1 minute over a 24-hour period for seven days. I’ve taken the individual audio files corresponding to the time span of 11am to 4pm and sequenced them together, adding a short crossfade so that the transition from file to file isn’t too abrupt.

Here’s the file’s accompanying spectrogram:

Based upon a bit of preliminary data analysis, the period of 11am to 3pm reflects distinct activity from within the seagrass environment, specifically the rich buzzing textures that can be hear from the 1-2 minute mark onwards. As the track continues, this sound undergoes changes in its overall pitch, intensity and texture. Around this buzzing, the sound of biotic life can be heard - likely fish, crustaceans, etc.

Though I haven’t yet confirmed this, my understanding - at this stage and based on previous recordings made with hydrophones - is that the buzzing sound is likely attributed to the seagrass itself. Beyond this, I can’t explain the ‘why’ just yet, though the grasses exposure to sunlight at low tide may glean some explanation behind the phenomena.

Keen to get some thoughts from anyone else!

Picking up from this previous post, I’ve finally had the chance to pull together a blog post covering this iteration of the research using an AudioMoth to make acoustic observations of a reef environment. It’s consistent with the theories in the quote, but now I’ve properly crunched the data and visualised it for deeper insights into the trends.

Lady Bay Reef Survey: Part 1 – tides, seagrass and acoustic complexity

To accompany the post, I put together this video which kind of provides an overview of the analysis.

Wrangling in the Antipodes: Lady Bay Reef (Acoustic Complexity analysis)

[zoundsabar]

Just got an email from Group Gets about AudioMoth availability:

AudioMoth v1.2.0

It’s a very flexible self contained mic/recorder with a focus on unattended wildlife recording, including ultra high frequencies (bats, etc). I have four and enjoy making widely spaced recordings with them.

[timp]

a photo from seconds before a fascinating sound!

I visited Durie Hill in Whanganui NZ which has this 213 metre long tunnel, with a vertical escalator/lift at the end, which takes you up to a panoramic viewpoint…
On first visit yesterday, performing handclaps was unreal as there is actually a flat wall at the end of the tunnel - the elevator entrance is around a corner… So a clap excites the verb in the tunnel, then a huge slap echo bounces back and excites the tunnel verb again!
Depending where you stand when you make a sound, you can vary the time until the slap delay occurs & it got quite ‘zingy’ sounding & almost sounded like a ricochet at times…

This morning I went & got some balloons - I had my starter pistol in the car, but this is a public place… and I wasn’t keen for a Police armed offenders callout…
Will see if I can deconvolve it into an IR…

Note to self: in future always have a pack of balloons in my recorder bag. The SPL and impulse from a ballon pop in such a confined space was VERY effective! There are some similar WW2 tunnels in Wellington & of course the LOTR sound crew recorded sweeps in there… Its on the ‘to do’ list!