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Signal splitting alternative

Subject: Signal splitting alternative
From: Syd Curtis <>
Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 22:38:21 +1000
Joop Nijenhuis wrote:


> From: Joop Nijenhuis <>
> Reply-To: 
> Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 00:39:15 +0100
> To: 
> Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] Digest Number 569
> 
> Yes, I already thought about it when the dcc, md and dat
> were on the market. In our club we wanted, and still do, to
> connect a dat, dcc, md and may be a memory card recorder to
> one microphone and make recordings with it. At this time its
> no problem for the hardware on recorder site, there are
> enough members with those machines. However splitting a
> signal isn't easy, although it looks like.

I lack the technical knowledge to contribute to any discussion on signal
splitting, but I can suggest an alternative:

Come to Australia and test your equipment on a lyrebird.  He will obligingly
stay in the one spot and sing at length with much repetition of sounds.
Place your mic. where the bird is going to sing, at whatever distance from
his beak that you prefer.  Hook up 50 metres or so of cable back to a
comfortable site where the bird can't see you, and you are in business.

Simply connect your dat, dcc, md and memory card recorder in turn to the mic
to record a suitable sample, say a few minutes each.

An Albert's lyrebird will sing up to an hour or more at a time, and moreover
he puts his mimicry and a few other sounds into a 50 second song and cycles
this over and over.  A Superb Lyrebird won't sing as long, maybe 20 minutes
or half an hour, and he doesn't have a fixed cycle of song, but he has a
wider variety of sounds and does repeat them many times even if in random
order.

Get say ten samples on each machine and you should be able to detect what
differences, if any, the equipment is making.

I'll even volunteer (without her knowledge) our most excellent Vicki Powys
to make the test for you.  She's an outstandingly good nature sound
recordist and lyrebird expert.  Simply donate to her one of each of those
recording devices (top of the range and unused, of course), plus the mic. of
your choice, cable and connectors, and I'm sure I can persuade her to make
the recordings.  :-)

Cheers

Syd Curtis in Brisbane, Australia



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