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RE: Documenting recording data

Subject: RE: Documenting recording data
From: "Ranft, Richard" <>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 10:34:56 +0100
I agree with Walt that location and date are the most important data.  A
full list of data items, agreed by all the world's main sound libraries in
consultation with many recordists, was published in Bioacoustics
("Documentation standards for wildlife sound recordings" by R Kettle & J
Vielliard, vol 3(1991), pp 235-238) & is reproduced below.
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Richard Ranft                             =

NSA Wildlife Section, The British Library National Sound Archive, 96 Euston
Road, London NWI 2DB, UK.
email: 
New WWW pages with fully-searchable on-line catalogue at:
http://www.bl.uk/nsa
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Data List.  This list may look lengthy, but not all recordings will have
every data item listed here. However, the more data that accompanies each
recording, the more uses to which it can be put.

With each tape or collection:
* Recordist's name
* Tape reel/disc no
* Equipment (field recorder & tape speed if open-reel; microphone(s);
parabola (if used) diameter and focal length) e.g.: Beyer M77 microphone,
Uher 4200 recorder, 19 cms, 50 x 150 mm parabola
* other technical details ; mono/stereo; equalisation, filtering, noise
reduction (which should be used sparingly, if at all);
* Date
* Recording location (Country/region/district/locality (with latitude,
longitude and altitude, if known)
* Habitat
* Weather, if exceptional
* In captivity?

(The above data often applies to a whole tape/disc; if any of them change,
they need to be indicated against the relevant recordings)

With each recording:
* Cut or track number
* recordist's reference number (if used)
* local time of day (24-hour clock for numbers in the form 1230 hrs, 0845
hrs. Add BST/GMT, etc. If details are unavailable, use e.g. dawn, dusk,
evening)
* principal species name (or track title, e.g. 'dawn chorus'). If the
species is unidentified, enter any suggested name e.g. 'unidentified thrush
sp.'
* visual identification at the time of recording?
* museum specimen number and location, if animal collected
* number, age and sex of animals when known (indicate, if appropriate,
flock, pair, colony and juvenile, nestling)
* type of sound (e.g. song/call/drumming/stridulation)
* sound description (e.g. 'unusual phrases' or 'tsik-tsik notes'. Especiall=
y
useful if there are confusing background sounds)
* behavioural context (and whether playback used) (e.g. alarm. aggression,
flight, begging, echolocation, display, etc)
* behavioural description (e.g. 'Singing in presence of female at the nest'
'response to playback of own song')
* distance from subject
* background sounds
* temperature (for invertebrate and amphibian recordings. For amphibians
calling at the water surface, both air and water temperatures)
* recording quality note (especially factors that detract from the
recording, e.g. 'microphone interference')
* recording notes: for other data that does not fit in the preceding fields
* a note of any confidential data that you do not wish to be revealed in a
public database


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Reginald E. David 
> Sent: 11 August 2002 22:34
> To: 
> Subject: [Nature Recordists] Documenting recording data
>
>
> Aloha Chatters:
>
> This may be a very obvious question, I apologize in advance
> if it has been
> asked many times before. I am just getting to the point that
> I am recording
> cuts that are of rare / endangered or very localized birds. What
> information should I be recording regarding the conditions
> under which the
> recordings were made to make these recordings of more value to others?
>
> Aloha
> Reg.
>
> Reginald E. David
> Rana Productions, Ltd.
> P.O. Box 1371
> Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96745-1371
>
> Phone: (808) 329-9141 Cell: (808) 937-0124    Fax: (808) 329-1245


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