Joe P wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I'm new to the group and new to nature recording. I am interested in
> recording natural (and not so natural) soundscapes for use in some music
> and art projects I have in mind.
>
> I have a modest home studio equipped with a computer, sound card
> (Delta 44), and editing software (CoolEdit 2000, Sonar, Acid,
> SoundForge, etc.) But I have no equipment for field recording. I've
> been searching the web looking for equipment ideas and have come to the
> conclusion that minidisc is probably the best choice for what I want to
> do.
>
> Of the pro units, I can't justify the cost of the HHb Portadisc. The
> Marantz PMD650 is a little more affordable, but still puts a big hurt on
> my wallet. (As an aside, I don't see many comments from people using
> the PMD650. Is there something wrong with that unit?)
The Marantz is a much older design than the Portadisc. It uses a older
version of Atrac encoding, though still a good one. It is my
understanding that the Marantz is somewhat of a battery hog.
I have the Portadisc. I'm very happy with it. It's a recordist's
machine, playback is relatively simple, all the bells and whistles are
for recording. A excellent field recorder.
Currently minidisc is a established technology and works very well
indeed. The tape formats are rapidly on their way out. There are some
solid state or hard disk based recorders showing up, but they are not
there yet to my mind. Some aspects of those recorders will be very hard
to fix as you are moving from inexpensive media that's archival quality
in minidisc to "media" that's both expensive and only temporary storage.
And the recorders tend to be much more tied to computers, it's hard to
think of taking a long foray somewhere in the world with one without
having to have a computer along too.
> What about the Sony MZ-B100? From the pictures it seems to have a
> larger display and larger controls than most consumer models. It seems
> to honor functionality over looking cool. But the emphasis on
> "business" use scares me a little. I can easily ignore features that I
> don't care about like the voice operated recording (can be turned off),
> the built in mics (has an external mic jack), and the built in speaker.
> But are there other "features" which would make it unsuitable for field
> recording natural environments? Is the recording level manually
> adjustable? Are the mic preamps excessively noisy or do they have a
> frequency response tailored to voice? Does anyone have any experience
> with this unit?
I don't know this one. I used a Sony MZ-R30 before getting the
Portadisc. In comparison the electronics are somewhat noisier, and much
easier to overload. It's a little more challenging to do good recording
with a consumer minidisc, and there are a range of things that are hard
to even attempt. You can get good recordings using consumer minidisc.
The MZ-B100 is a business machine in more than name. Looking through
some stuff on it I got the impression it may go into agc with only a two
level manual switch for mic gain adjust. If so, it will be useless for
the sort of recording you want. You need full manual record settings,
they don't have to be on the fly, can just be when in record pause. But
you need them. In addition there appear to be motor noises to contend with.
You might want to look at the links off here:
http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-B100.html
Note that the various forms of ATRAC can get confusing. For nature
recording the LP modes and their associated ATRAC are not useful. You
want the regular record mode, the one that will give you the time
printed on the disks, a max of 80 minutes. Some newer models, like the
NetMD models, for instance, don't give you that mode in all functions.
> Does anyone have any suggestions for other equipment I should look into
> (minidisc or otherwise)? My budget is about US$1000. I'd prefer to
> include mics in that budget, but if need be, a friend has offered to let
> me use his AT shotgun mic and I have some studio mics that could be
> pressed into service until I decide on something more appropriate.
I expect you will find the AT shotgun fairly noisy. Your biggest problem
with the studio mics will be that most are probably phantom power,
balanced, XLR connected. Consumer minidisc uses unbalanced inputs and
cannot supply phantom power. So you will need at least a portable power
supply if not a preamp. The other problem with some studio mics is that
they may not like being outside in the humidity, etc.
It's not a bad idea to start in with the mics you have available. The
more experience you can gain before laying out money on mics the better
your choices will serve you.
Soundscape recording is in some ways more challenging than call
recording. At least the kind where you are trying to get it as it is.
For a call you can do a lot of filtering to bring it out. For
Soundscape, you pretty much want everything, making your filtering
options limited. You much more have to get the recording in the
beginning. I expect you will find this pushes you right along on
upgrading equipment.
Walt
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