Dan Dugan wrote:
> Jon Reisenbuechler, you wrote:
>
>
>> I am a beginner currently shopping for equipment to record
>>natural sounds. My primary interest is to record a bird/natural
>>chorus in a given location. The recording should be similar to the
>>actual human audio experience.
>
>
> Welcome, Jon. Forgive me for using your message for a brief
> philosophical excursion.
>
> A recording is an artifact, a creation. There is no more such thing
> as a "true" recording as there is a "true" photograph. Making a
> recording "similar to the actual human audio experience" involves
> quite a bit of art and craft; a well-crafted fake usally seems more
> natural to the observer.
>
> For example, you're watching a nature program on TV, and you see a
> bird perched on a branch singing his little heart out. A beautiful
> visit to nature, but an experience you could very rarely actually
> have in nature, let alone record. The close-up picture of the bird
> can only be obtained by shooting with a giant lens on a tripod. The
> clean recording of the bird singing can only be obtained with a
> super-directional microphone like a parabolic dish or long shotgun
> mike.
>
> It's unlikely that a field crew will be able to do both these things
> simultaneously. Quite likely the filmmakers used their synchronous
> field recording as a "scratch track," a guide for laying in a
> recording of the same species obtained from a nature recordist like
> those on this list. The recording may be altered in tempo and even
> phrasing to match the picture.
>
> "Reality" in media is an artfully constructed fake!
And all too frequently it will be the wrong species for the location,
singing some other species song, or a song it would sing under different
conditions. Here's a bullfrog hopping along, going ribbit. (for the
uninitiated, the foghorn like bellow of a bullfrog does not sound like
ribbit and he does not hop while calling) The ribbit will probably be
that of the Pacific Treefrog. Which is not a treefrog, but a chorus frog.
Someone noticed a while back that nature recordists are stubborn about
trying to do it without fakes or studio processing. The recording of a
singing animal with the actual song is possible, though challenging.
Luckily, in this case we only need to get the sound right, a much less
challenging task.
No, a recording is not the original, and won't sound exactly the same,
but we do try to get close. Far closer than is the norm in recording
studios. Certainly similar to the human experience is within what's
possible.
> Getting off my soapbox, I suggest starting with an economical MD
> recorder like a Sharp, and a one-point-stereo mike.
This being for close in ambiance. For actual individual calls this will
be a chance to exercise extreme fieldcraft. Think 10 - 20' for the less
expensive one-point stereo mics. I have one in my stuff, which I
primarily use when conditions get so nasty I can't use my fancy mics.
Walt
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