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!
Getting off my soapbox, I suggest starting with an economical MD
recorder like a Sharp, and a one-point-stereo mike.
-Dan Dugan
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