Laloux, Dominique wrote:
> Unfortunately, I live in Belgium, one of the most polluted countries on
> Earth. And beside water pollution, there are very few places in Belgium
> where one is not be confronted to sound pollution. I did not realize this
> until I turned a microphone on and tried to get a simple, clean recording of
> a bird call. I quickly learned that I would have to live and record with
> this pollution... I just moved from a K6/ME66 to a second hand MKH416P48
> microphone, and I use the Portadisc as a recorder. No matter what I do, it
> looks like I can't really get rid of the background noise (there is nearly
> always a highway a few km away). Of course, Sunday mornings are better, but
> still...
Our ears and brain are excellent sound filters. It takes recording,
where the mic does not filter to discover just how much we are ignoring.
> Low-pass filter doesn't seem to be enough... I guess the solution might be
> in cleaning up the sound files with a good software (I have Cooledit 2K).
> But the results are not always great either (http://www.pca.be/samples/).
The low pass filter is part of it but is not magic. It's probably also
misused, the low frequencies are often natural. But filtering with
software can improve things. The trick is to do so without messing
things up too much.
> Is it something other members of the list are facing as well ? Any
> suggestion beside leaving Belgium for Australia (or Canada, as I have a
> Canadian passport) ?
I think all of us have this problem. Best advice is to be always ready
to record. Opportunities to record, particularly fairly short segments
occur all the time. If you are ready you can improve your odds.
That's part of the other advice, record lots. With experience you will
develop tricks that will help. Hard to describe, and often location
specific, a experienced recordist often can get usable stuff where
someone with less experience can't. Keep recording.
Yes, it's always nice to get a chance to record in some ideal
environment. But, more and more it's just wishful thinking. One airplane
in the sky can make the most ideal site unusable for a long period.
One other trick is to practice fieldcraft. The closer you are to the
bird, the less gain you need and therefore the less of the far noise you
will pick up. Remember, a rock band destroying the ears of the entire
audience with it's extremely loud sounds is using microphones. They
avoid feedback by having the mics very close, with low gain, often
against their mouths. They also use directional mics, pointed away from
the speaker system.
Also, if you are close to a bird up in a tree, with a directional mic
pointing up at him, it's not pointing at that distant freeway. Study the
location of unwanted noises just as completely as you study the wanted
ones. Plan your recording location to take advantage of your mic's
directionality.
Walt
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