Greg Winterflood wrote:
> Anyway, I thought I should start with a shotgun mike to
> learn the tricks. I'll look a little less suspicious with it, until
> people get used to my antics!
To my mind a shotgun mic is the harder way, takes more experience to use
well than a parabolic. You will have to be closer to your quarry.
I always thought a shotgun mic looked a lot like a gun. In the US
looking like you have a gun in your hand can get all kinds of unwanted
attention. However, in my use I almost always have them in a windscreen
and suspension, so they look a lot less like a gun.
I record frogs at night mostly. Used to be with a big white dish that
got noticed from far away. The clear dish on the Telinga I use now does
not attract attention until much closer. Still I get to talk to lots of
police and landowners. More so after Sept 11.
> Anyway I plan to get recording as soon as the gear I ordered over
> the web arrives.
That's the idea, nothing will teach you nature recording as fast as
getting out and doing it.
> Commuting on my mountain bike - blood pressure still
> high but weight coming down;
I ride a Greenspeed GTR Trike, which comes from Australia (I'm also
married to a ex Australian). I'm also a diabetic. Used to ride a
mountain bike I'd rebuilt for long distance touring. Any bike I have
does not stay stock long.
>
> Having come this far (?) I'm wondering how I get birdsong from the
> tape onto a CD? I have Windows XP home on a Laptop with 1.2Gig
> Celeron and 256K RAM. It has a CD burner. The computer has a mike
> input and a sound card of indeterminate nature.
You will need a line input on your computer and some software that can
record sound from it. You will find that you do need to have at least
basic editing capabilities for the soundfile you get. Then, of course
some software to burn audio CD's from those files. You want to bring the
sound in at 16bit 44kHz sampling for audio CD's, though you can resample
the sound later if you have to. For PC, the file format you are aiming
at is .wav
If your computer does not have a line input, but does have USB, look
into one of the USB audio I/O units. Kind of hard to stuff a new
soundcard into a laptop. If you do have a line input, try it before
spending money.
>
> At present I'm not keen on parting with $(1.46 x 299) Australian
> Dollars to get Adobe Audition. I have seen references to shareware
> audio editing software in the Group's posts and am wondering if
> there is a `top of the pops'? Alternatively, in an effort to tidy
> things up, I guess I can use the ex's Marantz C207 on playback and
> dub to the PMD222. (That still doesn't get the White Plumed
> Honeyeater onto CD!) I am assuming that the PMD has variable speed,
> so another beginners question is: how does one standardize speed
> using such a setup?
Don't dub the cassette onto another cassette, that's going to lower your
sound quality. As Rich said, if your cassette has a speed adjust, then
use a pitch pipe to standardize the speed.
One thing to look into as far as fixing the Marantz, I don't know that
model, but a lot of them seem to use belts made out of o-ring material.
Those break with age. Find where the belts went, and come up with a new
belt either from Marantz or from a o-ring supplier and it may be just fine.
I use macs, so can't give you much advice on PC software. Except to look
ahead. It does little good to start in using software you quickly
outgrow. You are better off getting a lite version of some capable
software to start than some shareware with no upgrade path.
Adobe bought CoolEdit to add to their video processing software. In
their world Audition is probably the cheapest component of that. They
certainly are not thinking of nature recording. Something you might as
well get used to, very little is brought out specifically for nature
recording. The Telinga parabolic is about all I can think of right off.
We make do with products built for something else.
> I can't believe this but that bird just made another call and it is
> way past dusk. That's the first time I have heard that.
I start recording at dusk most of the time as that's when the frogs
start. The birds that call during the night tend to get neglected as
well. There's lots going on after dark. You will get to where you hear a
whole lot more by getting into recording. Not all is wonderful, you will
be surprised just how much unwanted noise you tune out.
Walt
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