From: "thorley_tom" <>
>
> Hi All,
>
> 'Good Enough' Is a subjective thing. I believe in promoting nature
> recording to everyone and the idea that you should not record without
> the 'Best' equipment deserves to be shot down in flames. However I
> get immense personal pleasure from capturing a recording as well as
> possible. I am fortunate in that my career (Film/Broadcast Sound)
> allows me to buy the best as it also serves me financially (I rent my
> equipment out for a substantial amount per diem). I have not yet
> invested in a non-linear recorder but certainly will as soon as the
> market-place has settled down.
> I think there is room for everyone at every level and even though I
> am using equipment that is better than many of you that are
> considerably more knowledgable and experienced in the field and on
> the bench than myself, I still, as a whippersnapper on the nature
> recordists scene derive immense pleasure from recordings of the
> finest fidelity - If I could I would take the best large microphone
> arrays the best studio pre-amps the best A/D's and the highest bit
> depth / sample rated multitrack recorder in existence into the field
> and listening to it would indeed make the smile on my face that tiny
> bit wider.
What you are saying is you have a different "good enough". What I'm
saying is there is actually not one "good enough" but a whole bunch,
even for a individual recordist. If they match the task at hand and it's
goals, then they are all equally valid. Even if the results differ on a
technical level.
I've got a 1000 watt inverter here. Could probably run the studio stuff
off that quietly as it makes no sound when running. But, I think you
will be surprised if you ever cart all that equipment out and try it how
inappropriate it is, and how hard it is to get even modest quality
reliably with it. Sounds like quite a goal.
I poke around from time to time with what little studio stuff I have. I
have a hankering for finding out how things would sound using large
diaphragm mics. But, I'm primarily a biologist. Sound recording is just
one tool by which I get to know my subjects better. It's easy for it to
get in the way of the biology.
I'm a little different, as I get the most satisfaction out of using
whatever equipment I'm using to get the best it can do. Technologically
I feel the high end is generally not enough different to justify it. The
abilities of the equipment we use have advanced so much in the 50 or so
years I've been doing it that even the average equipment is way "good
enough" most of the time.
Having said this I have attended several bioacoustic
> symposia and I fully support the view that a greater volume of
> recordists is a far more important goal than improving the fidelity
> of the few recordings that are made.=20
It is the big need, very few expensive setups are needed to handle all
of that end of science. A huge number of just "good enough" setups and
the people using them are the real big need. So much of what's happening
in the natural systems goes unobserved due to the manpower it takes, and
equipment costs. Every dollar that can be pared off those costs and
still do the job is more eyes and ears. I do everything I can to
encourage new recordists and spend a lot of energy researching ways they
can afford and will spend. Those, for the most part do not advance my
own setups. A large part of the problem is not just money but the
impression anyone thinking about the field will get in places like this
group of having to invest in expensive equipment and replace that with
more expensive equipment frequently just to be considered a good
recordist. A good recordist is not in the equipment.
In fact I'll judge a recordist that misuses equipment of the highest
spec as being pretty poor, and one that takes the cheapest MD and a
modest mic and uses them to their ultimate best as being real good. And
if they are making real observations about the lives of what they
record, even better. I want to see people get beyond the tools not just
be a mere technologist. Yes, the recorder is running, and making a
recording, but you are not having to concentrate on the mechanics of
that, you are so good you are absorbing the biologic system you record.
Walt
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