From: Magnus Robb <>
> Equipment is only the first requirement. There's a lot more to do once
> you've settled on what gear to use!
In fact, in some ways the lower level equipment is just more
challenging, you have to be much more on your toes about technique and
studying the sonic characteristics of a site to get good recordings. And
you can get good recordings. I sometimes think we get into the fancy
equipment just because we are lazy. Though even with fancy equipment you
have to know what you are doing. Don't ever think that buying some piece
of equipment makes you a instant pro in it's use. You are a beginner for
that equipment. You will have to spend the recording time to learn it,
to get comfortable with it. and I don't really mean just where the
buttons are.
I come into nature recording from biology, which makes my approach to
recording much different than those who may have come in from other
sound recording types and really do not have much understanding of what
they are recording. I was sorting out biologic communities from the
early 50's, being out in nature is being out with old friends for me.
Sound is only one tool for that. So, I tend to think of recording
equipment as a tool, like a dipnet or whatever. Not a end in itself. My
focus is always on what's going on in the small slice of nature where
I'm at. I want my equipment to be virtually invisible to my thought
processes, I can run it in the same way I breathe, without thinking
about it. The same way I'd use a dipnet. The only way to get to that
point is to get out there and record. You really don't want to jump
between equipment frequently as you never learn it well enough to make
it invisible.
Like, for instance, my MKH mic setups. Last season was my first full
season using them. Even after a full season I'm still having to think
too much about them. Too uncertain just how to best use them. But it's
getting better, soon I'll not have to think about them much when out
there. My set of dipnets for sound.
Walt
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