>Dear Nature Recordists,
>
>First off, I am new to the group so I will
>introduce myself. I am Dawn Kitchen and I study
>monkey social behavior, vocalizations and
>cognition. My research has focused on loud calls
>and male-male competition mainly- I worked on
>Belizean black howler monkeys for my PhD (w/ A.
>Pusey & C. Packer) and for my post doc I studied
>chacma baboons in Botswana (w/ D. Cheney & R.
>Seyfarth). I see your group is largely amphibian
>and bird people, but maybe there are some other
>primate folks out there who will know these
>folks and maybe get a feeling for what I
>study... Anyway, I am currently at Ohio State
>University (Anthropology Dept) and I am starting
>a new field project in Guyana where I will work
>on capuchins and red howlers. This is the first
>time that I have really had to buy my own
>equipment, so that is the basis of me joining
>this group.
>
>I have to apologize up front. I have some
>specific questions that I am SURE you have
>discussed, possibly several times, in the 5
>years that this list has been together. I tried
>to do a search through your archives, but it
>took me hours to get through only a few months
>of email threads...
>
>I am all set to purchase a mic (Sennheiser
>ME66/K6), but I am torn on what to invest in for
>a recorder. In the past I have worked with DATs
>(all Sony). I love the fact that they time
>stamp, which is super useful for quantifying the
>kinds of data that I collect (analog recorders
>are not useful at all for many of my purposes).
>I find DAT quality to be terrific and they are
>fairly good for playback. But, DATs do have
>their share of problems. 1) in the tropics they
>have a tendency to run into dust and humidity
>problems; 2) the tapes can get damaged; 3) they
>are pricey (around $700 I think).
>
>The Cornell Ornithology page suggests that the
>new Sony Hi-MD Minidisk recorders are good
>because they can record in an *uncompressed*
>format. They recommend MZ-NH900 and during my
>research I found out that the MZ-NH1 does the
>same things, but in addition time stamps, which
>is great! However, neither of these models are
>available anymore (as far as I can tell),
>although I can find them used. The Sony salesman
>assures me that the newer version (MZ RH910)
>does everything the old ones did, including time
>stamp. Unfortunately, it is hard to trust
>someone trying to make a sale. Do any of you
>know how it compares?
>
>Friends of mine doing similar research are
>buying hard drive .mp3 players (sorry, I don=B9t
>have the name they are using right now).
>However, I heard that mp3 players only record in
>a compressed format. Also, my friends had to buy
>a =B3preamp=B2 of some sort in order to have control
>of record levels during recordings. For
>comparison, does anyone know if the HiMD
>recorders allow you to change record level as
>you go?
>
>Also, does anyone know which (mp3 vs. HiMD) does
>better in a rugged environment (dealing with
>bumps, dust, humidity)?
>
>I will have limited electricity, so it is also
>nice to have the option ot use batteries
>(instead of recharging the unit). The Sony
>people assured me the minidisks would run off of
>regular AA batteries. Does anyone know. I think
>mp3 players all need to be plugged in to
>recharge.
>
>Finally, it is important that I can easily
>import the sounds tomy computer and then
>manipulate them using Raven or Cool Edit (I have
>used. wav and .aif files in the past). Will
>uncompressed files from a minidisk be directly
>importable into these kinds of software? I know
>that recordings from mp3 players are.
There are Sony applications, "Soundstage" and
"wav converter" to make both the compressed HiSP
and non-compressed "PCM" file types recorded with
HiMD into editable .wav files. (Or I may have
seen that Sony consolidated the two applications
into Soundstage v3.0?) With v.2.1 you can only
transfer from HiMD to .wav from each disk twice.
I burn the converted .wav files to DVD-R's for
back-up and reuse the 1GB disks myself so this
has not been an issue. Take plenty of disks-
they're going to hard to find elsewhere.
>
>I guess I would love advice on which of these
>recorders to purchase (i.e., a used MZ-NH1, a
>new MZ RH910, or the mp3 players that my friends
>have road tested a bit) or just stick with DAT.
>
>I am sorry for the long list of questions.
>Thanks in advance to anyone who is willing to give me any info.
>Sorry to eat up your time!
I think you'd be very happy with the new version
of the MZ-RH10 with time stamping.
http://www.minidisco.com/mz-rh10.html This model
also starts and stops recording from the remote
control which is useful. HiMD Should present
fewer problems than DAT as far as dirt and
humidity.. The 1GB disks will give you 90
minutes of DAT quality (16bit/44.1K) I would not
record in mp3 format. The HiSP format will give
you long runs if you need them at better quality
than mp3. Maybe buy a 910 as well as a back-up?
Do read the manual though and practice the steps
involved with getting into manual record mode.
You don't want to learn the menu steps for the
first time in the field. Yes, you can change the
rec level while recording. Rob D.
>
>Best wishes,
>Dawn
>-----
>Dawn M. Kitchen, Ph.D.
>Assistant Professor
>The Ohio State University
>Department of Anthropology
>244 Lord Hall, 124 West 17th Avenue
>Columbus, OH 43210
>
>Phone: 419-755-4027
>Email:
>Fax: 419-755-4367
>
>
>
>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
--
Rob Danielson
Film Department
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
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