hi--
Here is yet another version of the ultimate newbie question, except
that it is a question whose answer changes as the technology changes.
I wish to record cicada, cricket and katydid sounds, but not for the
purpose of getting pristine natural sound quality. Instead, I want to
capture the intriguing melodic cacophony for use in making electronic
music with my little sampler/synthesizer program.
I did what everyone of a certain interest set has probably has done
at one time or another, trying to use my simple 20 dollar mike and
portable cassette player to capture bugsong, only to find myself
capturing really interesting (and perhaps useful) tape hiss.
But when I walk in our north Texas Summer nights, on my favorite
hiking trail, the insect choruses overwhelm thought, sensation, and
my ears. There must be a way to capture this for sampling purposes
without buying one thousand dollars worth of gear.
Has anyone tried to capture sounds like this with nothing more
sophisticated than a Radio Shack audio amplifier and a simple
recorder? What is the least expensive way to get audible birdsong
and bugsound onto a medium that I can then record into a .wav file on
my computer? I have a huge advantage over the purist seeking the
ideal sound, because I am not interested in perfect clarity, but only
in intriguing sounds, that I can slice up and make into electronic
wonders.
For those, by the way, who are not musical, but who want to try a
musical experience with their nature sounds, let me suggest the
open source software Slicer, which is available as freeware at
www.ixi-software.net. Slicer lets you import a simple wave file of
anything, and use it as music with a graphical string art interface.
How much musical knowledge or electronic knowledge do you need to use
Slicer? Zero. You just hit the "import" button, import your nature
sound .wav file, and the use the string art interface to alter the
sounds--it's perhaps not more fun than a barrel of leopard frogs, but
it's interesting.
But I keep imagining what it would be like to get nature sounds
on .wav files I create, and then slice and dice.
Can you help me find a way to do it, i.e., capture the sound and
record it, on the least expensive (let's say the abysmally low sum of
100 dollars) equipment imaginable? Surely with all the new
technology, there must be better ways than the old, out of date
magazine articles I find here. I admire all you folks who are doing
really professional stuff, but can you help a fellow out who just
wants to record a slice?
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