Untested:
Try the scrap yard and find a (bigger) car-light reflector.
Put any Radio Schack 10 mm electret in it's focus.
Will amplify most insect frequencies.
Klas.
At 06:48 2005-07-27, you wrote:
>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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>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
Telinga Microphones, Botarbo,
S-748 96 Tobo, Sweden.
Phone & fax int + 295 310 01
email:
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