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Re: microphone a moving beast

Subject: Re: microphone a moving beast
From: "Marc Myers"
Date: Sat May 20, 2006 9:50am(PDT)
Graham
No disparagement or disincentive intended. I love the idea. Where in
Australia?


Graham Evans wrote:
>  >Of course you have to figure out how to capture the animal, put the
>  >equipment on it safely, track it successfully and then retrieve the
>  >equipment. None of this is done without risk to the subject so its best
>  >reserved for professionals. Even they kill animals occasionally.
>  >Domestic pets might make better subjects. I'd love to listen to one of
>  >our cats out hunting in the barn at night.
>  >
>  >Marc
>
> Marc - thanks for the input.
>
> You are very right to point out the need to involve professionals.
> Don't worry I'm not about to do anything silly, or potentially injurious
> to myself or an animal.   I have a very inventive and responsible friend
> who raises orphaned roos and another friend who is a bona-fide expert in
> kangaroo welfare and I will consult them both before attempting anything.
>
> Good to establish the need for such things on the record for everyone
> who might read this thread now and in future.
>
> I wouldn't be involved in an exercise which would cause the roo anything
> other than very brief and minor stress.  But I believe these roos are
> extremely resilient to stress.  I've never seen them go into shock or
> die of fright like other birds and beasts sometimes do.  As long as you
> use a roo who has been reared by humans they should be okay with a
> little bit of handling.  Especially if you use a young one.
>
> But it is probably a long term project to do it properly.  You would
> really want to get the binaural effect right (ie mic just beneath the
> ears).  And then the kangaroo ears rotate forward and sideways
> constantly.  But I can't really see how you could mic IN the ear.  So
> that change in the aural environment would have to be simulated somehow
> in post-processing I guess.
>
> In the mean time I might be interested in making a simulation of sorts:
>
> For the 'audio tour' project I could probably get really good use out of
> a roo-pov continuous period of hopping in an environment with a nice
> ambience.
>
> The ambience can of course be recorded seperately.
>
> In the meantime perhaps I can simulate the roo-pov sound myself by:
>
> getting my friend to lure the (human oriented) kangaroo along at a
> reasonable clip with food
> me using a boom mic and running along behind
> us both wearing no shoes or perhaps something on our feet to minimise
> our own sounds
>
> I have no idea what sort of post-processing you might try and do to make
> this convincing.
>
> This is getting a way away from nature-recording as such but could work
> really well in my project.  The listeners will be walking from sculpture
> node to sculpture node in the forest and a different audio track will be
> associated with each node.  The sound of arrival and departure at each
> node (ie the start and end of each track) could be announced with a
> kangaroo-pov hopping in and out.
>
> -all credit for this idea to the suggestions from list members which
> inspired it.  This is a different idea from the "foley-effect/was it
> real or was it the soundtrack? roo-hopping off".  I think it could be a
> goer!
>
> Graham
>
>  >Lots of ways this could be done, I suppose. National Geographic's
>  >critter cam is an example. David Letterman had a monkey he let loose in
>  >the studio with a lipstick camera attached to its head as the "monkey
> cam."
>  >
>  >The most important thing would be to design a harness that would be saf=
e
>  >for the animal, offer some protection to the recording or transmitting
>  >equipment and isolate the microphone enough to avoid rubbing and wind
>  >noise. Small would be better. An iRiver with one of the microphones mad=
e
>  >for it, perhaps. Zaxcom makes some excellent quite small transmitters.
>  >Those coupled with a good omni like a Countryman and you would have an
>  >excellent, if expensive, system. Any system will run out of power fairl=
y
>  >soon.
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  >
>
>
> "Microphones are not ears,
> Loudspeakers are not birds,
> A listening room is not nature."
> Klas Strandberg
>
>
>
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