I started making nature recordings by way of making electronic music.
When making music, the levels were always very healthy because I could
take advantage of the medium its created in and maximize the signal at
every level. That being said, I was very surprised at the levels I got
out of my recording gear aimed at natural sources. The sound pressure
levels are (generally) far far lower than that generated by machines.
Often when I take recordings (on an FR2-LE), I keep the input gain to
a point hovering around 12db on the display. This gives enough
headroom to account for the occasional peak generated by a bird,
something falling, or a car. Once I get these files into the computer,
they are indeed very quiet especially in comparison to music and other
nature recordings that have been normalized or otherwise mastered to
the medium. In any case, for me, this is a shared experience. By the
time I decode the signal and normalize (sometimes a good 12db), the
recording is clear, loud, and there is very little detectable
self-noise from the gear.
Best
David
--- In Normand Fisher <>
wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> For the last few weeks I've been using the FR2-LE with three
different mics. One is a borrowed K6-ME66 which has now returned to
its owner, the other one is the Apex 175 shotgun and the main mic is
the OKM binaurals. So far the different results are interesting and
more experience will certainly enhance the results. However, I'm
always surprised that once I transfer the files to my PC, the signal
appears very low and requires to be boosted by around 20 to 24 db
(using Audacity) to be nicely audible. Is that common for ambient
nature recording? Is there something wrong with my recording
technique? or worst, is there something wrong with the equipment
somewhere?
>
> Obviously any pointer to some text that I could study is welcome.
>
> Normand
>
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