I had a Rode NT4 until recently. It was a good mic when it worked. My NT4
was far too sensitive to humidity to use here in humid South Carolina. After
about 5 minutes it would fail in the summer. It worked fine during the
winter, which is much less humid.
If you get an NT4 make sure that you have a good windscreen for it. This mic
is very sensitive to handling and wind noise. The so-called windscreen that
you get with the mic is not adequate.
For a beginner I would suggest the Sennheiser mics that use the K6 power
source. I have an ME 66 (my oldest mic) that works great, even in Costa
Rica, and I have two ME 62's. This means that I use two K6 modules, one for
each of the mic when use the two ME 62' s together, or the ME 66 and an ME
Message: 62.
Subject: I got some rather decent recordings on my last trip to Costa Rica using
2 ME 62's.
I use these mics (or my Telinga Twin Science parabolic mic) with a
Oade-modified Marantz PMD 660 recorder. This is a great recorder for my
purposes. I use it with a battery pack, and power the Sennheisers or the
Telinga using phantom power. This means that I can record for hours without
having to worry about changing a battery in either the recorder or the mic.
I also have a Zoom H4 recorder. I use it with its internal mics only as a
point-and-shoot recorder -- something that I can carry around in my pocket
when I go birding. I can record loud bird songs or frog calls with the H4
for identification or documentation purposes. There are a lot of problems
with this recorder and I do not recommend it. I am curious about the new
Zoom H2, but not so curious that I will plop down $200 US just to have one
to play with. I think I would use the $200 to get a second Sennheiser ME 66
instead.
Robin Carter
Columbia, SC USA
"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
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