Steve,
I haven't seen that technique used, however I did see on a TV show a
simpler technique for recording a tarantula walking. They took a big
long balloon, like those used in making balloon toys, and placed the
microphone in contact with the balloon or perhaps inside it. It
seemed to really amplify the walking noise and worked quite well.
There didn't seem to be a lot of background noise with the tarantula
so I'd assume that it would be able to scale down to much smaller
animals. Keeping good contact with balloon and microphone was key as
that is where most of the noise was from but then he did a handheld
job with a tame tarantula; once settled, it worked well.
I would think for 'wild' animals you could perhaps place the balloon
in a small amount of soil and wait or encourage them to cross it.
Perhpas the worms would move across the balloon producing some
interesting sounds.
-Mark
--- In "Steve Pelikan"
<> wrote:
>
> Hi all ---
>
> I faintly remember reading an article a while back by an
entomologist
> who recorded the sounds of thrips, mites, and leafhoppers by
attaching
> a phonograph cartridge to a twig on which the bugs were living so
that
> the needle touched the bark and then hooking the thing up to a
recorder.
>
> Perhaps I also read about this sort of thing here, though the
obvious
> searches didn't turn anything up.
>
> Does anyone know of any references to the technique? Or, better, can
> you tell me what circuit to build to connect a phono cartridge to a
> recorder? I'd be happy enough to try it without looking at the
literature.
>
> More generally, I'd be interested in hearing about any small
> transducers or microphones that I could use to record (say)
individual
> bugs walking around. Or worms eating their way through soil, which
is
> my current goal. I've got a worm bin (where we process all our
kitchen
> scraps) to practice on all winter.
>
> NO! It isn't the case that I want to be ready to sell effects (FX?)
to
> the next movie based on Dune!
>
> Sorry for always asking such goofy questions here, and thanks very
> much for any info you can provide!
>
> Steve P
>
"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturerecordists/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturerecordists/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|