--- In Valerie Hayes
<> wrote:
>
> Hello-
>
> I am a graduate student in biology at the University of West
Georgia. My thesis project is on the ecology of box turtles. I did
my undergrad at Cornell (including an ornithology class which met at
the Lab of O). I also do volunteer frog monitoring for the
NAAMP. Partly because of this, I have become more interested in
natural sounds and would like to try my hand at recording
some. However, I have no experience--my artistic endeavors have
all been in the visual arts. I've read a few books on the subject and
done a little internet research and come up with a couple of equipment
options, but I don't think I know enough to really decide, so I was
hoping for some advice. I am also on a grad student's budget and
would like to keep costs down as much as possible. I am considering
Sennheiser HD202 or HD280 headpones, An Edirol R09 or R09HR or a Zoom
H2 recorder and I am unsure of microphones.
>
> -Valerie
>
>
> _____________________ =
> Valerie Hayes
> Terrapene Studios
> Natural Science Illustration
> http://terrapene-studios.blogspot.com/
> http://www.cafepress.com/ink_cats
>
>
>
>
>
Hi Valerie, welcome to the group.
I have been using an R-09 for nearly 2 years. No matter how still I
stood with the recorder in my hand my recordings were often swamped by
handling noise. I already had two microphones from my little home
studio, a Rode NT3 and an NT4. Using them instead of the built-in
mic's made a big difference to the sound quality and handling noise -
although that is still an issue. You will need a shockmount but these
are easily constructed. An easier option is the stand-mount and case
for the Edirol R-09HR and its remote control so you can say goodbye to
handling noise - and the need for a microphone! Of course the simplest
solution is to just sit the device on the ground, but be careful to
sit it on a 'quiet' material, protected from damp ground, frogs, etc!
Sorry I don't have URL's but you won't have to dig far to find plenty
of ideas in the groups' archives.
Recording nature sounds almost always means a large amount of
amplification before the recording device has a loud enough signal to
record effectively. With budget recorders like the R-09 you will
probably be frustrated by the amount of noise ("hiss") produced as you
inevitably find yourself turning up the mic gain - I know I was! This
can be minimized in two (or more) ways, one which costs and one which
doesn't... You can either buy a separate pre-amp to place in the
signal path between a mic and the recorder, or simply experiment with
EQ and filtering once the recordings have been copied to your
computer. There's some great audio-editing freeware available such as
Audacity which can remove most of the unwanted hiss - without losing
much of the natural sounds. It's not a perfect solution but will
hopefully prevent most of the frustration I experienced when I started
nature recording - on a tight budget... The fact that I'm still using
the old Edirol R-09 should give you an idea of how tight my budget is!
I can't advise on the other items as I have no experience with them,
but I hope this helps.
Happy recording,
Colin B.
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