Hi June,
I'm here in the USA also in New England... Welcome to the group.
I've just become involved myself in bird sound recording for the same
reasons. I want to record bird sounds for identification purposes primarily=
.
After much research and on the advise of several other nature sound
recordists, I've purchased an Olympus LS-11 recorder and a Sennheiser
ME66/K6 microphone and the package works great. I've started a collection=
of MP3 files along with my bird photography at:
http://www.4shared.com/dir/UTASxktL/wildlife.html Here you can see for
your self how well this package works.
First, the recorder, there are a number of very good ones available and I
narrowed my choice down to the Sony PCM-M10 and the Olympus LS-11 and after=
much consideration of the two, I chose the Olympus LS-11 for the ergonomics=
of handling it in the field and that it uses the same SD cards as my camera=
s.
It was a difficult choice to make between the two as the Sony is very
nearly identical as far as specifications and price are concerned, however=
the Sony has one very nice feature that was hard for me to pass up and that=
is its pre-record function. What this means, it is always listening when
you have it ready to record so that when you start the actual recording, it=
has saved the previous 5 seconds of sound with which it starts the
recording. If you are ready to record, hear a bird, press the button, the=
Sony is five seconds ahead of you so you do not miss the very first part of=
the bird's sound... That was a hard feature to pass on however now that
I'm using the LS-11, I'm very happy with it and convinced I made the right=
choice for me...
As to microphones, this is where you need to spend your money wisely. A
good microphone costs more than what you will invest in a recorder. The
good news is the Olympus LS-11 recorder has very good and sensitive
microphones as it comes and works quite well as long as you can get
reasonably close to the bird making the sounds you want to record. By
close, I talking 20 to 30 feet or so. I assume the Sony will do the same
from what I have been told.
A problem with using the recorders own microphones for birds is that the
recorders mics are pretty much omnidirectional and pick up lots of other
noises as well. For good bird sound recordings, a directional microphone or=
a parabolic dish is a big help and the most popular types of microphones
amongst bird sound recordists are the "shotgun" directional microphones,
and the most popular of these is the Sennheiser ME 66/K6 shotgun microphone=
as I have learned.
I tried a couple other microphones before taking the plunge to buy a
ME66/K6 and now that I have my own ME66K6, I can verify that all I had been=
told about it for sensitivity is true. It works extremely well and records=
birds out to 100-200 feet or more quite well... From what I've been told,=
a parabolic dish microphone set up will work possibly even better however
the size and complications of lugging a dish around simply isn't practical=
or convenient for me.
Once you have sounds in the recorder, for file processing, I have found
"Audacity" a shareware program, to be very good and easy to use. It will
take files in both wav and MP3 format and allow you to edit the file, then=
export it in what ever format you require, the most popular being MP3 sound=
files. Audacity is available for the Mac, you can check it out here:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Good luck with your endeavor and I'm always glad to answer questions and
help when I can,
Mitch...
At 03:18 PM 6/10/2010 -0500, you wrote:
>I'm a birder in Missouri, USA. I want to be able to record bird calls
>in the field that are adequate for species identification. I'd like
>to be able to share digital files with other birders for
>identification help. I use a MacBook, OS X 10.4. Please make
>suggestions for recorder and mic and software (if needed), starting
>with the least expensive items that will do what I want, and not be
>frustrating for a moderately patient non-techie.
>
>June Newman
>
>
>------------------------------------
>
>"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
>sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
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