Hi Steve,
I recently went through pretty much the situation you describe excepting
the kids part, mine are all grown and off living lives of their own at this=
point.
I purchased an Olympus LS-11 with the idea of having a simple recorder to
carry in my shirt pocket that I could record wildlife sounds, primarily
bird sounds for later identification as I walked the tree farm and old
growth woods with my pal, Shadow, 75lbs of 4WD Black Labrador.
The LS-11 works great, it is easily my favorite recorder of the three I now=
presently own, it has good mic preamps, the built in mics are very adequate=
and produce good sound recordings within a few limitations. Mainly lack of=
directivity and range. If I can get to within 20-30 feet of a bird, I could=
get decent recordings that served my initial purpose very well.
However I come from a background in underwater acoustics, and I knew there=
was a better way, and based on a number of articles I found and read about=
bird sound recording, I purchased a Sennheiser MKE-300 Camcorder miniature=
shotgun microphone. This was definitely a good step up, the LS-11 works
well with the MKE300 and I now can record bird sounds at 60-100 feet which=
allows for more recorded bird calls & songs as the birds are more tolerant=
and do less flitting off to a further branch where they feel less
intimidated. However I still wanted more range as a lot of my subjects
seemed to stay out of range of the MKE300 and I had trouble getting the
sounds the way I wanted them to fill the recorder.
This led to my next microphone, a Sennheiser ME66/K6 and if ever there was=
a great combination, its the ME66/K6 microphone with the LS-11 recorder. I=
now could get adequate sound level from birds out to 100-200 feet or so.
However I found I wasn't happy with mono recordings from a single
microphone, so a second ME66/K6 joined the kit and my method and needs for=
recording wildlife sounds became more complicated. However being able to
record what I was hearing in stereo was well worth the effort...
For one thing I found myself challenged by the Coyote pack that roams the
area and likes to have pack sings at 2:00AM-3:00AM or so and I began
thinking about a lockable weather tight box I could put in a remote
location with a recorder and weather resistant microphone setup and this
led me to purchase my second recorder. For one thing, I did not want to
leave my LS-11 pocket recorder out in the woods, that was not the purpose I=
had it for, and secondly, I knew there were recorders that had features the=
LS-11 did not have and that a different recorder with these features would=
work more in my favor in a remote setup. These features being sound
activation, pre-record, skip on quiet, and auto track at a specific time
interval. This last being a function that keeps file size from getting too=
large and becoming unmanageable for loooong recording sessions. I'm
thinking 8 hours at least up to 24 hours possibly.
My first attempt at such a set up was based on the Zoom H4n recorder
however, it never made it to the lock box, it proved very inadequate when
evaluating it and so it was returned and a Marantz PMD661 became my second=
recorder and I have to say rightfully so... The PMB661 turns out to be the=
ideal recorder for what I was planning and is a real professional piece of=
gear, very high quality of construction, low noise preamps, plenty of gain=
and dynamic range and all the features I was looking for in a remote
locatable recorder... However the lock box project has stalled as I'm
waiting on the microphones that I plan to use with it.
I should add that while testing the Zoom H4n, I obtained a SD MixPre as a
fix for the mic preamp issue with the H4n and immediately ran into the
issue that even thought the H4n manual talks of line level inputs, the
recorder has none and was one of two key reasons the H4n went back, the mic=
preamp noise and lack of gain being the other.
The good news is, the SD MixPre works very well with the LS-11
recorder... The LS-11 has the capability to record very adequate sound
quality and does have line level inputs and a Hosa Technology "Insert" Y
type cable that couples the SD MixPre to the LS-11 works great and I like
working with the SD MixPre, its a great little box... However it doesn't
get me to where I decided I was headed.
In the process of getting to the point I'm at with my nature sound
recording, I've been experimenting with using multiple microphones by using=
a Mackie 1202-VLZ3 mixer with 4 balanced phantom power mic inputs and I'm
now convinced, multiple microphones works best in recording the complete
ambient sound image and while testing this setup, I came to the realization=
that it would be very difficult to go into the field with a portable setup=
based on using the Mackie Mixer as a four mic preamp, six with the SD
MixPre... But, boy, it works great...
So now we get to recorder #3... A Tascam DR-680... In talking with the
distributor I get my gear from, the Tascam DR-680 came to light... The
fact it has the auto record and pre-record and six balanced mic inputs with=
built in mix capabilities all in one compact package and is a SDHC based
recorder was enough reason for me to obtain one for evaluation with the
hopes it will be the ideal field recorder for my application... So far,
I've been evaluating it since late July, its a great recorder as far as
sound recording goes, it will work great in my application provided Tascam=
can produce a fix for the file loss and freeze up issue...
Getting back to the Olympus recorders and the Sound Devices MixPre, that
would be a great combination, you would not be disappointed in it however
I'd suggest a long hard look at the Marantz PMD661, it costs slightly less=
than the SD MixPre and has nearly as good preamps as the SD MixPre and you=
gain features with the PMD661 the Olympus is lacking in. And you do not
have to lug two packages around with interconnecting cables and the extra
batteries required. The SD MixPre is a battery hungry beast...
This brings me to another point, I have Sennheiser mics, R0DE mics, and
Sure mics, and I find for in the field use, the Sennheiser ME/K6 series
mics win hands down...
The Sennheiser are very quiet mics, they can be used either balanced or
unbalanced mode, and with phantom power or run on their own internal AA
cell. The Sennheiser ME series, while not the absolute quietest mics, come=
close with self noise between -10dB(A) and -16dB(A) which is more than
adequate for field work, and most importantly, they run a long time on the=
internal AA cell which triples the recorder battery life by not needing to=
use the recorder phantom power. I'm also convinced that when run on the AA=
cell, they are quieter than when run on phantom power over 50 foot mic
cables which are my norm... Some people will say the ME series run better=
on phantom power but I find this is not true, more than once, when testing=
set up on regular AC mains for power and usiong phantom power, I have shut=
the phantom power off, switched to the mic internal battery power, and
notice an immediate drop in noise and clearer more crisp sounds from the
mics...
Hopefully you can make some sense of my babbling and find some useful
information in it...
Good luck in your quest...
Mitch & Shadow...
At 06:59 AM 8/19/2010 -0500, you wrote:
>I'll admit there is no money in the coffers to make the purchase, so this=
>is not an urgent question, but it's been bouncing around in my head for a=
>while so I thought I pose it here.
>
>I have an Olympus LS-10, and for the stuff I normally do (kids, family
>stuff, my attempts at music) it works fine - I'm grateful for the
>simplicity. But when I think about getting into more serious nature
>recordings I know that means lower noise, which means better mics, which
>means xlr inputs and phantom power. In that scenario complex
>cabling/power/etc. is expected and not a big deal. I have a Behringer 802=
>mixer, so I already have the means to connect the mics to the LS-10 (or my=
>Presonus audio interface & laptop for that matter) for making backyard
>recordings. What remains is the mics, which are a different issue altogeth=
er.
>
>But, assuming mics were in hand, and I had another $500-700ish to spend on=
>a more portable solution, is the choice between getting a Mixpre, to use
>with the line-in on the LS-10, and a new recorder for about the same money=
>(FR2-LE, PMD661?) an obvious one?
>
>Seems like the Mixpre has some neat features, obviously high quality, and=
>the nearly irresistible SD cool factor. The FR2-LE/other recorder has a
>bit more simplicity and redundancy (assuming I have a line out to the
>LS-10 as a backup) although the latter impacts the former.
>
>While I've been lurking here for a while and have learned a lot, I'm still=
>a bit confounded by the process of comparing input noise & sensitivity
>levels - is there a clear sonic winner from a specs perspective?
>
>My intuition is that the FR2-LE would probably be quieter overall - it
>seems very well regarded with respect to noise, and adding a mixer in
>front of a noisier recorder seems unlikely to improve things, but maybe
>the mixpre could add enough clean gain to be advantageous?
>
>------------------------------------
>
>"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
>sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
--
Thanks,
Mitch & Shadow...
http://www.4shared.com/dir/UTASxktL/wildlife.html
Shadow's area: http://www.4shared.com/dir/ecfWjyZb/Shadow.html
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