Greetings Juan,
That is correct that a parabolic dish will amplify the higher ambient
sounds that have a hiss quality. As the frequency of the sounds goes
up, the wavelength of the sounds becomes smaller, and the parabola
captures and magnifies the sounds to a greater degree. Thus any
recording made with a parabola will have this unnatural magnification
of higher frequencies, a "tinny" sound that some listeners do not like.
I've used a parabola for years and find it very useful for capturing
the sounds of songbirds, insects, ect. in a way that partially
isolates them from the surrounding sound ambience. Still, if I can do
it, my preference is to place a good stereo mic that does not have the
parabola effect close enough to capture the subject but not so close
that it destroys the comfortable and natural feel. Such microphone
placement without the parabola takes lots of time and fieldcraft, a
knowledge of the habits of the subject, a quiet ambience, and lots of
luck. Collecting a large number of species sounds in this manner
would be a life's work which would be done much more quickly but with
slightly colored sounds using a parabola.
I use my Telinga Stereo DAT Pro Parabola and think it is wonderful. I
recognize that it will color the sound. Now from the group and
Wikipedia I know that my parabola colors my sounds BLUE.
http://tinyurl.com/ltvwg
Here are a couple of examples of recordings that capture a species
without the parabola (made with MKH 30/40 Sennheiser mics):
http://tinyurl.com/37sjeym
http://tinyurl.com/29xmbb7
And here is a recording made with the parabola:
http://tinyurl.com/32q98dy
I congratulate you on the excellent recordings you make and thank you
for sharing them with the world!
Kevin J Colver
Soundscapes for Birders - a Podcast of Natural Sounds
www.7Loons.com
On Sep 22, 2010, at 6:43 AM, Juan Pablo wrote:
> Chris, thanks a lot for your reply.
> Firstly, I'm using a fostex fr 2 now with a sennheiser me 62. Before
> I used a mkh 20 but this microphone is not mine.
> I tried to put the trim on 80 % but the final file recording when
> I'm going to ear it in my computer with headphones the record is
> veery low. To correct this I use the parametric equalicer in the
> adobe audition 1.5. I use this version because is the most
> accessible with the screen reader software, Jaws For Windows.
> Yep, in this National park, there are several water falls, rivers
> and some times heavy aircraft traphic. I believe that I'm using a
> parabola, the dish amplifi too much these sounds.
>
> I'm glad that you like the site. The next week with my dad we'll be
> in Intervales National Park, in S=E3o paulo. There are three trogons
> species. T. rufum, T surrucura and I think that the other one is T
> curucui.
> Thanks again,
> Juan.
> www.birdsounds.ronjaleader.net
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