Thank you to Marc / Scott / Umshankar,
for your comments about the relative merits of digital recording on
video cameras or stand-alone recorders. I appreciate most of the points
made although my practice is to feed the camera / recorder at line level
from an external mixer and so the problem of noisy mic amps is not
something I need to take into account.
The problems mentioned with the EX1 and EX3 have been duly noted with
interest.
Thank you for taking the time to pass on your experience.
Julian
*****************************
On 11/08/2011 08:52, wrote:
> _____________________________________________________________________
> 2a. Re: What's everybody's favourite parabolic microphone setup?
> Posted by: "Scott Fraser" scottbfraser
> Date: Wed Aug 10, 2011 7:36 am ((PDT))
>
> <<I ask because a friend tells me that he believes sound recorded on a
> Zoom at 16 bit / 48kHz would sound much the same as the same sound
> recorded on a camera at 16 bit/48kHz.>>
>
> While the analog to digital conversion rate may be identical, nothing else is
> necessarily the same with the two systems. With current digital audio
> recording the conversion is fairly uniformly good with modern AD converters.
> What separates the merely good from the exceptional as well as the awful is
> all the analog stages prior to the conversion into bits. High quality analog
> microphone preamps are very expensive& the difference between 'good enough'&
> 'outstanding' preamps is audibly very dramatic. 16 bits at 48kHz CAN sound
> extremely good, or it can merely render a poor analog stage accurately as the
> piece of cheap electronics that it is.
>
> Scott Fraser
>
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 2b. Re: What's everybody's favourite parabolic microphone setup?
> Posted by: "umashankar" umashanks
> Date: Wed Aug 10, 2011 7:55 am ((PDT))
>
> there is another issue. very rarely do you want the microphone to be where
> the camera is.
>
> umashankar
>
> i have published my poems. you can read (or buy) at
> http://stores.lulu.com/umashankar
>
> From: Scott Fraser<>
>> To:
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 8:06 PM
>> Subject: [Nature Recordists] Re: What's everybody's favourite parabolic
>> microphone setup?
>>
>> <<I ask because a friend tells me that he believes sound recorded on a
>> Zoom at 16 bit / 48kHz would sound much the same as the same sound
>> recorded on a camera at 16 bit/48kHz.>>
>>
>> While the analog to digital conversion rate may be identical, nothing else
>> is necessarily the same with the two systems. With current digital audio
>> recording the conversion is fairly uniformly good with modern AD converters.
>> What separates the merely good from the exceptional as well as the awful is
>> all the analog stages prior to the conversion into bits. High quality analog
>> microphone preamps are very expensive& the difference between 'good
>> enough'& 'outstanding' preamps is audibly very dramatic. 16 bits at 48kHz
>> CAN sound extremely good, or it can merely render a poor analog stage
>> accurately as the piece of cheap electronics that it is.
>>
>> Scott Fraser
>>
>
>
> Messages in this topic (5)
> ________________________________________________________________________
> 2c. Re: What's everybody's favourite parabolic microphone setup?
> Posted by: "Marc Myers" primatemarc
> Date: Wed Aug 10, 2011 8:46 am ((PDT))
>
> Good point. Modern cameras no longer have the whrrrrrr of tape being pulled
> but the noise from a servo-zoom lens can be pretty obvious. Also the area
> around a camera is a noisy environment. You hear the recordist breathing,
> handling noise, and neck-straps banging against the legs of the tripod.
> Standard practice for most audio for video is to have the microphone as near
> the subject and as far from the camera as is practicable. As has been said by
> others, the microphone on the camera is best used to synchronize sound and as
> a fallback in case something goes wrong and you have nothing better.
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