Andrew,
Welcome to this list. I am a former BBC Film Sound Recordist who
retired many years ago. My advice for field studies like yours would
be to go for reliability, robustness and simplicity. Also
dudu-resistance. :-)
I assume that you are primarily making recordings to analyse rather
than "artistic" sound pictures. If so, directional mics with a good
frequency response are essential and I would have thought that the
ME66/67 mics would have neen excellent. However, I swear by the
MKH-416 and MKH-816 for sheer robustness and practicality along with
sound quality. I use these in pairs for stereo recording. Note that
M-S mic rigs give a good stereo effect but are not analytical enough
and have poor side/rear rejection.
Recording in stereo is obvious for "artistic" recordings, but the
ability to place the direction of sounds and movements is very useful,
for instance calls within a group can be placed. There are a
bewildering number of stereo rigs each with their adherents, but I
would recommend the use of two "coincident" directioal mics giving a
stereo picture based on differential levels, not time delays. I use a
pair of MKH-416's at 50 degres or MKH-816's at 15 degrees which give
good placement with a high level of off-mic rejection. You can also
place individual calls by their level differences on analysis (10deg
per db very approx). I calibrate my stereo images by walking around
the pair shaking a canister of peanuts. BTW my MKH mics are decades
old and still up to spec, so look out for used ones.
You can get adequate recordings on almost any digital recorder with
powered XLR inputs, but again robustness and reliability are most
important, and also of course battery life. Have a look at 4-input
recorders as well, as these can take 3 or 4 gunmics or two independant
stereo rigs for more information.
David
David Brinicombe
North Devon, UK
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - Ambrose Bierce
"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause.
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