I will be joining some guided nature walks during the next couple of weeks and
have been thinking about which recorder/microphone to take along.
The purpose of the 90 minute, late evening walks is to hear the courtship
vocalisations of Nightingales, which have started to arrive in this part of
England.
Choice of rig is easy; it should be the LS-10 as it is so suitable for this
sort of activity. Microphone choice is more difficult. I have available a
Sennheiser MKE 300D, the zoomable parabolic rig, a Rode NT4 cardioid and
several head spaced boundary arrangements.
Ideally, a shotgun type mic or a parabolic reflector would seem to be most
suitable. Unfortunately I am not too keen on the MKE 300D as it is mono and
mine seems to lack sensitivity. The zoomable parabolic is too heavy - it needs
a sturdy tripod for best results. So the NT4 (maybe using the Marantz 661with
its phantom power, rather than the battery power option) could be the best
match for the situation, although a bit heavy for using on the hoof?
I then had the idea of putting a handle on the lightweight MX391 boundary rig.
I rummaged through my junk and found an old handle/bracket for fastening an
external flash unit to a camera. This was equipped with a 1/4 inch thread
arrangement allowing it to be fitted direct to the boundary. The last two
photos in this album show the arrangement
https://picasaweb.google.com/G0SBW.PM/MX391MicRig?authuser=0&feat=directlink
This morning there was quite a wind. So, I went out and recorded the sound of
it blowing through a large Willow at the bottom of the garden. I used the hand
held MX391 rig with wind protection as per the photo. The recording was made
at 9:15 am. At that time the wind speed recorded at this weather station (1.5
miles away) was 35 mph with gusts up to 45 mph
http://www.sailbrightlingsea.com/home_live-weather/
While recording I sheltered at the side if a 6 foot, woven panel, garden fence
(it can be heard rattling in the recordings) and some shrubbery. I started
recording with the LS-10 set to "high 6" but there was some overloading. A
snippet at this setting is here
http://soundcloud.com/g0sbw/mx391-wind-6
I reduced the gain to "high 4" which stopped most of the overloading
http://soundcloud.com/g0sbw/mx391-wind-4
These are best listened to using headphones.
The hand held boundary rig is certainly a practical proposition. However, it
is omni directional and I wonder if the cardioid NT4 would be a better choice
as I will be in a group of about 20 others.
Cheers, TomR
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