> Here is a recording of a bird-rich orchard in Calcutta, India, recorded e=
arlier in spring time. You might call it a dawn chorus of sorts. It wasn't =
really dawn but early enough when all the birds were vocal.
>
> This is my first post here and I shall be delighted if the experts here r=
ate this please. Recorded with an Edirol R-09HR with its built-in microphon=
e.
>
> http://www.freesound.org/people/Calcuttan/sounds/184798/
Sudipto,
It is a great sound and it took me right back to my time in India where I
was brought up and where I visited many times as a TV Sound Recordist.
A few boring practical notes. Built-in mics tend to be disappointing and
most of us use external mics on leads. This means that you can listen to th=
e
recorder on headphones without introducing your own noises. You will almost=
always find that external mics have a better quality and many discussions o=
n
this list are about various mic types, but they don't have to be expensive=
to give an improvement on built-in mics.
With outdoor recording and its various background noises, I find 16 bit
recording is better quality than any incoming sound. I use fixed mics on
long cables and make long recordings so I can select the interesting bits
later. The alternative is to listen with your finger on the red button, but=
you can miss the start of good stuff. Long recordings mean recording at
Message: 44.
Subject: 1K samples per second and recording MP3 at maximum quality, but the
recordings still have a much wider range than the incoming sound.
Recording at 44.1K means I don't have to convert to be compatible with CD's=
.
I've recorded at 24 bits and compared it with 16 bits and couldn't find
anything signigificant in the last 8 bits.
16 bits gives you a signal/noise ratio of about 78dBs and you are lucky to=
get a soundscape with better than 40dBs s/n ratio, so 78dBs is plenty good=
enough even if you record to about -12dB to accommodate unexpected peaks.
Please can we hear more Indian birds. To get individual bird calls you will=
have to get closer, but that is fieldcraft. There is a lot of technical
stuff on this list, including my stuff above, but the real skill is finding=
your nature sounds and grabbing them.
David Brinicombe
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