I've been wondering if I should enter the fray and comment on the
interesting topic of sound recording. But I've been worried that
"twitchers" may only wish to record sound so that they can use playback in
the field to make their ticked lists longer. PLEASE don't use playback!!
But that said, sound recording does give you the opportunity to later
identify "mystery" birds that you heard, to do bird surveys based on their
calls, to learn bird songs for ID purposes, and to study bird vocalizations
in great detail. And of course there can be great aesthetic enjoyment in
listening to beautifully recorded bird song, especially say, dawn choruses
in stereo - wonderful!
There is a good US-based web group "Nature Recordists" who are happy to give
advice on basic, and not-so-basic, sound recording equipment and techniques.
There is also the "Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group" which issues
an informative journal and a CD of members' recordings, every six months,
and we have about sixty members to date.
For beginners, minidisk really does seem to be a cost-effective solution
these days, although debate about compression still rages. The DAT format
does not use any compression; it gives excellent sound but is expensive. We
are told that DAT is becoming redundant, which is a great shame. Minidisk
gives very good sound for a reasonable price and the smaller units are very
portable. Cassette recorders and reel-to-reel recorders are still used, but
less and less these days. They do not use compression of course, but the
analogue tape they use has problems like print-through and tape hiss,
whereas the digital format (DAT and minidisk) does not have these problems.
Whatever recording unit you use, if you have a choice of recording speed or
compression, always go for the best possible quality, for recording
birdsong. Never use automatic gain control, always use the manual gain
controls, and don't buy a unit that does not have manual gain controls.
Minidisk enthusiasts seem to prefer the Sharp brand over Sony, the latter
has problems (I'm told) in that you cannot change the manual recording gain
during a recording. One "consumer" Sharp model favoured is MZ-R90. You
would probably need to use a pre-amp with e.g. the Sony ECM-MS 907 mic that
Claire Stevenson mentioned. This mic has low sensitivity, and for recording
natural sounds like birdsong you need a sensitive mic. A better bet for
stereo is the (dearer) Sony ECM-MS 957 but even that one is better with a
pre-amp. In the UK you can buy little pre-amps that are the size of a
cannon plug, maybe there is something similar here. Travellers find that a
minidisk coupled with a one-point stereo mic like the 957 (preferably in a
windshield) does a good job and is easy to carry about.
Some recordists swear by the larger-sized HHB Portadisk, which is a
professional-standard minidisk recorder which has built-in pre-amps.
For mono microphones, the Sennheiser ME series of mics are recommended by a
number of Australian recordists.
A very good run-down on stereo recording techniques, using two microphones,
can be found at:
http://www.tape.com/Bartlett_Articles/stereo_microphone_techniques.html
The next journal of the Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group will
feature an article on stereo recording, including a microphone specification
chart so that you can compare brands, prices and specifications.
There's new gadgets coming out all the time, like the credit-card-sized
recorder mentioned by Peter Adderley, which I've not seen. I have not heard
anyone recommend recording nature sounds in MP3 format, I doubt if there is
such a thing as an MP3 field recorder. Minidisk uses a different (better)
system of compression (ATRAC) to that used in MP3.
Enthusiasts often archive their best sounds by transferring recorded sound
to a computer using special software e.g. CoolEdit for PCs, or Peak for
Macs. You can then "burn" an audio CD of those sounds, to share with your
friends. On a computer you can also study bird songs by converting the
sound to a sonagram (a graphic representation of the sound). From the
sonagram you can measure the frequency (pitch) of the sound, the number of
syllables in the song, and you can even slow down the sound to better
understand it.
There is an excellent book "Bird Song - Biological themes and variations" by
C.K. Catchpole & P.J.B. Slater, ISBN 0 521 41799 6, it explains how and why
birds sing, and lots more.
It is great to know that there's people out there in Birding-Aus-land
interested in listening to, and recording, some of the wonderful sounds of
nature, and of learning more about bird song.
Vicki Powys
Sound Editor
Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
