Freesound Forums

What do you guys use for field recordings?

I use the in-built mic for the Sony Handycam HDR-PJ260V, it's not the best but it is surprisingly good haha, after i record it I always run it through Audacity to get rid of some noise, pump the bass and treble, and add some stereo effects then run it through flstudio, play with the levels, and add a final filter to make the sound clearer, after all that the sound becomes about 10 times better than it originally was I also remaster songs in my spare time, making 2D music more 3D so to speak

I'm using a Marantz PMD-661 recorder. So far it's been a great unit and haven't had any issues with it over the years. For generic/random recording I use my cheap Rode M3 mics because I don't care if they get damaged.

This might sound strange, but (depending on the subject) I prefer to do field recordings as a stereo Mid-Side capture on 4 channels; 2 stereo and 1 dual mono. If you get the balance right, it blends perfectly. The purpose really is so I can capture a 'focal point' with a long range shotgun microphone which is highly directive, whilst capturing the surrounding atmosphere.

I use a Roland R26 as the capture device; this has built in XY and Omni microphone pairs you can use in various 2 channel balances (or 4 if you need that separation for later mixing).

The shotgun is a Rhode NTG3 - very high quality, decent frequency range, and low signal-to-noise ratio.

Obviously the placement of these 2 microphone set-ups is quite crucial in particular scenarios. If recording ambience, then you don't really have to worry about the 'proximity effect' but the microphones should always be symmetrical and close together in MS, otherwise you get phasing phenomena and weird stereo field; due to the latency of sound wave capture.

This all might sound a bit unnecessary, but I guarantee it sounds superb, for example, when recording wildlife where there is a definite focal point, or subject of capture, like a crow in the woods.

Hope this has provided some insight.

Olympus DS40 built-in MIC. The power of the WMA format

I purchased a Zoom H4n awhile back. Good for portability. Mics are decent, but not the BEST ever. If I need something a little better quality, I hook up my Avantone CK-1 mics to it.

ALSO, go to www.creativefieldrecording.com and check out that site for everything you'd want to know about field recording. It's run by Paul Virostek who's an AMAZING field recordist. One of his recent gigs was recording sounds to be used in the film "Pompeii"