Best Mic to use for Nature Sounds?

[radiation8]

Hello everyone Im brand new to this forum, not Recording,
I dont have a recording studio per say, but I use Adobe Auditon to do all my recording and mixing.

The biggest thing I work on is creating sound scapes ("nature sounds", bird, crickets, wind chimes, water, flutes, etc)

Up untill now I have used a plain $40 sony voice recorder from bestbuy paired with a Astatic D104 mic(I know weird combo right? but it got the job done, and my mp3 player with a built in mic(great for recording water)

Well Im in the market to upgrade the recorder and mic, I dont want to spend over $100 on the recorder anything over that is ludicris to me. And as for the mic, well Im just not sure, so If I can have anyones opnion, as long as it not over $800.

One thing I also do is use a laptop out in the field with the D104 and that brings good results, but like I said I want to UP my quality.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

paired with a Astatic D104 mic

Wow, there's a model number I've not heard since the mid 70s when my handle was usually preceded by the phrase, "Breaker, breaker, good buddy"!

If you want to upgrade your recording quality, you probably are not going to have much success spending a few bucks on a new recorder. Digital recording quality is not going to vary all that much, especially at that bargain basement price range.

What I'd recommend is spending $150 bucks on a new mic/preamp interface such as the Tascam 122L. You can probably find one used on eBay for $100 or so. Use that to hook up to your laptop via USB connection and do your recording right in Audition, and the quality of preamp and converters, while still quite basic, will better than what you'll get on the computer soundcard or the mini jack of a cheapo portable recorder.

As far as microphone, there's many ways you could go, but if you're trying for more than just a general omnidirectional capture and would like to get specific sounds like that bird off in that tree or that waterfall over there without picking up the cars from the highway over there, I'd recommend a decent shotgun mic with wind screen such as the Audio Technica AT897, which you can get on the street for about $250.

G.

 

[radiation8]

Wow that AT897 looks nice, would be great for that purpose.

What about Omni? Like somthing that will pick up audio kinda far away?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

What about Omni? Like somthing that will pick up audio kinda far away?

Well, there's kind of a catch-22 there. Picking up audio "far away" translates in microphone specs to microphone sensitivity -the more sensitive and low self-noise a mic has, the quieter sounds it can register. The potential problem with that is that means the mic will be more sensitive to *everything*, including wind noise and closer sounds, which will still tend to drown out the quieter stuff.

It's much for this reason that you'll find shotgun-style (and other hyper-cardioid style) microphones used so much for field and nature work. By rejecting most of the surrounding sound, one can "concentrate" on the sounds in the direction that the mic is pointing. This effectively increases the range in which they can pick up, not so much my increasing sensitivity, but by rejecting the surrounding unwanted noises.

But there are still obvious attractions to an omni pickup for just picking up general sounds without picking out a single one in a single direction. For something like that you might want to take a look at something like the Shure SM63. It's built for ruggedness and some moisture resistance, and also can sometimes help reduce hum that you may get if you set up too close to high tension wires outside. It also rolls off extreme low frequency response, which can help reject wind and vibration noise. At a street price of about $115, you can't go very wrong.

Also, you might want to look at some of the other shotgun mics from AT which, instead of the hyper-cardioid unidirectional pickup pattern of the 897, have a M/S pickup pattern. This is basically like having a unidirectional mic pointed forward and a figure-8 mic with the lobes of the 8 pointing left and right all together in one mic. This allows you to capture the sounds in a sort of stereo on two channels, allowing you to mix the side stuff and the front stuff to your desire.

G.

 

[radiation8]

Alright, thanks for the info and qucik reply.

Quess Ill have to invest in a shotgun style mic.

Im not an expert when it comes to Mics, or recording Live instraments, or voice. the biggest problem I have is "getting on file what I actully heard in the field"

Now once I actully get on file what I heard everything sounds great with the D104, lol yeah its old and ment for communication like CB and Ham radio, but it works for me, I soldered and wired it up with dual sheild and a 3.5" plug for computers, and voice recorder.

I have looked into the huge(in price) PCM recorders like the Marantz, Sony, and M-Audio's, but $500 for something Im going to use a few times isnt pratical for me, but hey who knows that could change, I said the same thing about Adobe Audition I was never gonna pay $200bucks for that but I did, and am happy with it.

I actully found a Shure SM58 when I bought a entertainment center that came with a box full of wires, connectors, and the SM58 was in there, I ended up selling it because it needed a XLR plug and I didnt really know how(at the time) to plug it into my computer, wish I still had it.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

the biggest problem I have is "getting on file what I actully heard"

Ah, my friend, you have just summed up this entire BBS - indeed this entire racket - in that one simple sentence. That is indeed what it is all about, and at the same time is often the thing that many of us spend entire lifetimes trying to perfect.

I have had plenty of "experience" with the D104 - as you say - as a radio communications mic back in the 70s (I still kinda miss my old Yaesu 101 10-meter ham rig with at first a Turner +2 base mic and then a D104...though I have to correct the record; I never actually used the term "good buddy" ), but I honestly have no idea how that would work in any other situation. It's an interesting rig to think about.

G.