Help needed with selecting a portable recorder for nature soundscapes

A

AGoncalves

New member
Hello all!

I'm interested in starting to record natural soundscapes, especially tropical forests teeming with wildlife, but also quieter situations in temperate ecosystems (e.g. birds in the early morning). I would like to get a good quality soundscape of the surrounding environment, with as little self-noise from the recorder as possible and a good stereo quality as well. Well, as good as it can get with a small budget. I can only allocate up to 200 EUR for this project. Having all of this into account, what recorder would you recommend for me?
I've been told amazing things about the Sony PCM-M10. There are some second-hand available on eBay but only in Japanese. Is it worth it or would there be an equally good recorder within my budget?


Thank you :)
 
I'd try a Zoom H4N. The snag really us that you are stuck with the X/Y mics which will get you going, but they don't give you much reach, so your recordings will be effective within a smallish range. Depending on what you intend to do, a shotgun combo with a figure 8 and M/S recording would be nice - but the budget rockets.

Stereo image is always a compromise with this sort of thing, M/S is a neat way of adding width, but the shotgun giving a bit more usable distance.
 
The Zoom H5 has a 13dB better noise spec than the H4n, though the H4n Pro might have been improved, and it has a removable onboard XY mic module you can replace with other modules (MS, shotgun, XLR) or add an extension cable ($, proprietary).

Both have XLR inputs for using other mics.
 
The H4n Pro should be right up your alley. Its under €200 from Thomann, has the better preamps (although the H4n isn't a slouch), and is expandable with XLR inputs in case you want to add external mics like some nice shotguns. At least it will get you started.

Another option would be the Tascam DR40X which runs about €150. It is similar to the Zoom in capability, 2 built in mics, plus two XLR inputs for external mics.

If you're doing outdoor recording, don't forget to get a good furry "windsock" to go over the mics. Something like the Rycote Mini Windjammer or Zoom WSU1 will kill any reasonable amount of wind noise.

I wouldn't consider the PCM M10 because of the lack of expandabilty.

I would recommend you read through this thread: Hissing/White Noise

It was a discussion about using the H5 with a Rode shotgun mic to record bird sounds. There are several examples of outdoor recordings in the thread. Some of it might show you what you could expect ( like recording sheep from about 100 yards away!)
 
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Thank you so much for your help! Just to understand it better: how does the Zoom H4n Pro, H5 and Tascam DR40X compare with PCM M10 just native sound quality-wise? Previously I have been also considering the Tascam DR40X, so perhaps that could be a good choice. I've been told that the zoom H series isn't good enough for natural soundscapes due to white noise but I don't know anything about the actual specs.
 
Practically speaking, there should be no "white noise" with the H4N Pro

Listen to the 4 clips that I posted in this post. https://homerecording.com/bbs/gener...iques/hissing-white-noise-404304/#post4532792 The first 5 seconds were of the ambient noise inside the house using both the internal and external (Rode M5) microphones. Its VERY quiet and this is just setting up the mics IN THE HOUSE, not anything treated or soundproofed. After 5 seconds you hear the noise level jump. This is when I moved the unit outside and represents the ambient sound OUTSIDE. You can compare the internal mics to a pair of external SDC mics for noise level.

The unprocessed sound is the straight audio. For the "with NR" clips I used ReaFIR noise reduction plugin in Reaper just to see what noise level I could achieve. You should also be able to hear any differences between the frequency response of the two microphone pairs.

These were done with the older H4n (a 12 yr old design). The older units were around -90dB. The newer Pro has lower noise preamps (-120dB). Both the Tascam DR40 and the Sony are also around 90dB S/N. Still, that's perfectly usable.

My concern with the Sony is that it has no option for external mics. It is a 10 year old design, and things have advanced quite a bit in 10 years.
 
I actually think you would be fine with the Tascam DR-05X. It's only about 100€, but the sound quality matches the quality of the Zoom H5 (which is incredible, mine even has an audibly better signal-to-noise ratio than my H5). I've have just done a survey with my music production class on that... recorded something with both of them and the Tascam even won the survey. (Even if it was really close, but what that means to me is that there is, at worst, no difference in quality to be heard.)

One minus of the Tascam is that it does not come with a windscreen, which you probably need for the work you want to do and it's not able to be used as an audio interface to record direk´ctly into you computer.

Plus is, it's over a 100€ less and it's very light and small, propably even fits inside the pocket of you jacket, other than the H5 which is quite big.

Greetings
 
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