Getting into Field recordings

[deepstasis]

Hi all

I'm not sure if this belongs in the hardware forum or not, Any I really would like go out and start doing some of my field recordings for ambient musicians who are doing this what is your current
setup for doing this ?

my recording setup is two delta 1010's 2 roland vm 3100pros for my main console and two roland vsr 880's my main daw is now currently sonar x1 producer.

but my main question is your setup for field recordings

thanks

Phillip

[Synthetic Aurality]

I own a Zoom H2N field recorder and I love it! Pop in a 16GB SD card and a couple of fresh batteries and you're good for a long day of recordin "in the wild". It has an onboard compressor/limiter which is good for peak-y environments like festivals, busy intersections, and the like.

It's not super-tough but I've carted it all over for six months now and it's taken a ding or two without dying.

Records 4-channel surround which can be useful for audio tricks.

[Golodkin]

I'm not sure I understand -- field recordings of what, exactly?

A couple of years ago, I briefly went crazy for the idea of bagging urban sounds to use them very sparingly as accents in otherwise conventional music, and bagged one of these (now discontinued):

93-4285_01.jpg

...because it was tiny, very unobtrusive (looks like a small bar phone) and had 24/96 capability -- but it uses batteries like crazy, so a pocketful of charged AAA spares is a must. It was also on a one-day sale for $49, so I couldn't refuse. ;)

It serves external mics and headphones and I believe will run off external power connected through the USB port, though I'm not positive. Sound is very good, construction could be better.

[seismic1]

I was recently recommended some of the products at the following site:-

http://jezrileyfrench.co.uk/

[phoenstorm]

Think about what you want out of the recorder. Apart from sound quality, things like ease of use (how long from reaching into your pocket to start recording?), display, battery life, etc. come into consideration. I went with an Olympus LS-5 - it sounds good and is VERY sturdy and quick to use.

[KrisM]

My Zoom H2n goes from off to recording in 5 seconds, and what Synthetic Aurality said about battery life is almost literally true, and is if you sleep like a normal person lol. 2 AA/LR6s last up to 20 hours and there is a setting to tell it whether you're using NiMH or not.

Records 4-channel surround which can be useful for audio tricks.

Zoom has a VST plugin for use with the M/S mic tracks, too. It's also up to 1.2 of the firmware if yours is still on 1.0 like mine was. 1.1 fixed a possible distortion bug, 1.2 adds USB 3.0 support.

[AlienXXX]

I suggest you have a quick look at Freesound.org

First, because there are LOADS of field recordings there - The sounds you are after may already ne there ready for you to download.
Sounds are free to download and use, although you need to create an accound and log in and you need to respect the terms of each license (which for some samples may exclude commercial use and may require that you give attribution in your project)

Second, because there are a lot of people there who do a lot of field recordings. There are a few forum threads on this including some reviews/comparisions of equipment etc.

[ID_23]

Hi Philip, I have recently started getting into FR, After much research, I decided to go with a slightly cheaper than the H2n, the Zoom H1, perfect for my needs, I use macs and audacity for basic editing, so far I haven't had any major complaints, there is some handling noise if you are not careful and as with any condenser mic, wind noise can be a pain, but for the light weight, just keep in a rigid sunglasses case and throw it in your backpack kind of kit, it does what it says on the tin!
hours of fun 24 bit stereo on an AA battery!

cheers
Jason