Field Recording - Techniques/Gear/personal experiences

fun technique to play around with imo is re-appropriating/re-contextualize recorded sounds through playing them back on different speaker set-ups and re-recording the output, eventually arranging the different recordings into a composition, organic convolution style.

You can also record the same sounds with different input levels then boost all files to the same loudness, recording at different distances, creating variations in the amount of noise present. Record locations, fairs, happenings, (sport)events at different time intervals so you can play with density (for example amount of people making noise). 

Them be good ideas! Cheers!

I'm yet to take a speaker into different locations and use my Zoom to record the output and then mix that into a 'dry' track in my DAW but have always wanted to do that.

  On 12/3/2017 at 1:23 PM, Djeroek said:

fun technique to play around with imo is re-appropriating/re-contextualize recorded sounds through playing them back on different speaker set-ups and re-recording the output, eventually arranging the different recordings into a composition, organic convolution style.

 

You can also record the same sounds with different input levels then boost all files to the same loudness, recording at different distances, creating variations in the amount of noise present. Record locations, fairs, happenings, (sport)events at different time intervals so you can play with density (for example amount of people making noise). 

Nice, I'd like to try this at some stage. Funnily enough something I've been doing recently is taking DI'd synth sounds and recording the output from my monitors from a couple of feet away with the Zoom. It's a great way of adding a bit of 'air' into a dry-sounding synth sound and really gives things their own place in a mix. Used to use an SM57 for the same job but the Zoom's much better for this (can't crank the speakers too much, got to keep the neighbours sweet).

Do any of you lot know about field recorders that feature editable low/high pass filters?

  On 12/10/2017 at 10:12 PM, Alan Ord said:

Do any of you lot know about field recorders that feature editable low/high pass filters?

What do you mean? Do you mean like a built-in lowcut?

Yeah. I've got the most basic Zoom recorder and it's sound quality is fine, except the high end gets in despite the 'apparent' low pass filter on the recorder. 

Instead of moving myself to a better spot or protecting the recorder better, wanted to know if there was an easy fix with a variable (rather than on and off) filter... :) 

I just tend to leave filters off etc personally and just fix in post. 

Never actually tried the lpf on my zoom h4n so can't help I'm afraid. 

  On 11/26/2017 at 11:08 AM, Squee said:

 

  On 11/26/2017 at 9:54 AM, Polytrix said:

What would people recommend gear wise for someone like me with only a zoom h4n for close-up hq recordings on a small-sensible budget for mobile application? How much does a decent mobile shotgun mic and recorder cost?

 

 

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Røde has a pretty good Sennheiser MKH416 equivalent. It's the Røde NTG-2 and it's fairly priced

https://www.thomann.de/gb/rode_ntg_2.htm

 

Wow, that is dirt cheap! Is it really comparable to a 416??

  On 12/12/2017 at 6:52 PM, paranerd said:

 

  On 11/26/2017 at 11:08 AM, Squee said:

 

  On 11/26/2017 at 9:54 AM, Polytrix said:

What would people recommend gear wise for someone like me with only a zoom h4n for close-up hq recordings on a small-sensible budget for mobile application? How much does a decent mobile shotgun mic and recorder cost?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Røde has a pretty good Sennheiser MKH416 equivalent. It's the Røde NTG-2 and it's fairly priced

https://www.thomann.de/gb/rode_ntg_2.htm

Wow, that is dirt cheap! Is it really comparable to a 416??

Not entirely, but compared to what you’d pay for a 416 you’re getting a pretty good mic

  On 12/12/2017 at 8:30 PM, Squee said:

 

  On 12/12/2017 at 6:52 PM, paranerd said:

 

  On 11/26/2017 at 11:08 AM, Squee said:

 

  On 11/26/2017 at 9:54 AM, Polytrix said:

What would people recommend gear wise for someone like me with only a zoom h4n for close-up hq recordings on a small-sensible budget for mobile application? How much does a decent mobile shotgun mic and recorder cost?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Røde has a pretty good Sennheiser MKH416 equivalent. It's the Røde NTG-2 and it's fairly priced

https://www.thomann.de/gb/rode_ntg_2.htm

Wow, that is dirt cheap! Is it really comparable to a 416??

Not entirely, but compared to what you’d pay for a 416 you’re getting a pretty good mic

 

For almost a tenth of the price, that's a steal!

The 416 is so standard that I forget there are other shotguns sometimes. A documentary friend of mine does his own sound as well as camera, so he went for the MKH 8060 and I was really impressed! The 416 has that narrow directional sound which tends to sound off mic if it isn't tight, while the 8060 had this really nice open sound in comparison. Stuff that should sound off mic sounded great! He literally had people talking away from him in a dense forest and it still sounded fine!

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/762305-REG/Sennheiser_MKH_8060_MKH_8060_Short.html

Yeah, off axis recordings with the 416 are tough. I just to work on VO’s made by some guy from Florida who used the 416 as his VO mic which makes no sense (unless he used it for dubbing a movie - which he never did). Also in his whisper room he had installed a huge window. So not only did he go off axis all the time because he liked acting out the VO’s in very dramatic ways but the window would also cause some nasty reflections. All in all, it’s sucked. But it’s still a great mic

  On 12/13/2017 at 12:11 AM, Squee said:

Yeah, off axis recordings with the 416 are tough. I just to work on VO’s made by some guy from Florida who used the 416 as his VO mic which makes no sense (unless he used it for dubbing a movie - which he never did). Also in his whisper room he had installed a huge window. So not only did he go off axis all the time because he liked acting out the VO’s in very dramatic ways but the window would also cause some nasty reflections. All in all, it’s sucked. But it’s still a great mic

That's rough. The talent might has seen a 416 on set somewhere and thought 'That's the pro mic I need for my VO career!'

Back on topic: I really like the H4n. I used it lots for film and music. But I can't really give a thorough review since I haven't used many field recorders other than the Sony PCM-D100. I prefer the H4n since it has more features (two 1/4" / XLR inputs!) and it's much cheaper.

Just wanted to add that I intend doing the whole field recordings of one place at different times of the day - ie road conditions changing. Has anyone actually done this in Ableton? I think it can be done in Sampler via the chains list thing and then using the selector as a wet/dry - ie calm road dry to wet being a busy road (as an example) anyone care to share how exactly this is done?

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Hmmmmm... do you want the experience to be interactive so you can change the “time of day” at any time you want? Yeah, you can use Sampler for that... ooooor, even better you could program it in max4live which from a user’s perspective would probably be easier on the eyes. For instance, if you turn up one slider all the others will get turned down or something like that :)

I'm far from ready to approach programming in max really! I'll try with sampler. Yeah I want to be able to change the time of day dynamically yes. I want to make a sort of field recording collage thing as my next track...I'm working on my first full length

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Sorry to re-post but can someone help me making the Ableton Sampler device for the idea I've mentioned above? - being able to move a macro control as a wet dry to fade smoothly between multiple different samples.

Does what I've shown below make sense? I'm finding that in this fade in/out set-up I have to hit c3 first when the chain selector is at the middle point i.e. 64 so that I can sweep from dry-wet (one sample to the other). I.e. I can't start with the selector far on the left (dry) and then trigger the next sample as I move right unless the selector starts in the mid-point where I trigger both. I'm not really sure why this is.

Would people do it another way entirely?

Thank you!!!!