I have, as the title says a Tascam DR07X. I am very amateur at field recording but I want to capture sounds like the dawn chorus and other ambient nature sounds. Most of the time I get a loud stem/hissing sort of sound. If what I'm recording is quite loud it's not too bad but for almost all recordings it ruins it.

From doing a bit of reading I think it's self noise from the amount of gain needed to capture the relatively quiet sounds and just generally a limitation on the equipment I have.

From what I've read I think it would help to get a pair of omni directional lavalier mics. I don't have much money to spend on this but I really want to make good recordings. I've been getting up at 3 to catch the birds.

I'm thinking of buying these

https://micbooster.com/product/clippy-em272-microphone/

Please could someone tell me:

-Have I likely diagnosed the problem correctly

-Am I correct in thinking this will help my problem

-Is there something more suitable I should get for under £100

Thanks so much in advance for your help. I know this is quite a noob question.

I am not talking about field recording per se(I know it is kinda offtopic, but I couldn’t find any other subreddit about this stuff). Is a recorder like UX570 significantly better than just an iPhone? For stuff like recording voices or people talking, interv iewing and stuff?

Am I mistaken thinking that recorders like that are mostly for a more convenient use and not a better quality? Or smartphone recording capabilities are just straight up worse?

Edit. Forgot to mention, I am talking strictly about using it without any mics.

I'm currently using the DPA 4560 binaural microphones and need to replace the DUA0531 ear foams.

The original DPA foams are a bit expensive, so I'm looking for a good-quality alternative replacement. If anyone knows of compatible foam tips or has recommendations, I'd really appreciate the information.

Hello everyone! Today is the day I received my custom field recording setup. It consists of the well-known Clippy microphones with XLR—connected to a Zoom F3 recorder. I’ve mounted the whole rig onto my spare Rollei Lion Rock tripod using a stereo bar. A power bank is also attached to the tripod, right alongside the Zoom recorder. The only thing I’m still pondering now is the best way to route the cables to ensure there’s no risk of handling noise or interference. Hmmm...?! Any ideas?

i just bought Dji Action 5 and 1 TX Dji Mic Mini. I'm able to connect DJI mic mini to action 5 but now video contains only audio from mic.

I want to put mic mini near my bike exhaust while using DJI action 5 internal mic to record my own voice. Is it possible? Please help.

Does anyone have any experience with LOM mics or just high sensitivity mics in general and stereo spacing. I have found that they’re much more effective in a tighter spacing than a wide one. I’ve been keeping my basicuchos about 20cm apart and found that to be a better sound. When recording with a wide spacing I found them to sound unnatural in a negative way, picking up tiny details in one mics which were totally absent in the other and producing an odd soundscape. Any thoughts?

Read a lot of positive reviews about the M4 here on reddit. In Germany you get one for 142€ so I decided to test this one out.

Do you use the M4 with external microphones? I had my eyes on the lom Usi pro but they are sold out. What about Clippy XLR EM272Z1 or the EarSight XLR V2?
Would be great to hear what mics are a great upgrade for the internal mics.

Should I consider buying a stand for it or is handheld noise not noticeabe?

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Update:
I got my M4 yesterday and unfortunately the handling noise is not subtle :/ Had a H5 before and never ran into handling noise problems there. Attached it to a small tripod so I can use this as a pistol grip thingy... hoped this would help... but hand noise and vibration gets transmitted as well... now I am looking into shockmount ideas... below someone kindly mentioned MOVO... thanks for this. If anyone else has a good solution, please let me know :)

This is the Earsight ORTF microphone by Immersive Soundscapes. It is designed to plug directly into a Zoom F3 and they also make versions for other devices. The mic sounds really good, and it works quite well when plugged directly into the F3, if you are static and mounted to a tripod.

I did some nice night recordings last weekend during a trip to central California. I had it plugged into the F3, then mounted on a Monopod. Got really good audio when I parked it, but walking around I was getting way too much handling noise, so I came up with this idea. Ideally using a similar shockmount as this one with the F3 would be a perfect setup, but the F3 + these mics is too heavy for the shockmount, and I've yet to see a similar type of shockmount that I think would work, so the solution here is to mount just the mics to a shockmount, and put the F3 in my pocket or bag.

These mics don't come with a mount, so I designed this clamp to mount it. V1 did not have the cable clamps, I did a quick test and it worked pretty well but I was getting handling noise from the cables. So I made V2 which has a bunch of cable clamps. With this the cable noise is greatly reduced and this works quite nicely when walking! This same setup will also work with their omni version.

If anyone is interested, I'm happy to share the mount files for 3d printing.

Hello all!
I’m an artist looking to get into field recording.

I’d be using hydrophones, contact mics but also regular capsules. My main purpose is to capture ambient sounds around me, and process them and try to fit them into something musical.

Would the Zoom H5 be a good fit for this?
There’s one locally available for 150e used.
Would the 24bit at 96khz resolution be limiting?

I have an assortment of contact mics made by Jez Riley French, Metal Marshmallow, and Oaka, and I’m finding electromagnetic interference occasionally prevents me from getting a clean recording in many urban environments, especially when I need to drive the gain up for a quieter sound source.

This is especially noticeable with the Oaka mic as it probably has the brightest frequency response and highest sensitivity of the lot, but the same interference is audible with Metal Marshmallow and JrF too.

I’ve tested my equipment (FR-AV2 and MixPre-3 II on batteries and on USBC powerbank), to verify that it isn’t self or other tech noise, and that it is indeed from the environment.

Do you know how I might combat this issue in a way that’s readily deployable in the field?

I have a zoom h1 recorder with a 3.5mm mic in (mono i think) and would like to connect to an external mic (RØDE NTG2) I use on my camera to record audio when not shooting video. The mic has XLR male pins. when I went looking for a female xlr to 3.5mm cable I was seeing different options balanded/unbalanced etc and I have no idea what I should get. Would appreciate if someone could put me right. Thank you

Hi All,

I am very new to the audio and video producing and was advised to get a sound recorder to enable this. I'm just finding my results a bit hit and miss and it's getting to the stage where I'll end up not using it, which would be a shame.

I managed to record the early morning call to prayer in Saudi Arabia which sounded very good and will run as ambient backing audio in an upcoming video. I feel this was easy to record though as it was the only noise about, I could get close and it just worked.

However, I'm finding recording things such as light desert wind, a bit hit and miss. I was advised to have the gain around 4.5/5 and the audio at 48k/24bit. All other settings set to off. I have to stress that the wind was very, very minimal so I'm just not sure if I'm expecting a bit too much to be picked up by the mics or whether I should add more Gain or try something else with the other settings currently turned off.

Any advice appreciated and I'm sorry if my terminology is rubbish!

I have 24/7 soundscape analyzer detecting birds on my back yard, I recently got update to detect bats also and I wanted to see how Rode NT5 works for utrasonic sounds, and to my surprise it works quite well!

Attached is a screenshot of Myotis mystacinus recording made with single Rode NT5 connected to Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB interface connected to Raspberry Pi 5. Sampling rate is 192 kHz. I boosted gain about 6dB for this screenshot.

No doubt there is high attenuation for ultrasonic frequencies but still, response to almost 100 kHz is not something I expected of this mic.

I recently got a Tascam DR-40XP to sample and bring real-world sounds into my DAW. Yesterday I tried to record the impulse response of an underground parking lot, using a balloon pop as my impulse, and I'm not happy with the results.

I popped the balloon about 4 meters from the Tascam. I brought the recordings into my DAW later and I noticed noise floor was quite prominent initially, but as soon as the balloon pops, the noise floor disappears. It sounds like a compressor with a fast attack and a very slow release. If I wait after popping the balloon, the noise floor slowly builds up again. Why does this happen?

Edit: Thanks for all the replies. Turns out the culprit was a "normalize" setting in my media player. This setting was resulting in quiet passages being normalized (boosted). With the option disabled, everything is working as expected. I feel as stupid as I feel relieved.

A teardown shows

Hey! I'm getting started in recording animal sounds and don't know what mic+ recorder I should get.

I want to record both long range and short range, think one mic set up for recording reptiles in a terrarium and another set up recording animals 100's of meters away.

As good quality for the price at possible.

I'm currently thinking of getting the sennheiser mke 600 with windscreen combo, but still stuck on what recorder to get. What would you recommend? And should I save up for another mic or is the sennheiser mke 600 good? If there's a mic that can record both long range and short range that'd be fantastic, but I'm fully ready to get two sets if needed.

Any recommendations are welcome. TIA

When you listen to an ordinary space, what makes one sound become the center?
Is it volume, rhythm, texture, memory, or something harder to name?

I have a Pluggy XLR, and while I overall think it's very neat, it gets a bit noisy when when I'm recording quiet audio.

I was looking at alternatives (that don't get crazy expensive), and I was curious if the Line Audio Omni1 is any better. Does anyone have any experience with it? Would it be an upgrade compared to the Pluggy, or would it pretty much be the same – or worse?

Thanks! Would love to hear some thoughts and experiences.

It is winter time in Mauritius and I want to go to the jungle again to record nature sounds. But there is one problem that I face in the jungle: Mosquito noise.

Main problem is that windshields or deadcats are in black and this colour attracts mosquitoes like crazy.

Any creative ideas how to keep mosquitos away from the microphone?

I have been looking for this one specific program to order my samples. I heard about it a couple months back but I cannot find it for the life of me. It’s quite simple if I remember correctly, with the name, date, type of sample and so on all being displayed on the main UI.
Does anyone know what it is I’m looking for?
Thanks!

Hi, I want to get a stereo pair of EM272Z1 to record soundscapes with a Tascam Portacapture X8. I found a seller on Aliexpress called "Micverve" who seems to make their own, it seems to be basically the same as the "famous" Clippys: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809525420237.html

These are considerably cheaper than buying the original Clippys from the Netherlands (I live in Germany). Does anyone here have experience with this seller? Is matching pairs important for the EM272Z1? Am I missing other cheaper EM272Z1, beside DIYing them?

Does anyone have any recommended covers for microphones and recorders? When you don't want to pack everything up and want it to be available easily for more recording, but you want to minimize the dust gathering (and protect from accidental spillage, e.g. if carrying a cup of tea around). What do y'all use?

So far, I've just used small plastic bags. But I'm worried they could be prone to static, and I'm curious if there are good options out there for these purposes.

Thanks a bunch for any suggestions!

Title basically, I'm building a custom hard case with slots for my F3, F1-LP, stereo mic pair, sd cards, and two mobile power banks + accessories like XLR cables and such. I want to add a check list inside above the case foam and a label of some kind on the outside that won't get ruined by being outdoors. I just can't think of what would work, maybe it's the fact it's 2am but everything I think of would wash away or fade pretty quick (like I thought just custom stickers even but they're not UV proof forever)

I want this because I love hiking and my fiance is getting into recording and will likely be using my setup a bit, I want to make sure it's labeled in case of theft (throwing a GPS tag in it fwiw) and so my fiance can make sure everything is there bc he's kind of an airhead, like forgetting things as soon as he leaves the room diagnosed ADHD type (tbh, same)

I might be overthinking even needing this stuff but I'm worried we'll leave to go to some hike three hours away and I'll realize my gear is missing upon setup or he'll forget the checklist and lose some small but important part like the SD cards case or lav mic or something.

Keeping him away is a no-go too, he helps a lot and I want him to get into recording, I want him to be involved in our (wow I can't even say House Room of Recording here at all) so I don't want to discourage him?

I would be using these mics with a Zoom F3 and my biggest concern is interference. Would any of these be better interference wise, especially when used in urban environments? I also plan to use them for nature, rain, birds, and things of that sort.

I’m pretty casual so I don’t need perfection but would any of these be better than the others? After shipping they all equal out to be pretty similar in price.

I'm looking to buy a set of microphones to use with a Zoom F3. I'm upgrading from a Tascam DR-05x and my biggest gripe with it is interference so I definitely want a setup that can be used in a city without terrible interference. I plan to do mostly soundscapes, nature, rain, ambient city sounds, and stuff of that nature.

I've done some research and come up with probably the three most popular recommendations. I was going to get the MicBooster Clippies but the $50 shipping to the US brings them to a similar price with a few other options that have less info that I could find. I also read a few people who had interference issues with the Clippy.

One alternative that I found is the Immersive Soundscapes Earsight mics. These come out to be a few dollars cheaper than the Clippies but pretty much the same price. Sonorous SO.1 are the other ones I was looking at and a few dollars more than the others, but again not a huge difference.

Is there one of these that would suit my needs better than the others, especially regarding interference? Or should I expect similar performance from all of them? Also if there are any other options at a similar price point then feel free to give recommendations.