Can anyone suggest what kind of equipment you would use if you wanted to record audio sounds on the go. By on the go I mean things like wind blowing in a field, lighting crashes, door slamming sounds, etc. Something that can record at high quality that you can bring back to the computer and work with. Id like to create a sound library of different sounds but I have no idea what to look for in the way of microphones/recorders that can do this. Anyone have any links to products, suggestions as to where to start?

Well, if you''re recording weather (wind, lightning etc) I''m assuming you''ll be after a stereo recording (I think mono field recordings, whether it be weather, machinery, planes etc are useless 99% of the time.) So you''ll either want a pair of identical mics (then you have mic placement to think about) or you might want to look at a single point stereo condenser (basically 2 mics in one) to capture that stereo image such as the Shure VP88. And you''ll want windshields!
You can also get stereo mics which can be mounted on your head!
I''m no expert on this topic so sorry I can''t give you a detailed answer but do a bit of searching around on the net and I''m sure you''ll find info on what you''re looking for.
Mick.

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OK. I''m totally new to this board, and i''m writing this as i wait for my password to show up. I''m an audio engineer, and can actually provide some sort of information for you in this section of the forum. The technical term for what you''re talking about is "Foley" and the standard foley kit is a DAT recorder and, like mick said, a stereo mic. Tascam makes great "industry standard" portable DAT''s, the DA-P1 is what you''ll see almost any movie foley engineer wandering around with. on the con side, it costs about 1700 bucks. A company named Rode makes what is probably the best stereo mic for under a grand, called the NT4. it''s funny looking, but it sounds great (also works really really well for drum overheads). It''ll run you about 450. That will get your stuff recorded to tape. you can of course find cheaper equipment, tascam makes a few cheaper DATs, and sony makes an relatively inexpensive DAT as well, and you can always use minidisc, which doesn''t sound quite as good due to audio compression, but all in all you get what you pay for, and audio equipment isn''t cheap. you''ll also need something to edit the sounds once you''ve got them on tape, i recommend Digidesign''s ProTools. it''s the industry standard for audio, and you can get started with it for about 450. i''ve got their super-base model setup, the mBox ( http://www.digidesign.com/mbox ). it''s got stereo in''s, stereo outs, and spdif digital i/o as well, basically everything you would need. I''m recording a band with mine, which is slow going with 2 inputs, but it still works really well.

Its all great and well if you have the money, lol. But me being a student I'll tell him about the budget option

Minidisc recorder with Shure SM57 microphone. And thats still gonna cost ya 150-200 pounds!


[edited by - rhythm_attic on April 27, 2004 2:32:45 PM]

i totally understand, it took me 5 months and all my christmas money to buy my mbox, thank God for the apple student loan, which got me my iBook. if you''re in school, they may have some sort of lab or something that would have dat setup you could check out, but that depends on if there''s any degrees there that would need it. communications majors have that stuff sometimes for doing interviews.

"CD quality" is an insult