I like to think of natural silence as the canvas upon which other sounds are painted. (Dr. Timothy C Mullet)
Ortolan Bunting
Ortolan bunting song.
Recorded using a mid MONO parabolic microphone – 2 x Primo EM172 caps and a 33 cm dish.
Filmed with a Sony Nex6 + adapter and a Lens Nikon 400 IF-ED 5,6.
Special thanks to Gastone Pivatelli.
ZOOM H1e Vs. ZOOM F3
Today, 1 may 2024 at 4.45 local time, with a light breeze, I recorded the song of a nightingale from a distance of about three meters. I used both a ZOOM H1e Essential and a ZOOM F3, both equipped with 32-bit float technology.
With H1e I used the internal microphones, while with F3 I used a pair of Sennheiser ME66.
Low cut 80 Hz, 48 Khz sample rate for either.
I then normalized both files to -3 dB. Clearly, using two completely different systems, the results obtained are incomparable, and I certainly didn’t expect something very different, however it is always useful to have a comparison, just to understand how far you can go with one or the other equipment.
PS. on the left channel with F3 and ME66 there is some slight disturbance due to the radio frequencies of the smartphone which I had inadvertently left on.
32-bit Float – Helicopter recording
This evening I was trying to record with a setup that I experiment with from time to time in parabola: a mixed stereo + mono baffle (see here for the original setup), using two cheap Zoom recorders: the old H1 first version for the STEREO part and the latest version H1e Essential for the MONO part, recording the signal with both recorders simultaneously.
Coincidentally (and fortunately!), a Firefighters helicopter passed exactly over my head, at an estimated height of about 3-400 meters.
I thus had the opportunity to further experiment with the ability of the 32-bit float system to compensate for an excessively high incoming signal, allowing me to restore the signal in the correct way and no longer distorted by audio clipping.
Nothing to do for the file recorded with the old H1, distorted originally and consequently even after an attempt at normalization (obviously failed).
The choice to record in stereo mode with H1 and in MONO with H1e was completely random, perhaps also due to the fact that H1e allows you to choose between stereo and mono modes.
Below are the Waveforms and the relative audio files.
H1e Essential – original recording
H1e Essential – Normalized recording
H1 – original recording
H1 – Normalized recording
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
To simplify the visualization unrecoverable H1 trace, I insert the below image with normalization at -6dB, where the destroyed peaks are perfectly visible.
32-bit float and nature recordings
It may happen, particularly when recording in parabola, that a part of the file is recorded clipped due to the impulsive signal being too high.
Here are two calls I recorded with the Zoom H1e Essential and a DIY stereo parabola with 1+1 AOM 5024 capsules.
The first is the call of a European Blackbird emitted in flight from left to right; the second is the call of a Great Spotted Woodpecker recorded while it is entering the hole of the nest. In both there is the originally recorded signal with a clipped part, immediately followed by the normalized part recovered in post production via DAW.
As you can see and hear, with 32-bit float there is the possibility of recovering the signal simply by normalizing it.
Jose Arcas – Spagna
Jose Arcas nature-artist here with a “naturesound.it Plug In Power parabolic microphone” and Tascam DR05x.
Parabolic Stereo Microphone NATURESOUND.IT – in action
Here on Youtube, Marc Namblard using a naturesound parabolic stereo microphone (see for it on Ebay.it).
Here on Facebook
GRèGORY CHAMMING’S IN THE STORM
I received this astonishing recording from my friend Grègory Chamming’s.
Thanks Grègory!
You have the word…
Hi Marco. I tell myself that we are fragile on this Earth… Yesterday, for the third time in my life, I had a “stormy” experience… I love thunderstorms, they fascinate me, and as soon as one breaks out, I feel “electric”, and that attracts me, and I’m going to see… So yesterday, I was sitting in a meadow, waiting for the storm to come… It’s coming from the north-east. Strong, more and more powerful. After a few minutes, before I could anticipate it, a bolt of lightning struck, and a few milliseconds later there was a great “Tsaaac!” in the air, barely a hundred metres from me… I found myself propelled by the phenomenal power of the lightning, to the ground, backwards, on my back. I could feel my heart racing and starting to beat very hard, just after it seemed to stop… I threw everything on the floor, and with a lot of pain, ran to take refuge in my van, parked 50m away. I think I was lucky again…
recorded in Cubières, my village, LOZERE – 28 05 2023 at about 2pm – Zoom F3 + TETA microphone
Many thanks to Marc Namblard for 32-bit floating-point processing.
Grégory CHamming’s TETA Mics Recording in Limestone plateau – France
An exciting soundscape with birdsong and thunderstorm Grégory CAMMING’S.
TETA Microphone and Zoom F3 recorder.
UNIVERSITà DI PAVIA – LA NOTTE DEI RICERCATORI
UNIVERSITY OF PAVIA – RESEARCHERS ‘NIGHT
September 30, 2022
Presentazione del Dr Gianni Pavan alla Notte dei Ricercatori a Pavia per illustrare i temi della bioacustica e dell’ecoacustica. Con ascolto di suoni di molte specie, dalle megattere a cervi, uccelli canori, anfibi e anche insetti. Con dimostrazione degli strumenti per registrare e visualizzare i suoni, tra cui la parabola Mid Side realizzata da naturesound.it e anche l’UltraMic 250k, microfono ultrasonico USB prodotto in Italia da Dodotronic che con il software di analisi e visualizzazione SeaPro (realizzato e sviluppato da G. Pavan al CIBRA dell’Università di Pavia) ci fa “vedere” e “sentire” in tempo reale anche gli ultrasuoni di pipistrelli e ortotteri.
Earsight Stereo Mic’s Ball Setup
A few weeks ago, I bought a pair of Earsight microphones 48V XLR plugs. After testing them with the new Zoom F3, I found that, as it was logical to expect, the stereo separation with these two omnidirectional capsules was not great, despite having adopted a self-built positioning system with the capsules angled 120° and 17 cm apart from each other.
So, I decided to create a separation by inserting a 12 cm diameter sphere, made up of a ball for gymnastic postural exercises produced in Germany, the BlackRoll Ball12, whose material seems to me perfect for the project.
As a first test, being a season in which the singing of birds even during is practically nil, I tried to quickly record a few minutes of nocturnal orthoptera chorus: Oecanthus pellucens, Eupholidoptera chabrieri schmidti, Modicogryllus burdigalensis.
MONO-STEREO SETUP FOR PARABOLIC MICROPHONE
People often debate the use of mono or stereo microphones inside a parabolic dish. This I have already mentioned here.
In summary: some prefer a mono recording for a “clean” use with spectrogram analysis, others prefer to obtain a stereo recording to have a pleasant soundscape. However, a stereo recording does not exclude the possibility of being able to use only one channel of the two to still obtain a good spectrogram.
Personally, I have always thought that the best thing would be to have both opportunities.
This is why I thought of designing and manufacturing (for my personal use) a Mono/Stereo microphone baffle to be inserted in a parabolic dish, which gives the possibility to separatly connect one of the two configurations when using a two-channel recorder, or both configurations at the same time if using a mixer/recorder with at least three channels..
Above the project drawing of the baffle and below the 3D printed realization of the microphone assembly.
Stereo capsules L-R; M = mono capsule facing towards the inside of the dish. __________________________________________________________________________________________________
UPDATE:
I performed a Mono vs. Stereo test on Common Nightingale song.
I used a Sound Devices 302 connecting channels 1-2 to the 1+1 AOM 5024 capsules stereo baffle inserted in a 53 cm parabolic dish, while to the third channel is connected the single AOM 5024 capsule (see the picture above).
I first recorded with only the channel 3 signal to obtain a mono recording, then with the two channels 1 and 2 linked in stereo mode. As a recorder I used a Tascam DR05x connected via a splitter cable to the OUT tape of the SD 302.
Common Nightingale Luscinia megarynchos song – First MONO, then STEREO
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
I asked about adding the two signals Mono+Stereo to Jules Ryckebusch who replied:
“The signals are adding. So that gives you, in theory 2X signal that works out to 6dB. It’s what people do when putting four mics in an array too. The correlated signal adds 6db and the uncorrelated noise only adds 3dB so there is an improvement in signal to noise ratio”.
Here a quick audio test using a metronome
below European robins at dawn (mono + stereo – Sound Devices 302 mixer + Tascam DR05X)
Commenti recenti