Creeping Crawlies and Contact Mics

Full-Contact Audio: Contact microphones are cheap, fun, and beg for questionable uses.

There are Japanese beetle larvae living in my planter boxes. When we turn the soil, we sometimes unearth over a hundred at a time. We usually dig them out, leave them in a shallow bowl, and the local birds have a feast. I always wondered what disgusting critters that small sounded like, crawling around in a big ol’ pile.

This seemed like a job for contact microphones, the small little piezo elements that detect vibrations through objects rather than through the air. You can make your own for less than $5, but being a complete soldering nimrod, I ordered two hand-built, XLR-equipped and Plasti-Dipped contact microphones from Jeff Thompson at ContactMics.com. I jammed  one of them into this slowly writhing mass. Totally gross. However, the sound was not at all as I had expected: crisp, brittle, and not that slimy. Since I’ve just recontextualized what this sound is, you’ll probably get all creeped out anyway. So enjoy. (Sorry about the ground loop hum, I was in a hurry and didn’t properly troubleshoot…)

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[Piezo contact microphone into Sound Devices 702]

Bigger Toys to the Big Guns: The Sound Devices 702

(Part 3 of a 3-part series: Part 1 | Part 2)

If you read my take on the Fostex FR2-LE, I hope I left you with the impression that is has some incredible strengths, but some physical interface issues that I just didn’t find ergonomically user friendly, and therefore not creatively enabling. I ultimately found refuge in the Sound Devices 702 digital field recorder.

Full Metal (Noise) Jockey: The Sound Devices 702 digital audio recorder.

Sound Devices has taken the world of production audio by storm with bulletproof products whose price, while higher than many consumer models, establishes a new value baseline. Professionals have far more advanced models than this: models with more tracks, time code, and such ( those who can spend 6 bills swear by the Cantar, for example). For me, this unit has hit a sweet spot.

• HD Audio (24-bit, 192kHz)
• Built to operate in intense heat and bitter cold
• Amazing interface for such a complex device
• The brightest LED’s I’ve ever seen anywhere
• Ultra-flexible signal routing (mono, dual mono, XY stereo, or MS stereo)
• Visual output concentrated on only one side
• Richly tactile control knobs
• All-metal construction
• Recording to multiple cards or disks at once
• Small (about the size of a hardcover book)!

I’m not sure what to say here that others haven’t already said elsewhere about this very impressive machine. But upgrading to this level of machine reminded me of several lessons that, despite my advancing years, I still don’t always learn.

• Rent the nicer unit before buying the cheaper unit. I spent almost 50% of the cost of the 702 on other recording devices on my way towards it, and I should have rented all of these units, if possible, to really assess their usability characteristics. (On the other hand, the Zoom H2 is ultra-light and can be taken where the 702 can’t, and now I have a backup with the FR2-LE in my gear closet, so all three still do get use.)
• Be bold with your research, specifically searching the name of the product you’re evaluating along with terms like “glitch,” “problem,” “error,” and even “catastrophic failure.” These little boxes are all expensive, objectively, so know what you’re getting into. Product and industry forums are your friend.
• High price never means perfection. “High price” is subjective, and you can never assume that next level up will solve all your problems. Even the 702 has its quirks, often due to its inherent (usually beneficial) complexity.

At the end of the day, every device – from watches to cars – has its quirks and strengths. Just know what headaches you can live with and which ones will drive you crazy. A consumer’s self-knowledge is as important as feature sets. For me, the (very limited) caveats of the 702 don’t get in my way, which frees my mind to really focus on the recording.

Today’s audio clip is a 30-second snippet of some frogs in a riparian canyon not far from my home. It was an incredibly blustery day, hence the mid-high frequency hiss in the background. I hunched down as best as I could on a tiny dry patch in the middle of a stream. I had to sit for about five minutes for the frogs to start up again, being spooked by my presence. The frogs remained unseen, but one must have been right in front of my shotgun mic, pretty loud and clear.

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[Røde NTG-2 mic, Sound Devices 702 field recorder]

Gateway Drug to Bigger Toys: The Fostex FR2-LE

(Part 2 of a 3-part series: Part 1 | Part 3)

The Fostex FR2-LE: superb value, challenging ergonomics in the field.

Ah, yes. This little minx of a box was so very enticing and lovely: 24-bit recording, 96kHz sample rate, two solid and quiet mic preamps, pre-record buffers, FireWire, stupid-proof record button mechanism…why didn’t my relationship with the Fostex FR2-LE work out in the long run?

Now, before we begin, don’t let me lead you astray: I loved the FR2-LE…for a while. Many, many people will love it as their one-and-only field recorder, and that’s awesome. It’s an insane value, especially if you get it (as I did) as a refurbished unit or one with cosmetic issues. For the price, you make some compromises – all plastic construction, noisy headphone amp – but in terms of pure value, seriously, nothing can touch it.

I upgraded from the Zoom H2 because the H2’s external-microphone preamp was noisier than a colic child at a wake. Trying to plugging decent mics into it to get a clean sound was a total non-starter. With the FR2-LE (doesn’t that just roll off the tongue?), there was so much to like. For its price class, I got the preamps I deserved – really clean, reasonably detailed. Good times.

My relationship began to sour once I really started getting into field recording in a serious way, and two things arose that were problematic. The first was its insane system of needing to format Compact Flash cards for either mono or stereo. Yes, you had to switch cards to go from mono to stereo. Talk about killing the moment.

But the other was the physical interface. Now’s a good time to remind my readers that I’m a professional interface designer, and I totally realize that price point and device complexity are huge constraints in designing a great user interface for a device as deep as this one. The FR2-LE’s biggest failing is its controls being laid out on two sides of the device. This device is meant to be used while hanging around your neck; it has LED audio meters on the top, but they’re so pale as to be literally invisible in the daylight. If you want to see the much clearer LCD audio meters, they’re on the side (from your point of view with it around your neck). In order to see it without using another hand, you need to extend your belly, or use a knee, or some other kind of contortion. I’d need to drink a whole lot more beer to get enough of a gut to be able to see this data without A) using a second hand (uh, what if I’m holding a boompole?) or B) looking like a hunchback in need of a pee break. If Fostex fixed those top LED meters, I’d still be using this unit daily. I  bought a signal mirror and gaffer-taped it to the inside of its case, just so I could see those controls without needing to angle the FR2-LE in just the right way.

Invectives aside, after about twenty excursions, I started to realize that this was going to drive me mad. This just wasn’t for me and how I wanted to work, ergonomically speaking. (Again, props to all who love the unit, such as Ric Viers of the Sound Effects Bible and many at the Nature Recordists group.) For now, it sits as a rainy-day backup unit in case my newer recorder needs servicing, or if I need two additional tracks for recording a tricky subject. What’s supplanted the FR2-LE in my daily recording? More on that in an upcoming post.

For this post’s audio clip, here are some cool groaning metal samples from a cow gate in the hills of western Marin County, California. Rusty and resonant, just how I like it!

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[Røde NTG-2 mic, Fostex FR2-LE recorder]

Lightweight Mic Stands in the Field

Small photo light stands provide perfect mic support!

It’s always a struggle to take just enough with you into the field without being encumbered by gear that’s too heavy or too bulky, especially if you need to hike or schlep any appreciable distance to get to your location. My strategy is to ensure that everything I take with me is flexible, modular, and lightweight.

Being an avid photographer, I’ve been a longtime fan of David Hobby’s Strobist blog, where he focuses on maximum impact from incredibly portable equipment. Applying this knowledge to field recording has been not only easy, but some of the equipment can do double-duty. Hobby loves the Manfrotto 001B nano light stand (formerly the 3373) : It’s two pounds and collapses to 19″ in length. I’ve found it to be stellar for small flash units, so I decided to adopt it for audio recording as well.

I decided that the rest of my kit should be about the same length, as it fits perfectly in many bags that I own. I added a cheap On Stage telescoping mic boom, using a 3/8″ to 5/8″ adapter for mounting a pistol grip or windscreen, and a K-Tek KE-79 boompole. Finally, my Røde Blimp windscreen even fits into this range.

This kind of planning echoes some great backpacking advice I once got: buy your pack last, after you have everything else. All of these items now fit handily in a messenger bag or backpack, or you can even use bungee cords to strap it all together and throw it over your shoulder. Most importantly, though, they also fit inside most carry-on luggage. In high winds they might not be perfect, but I’m happy to sacrifice some weight for portability – besides, one can always weigh the stands down with one’s (now empty) bag, the field recorder itself, or your own fat arse.

The photo in this post features two Manfrotto 001B’s in a hyper-reverberant cow tunnel under Lucas Valley Road in Marin County, California…oddly enough, this is one of my favorite places to record (shown here at dawn, when there’s less traffic), and it’s about 1/4 mile away from world-famous Skywalker Sound. I set up my old Zoom H2 and a Røde NT4 stereo mic to compare their sounds. The NT4 (feeding into a Fostex FR2-LE,with which I had a tumultuous relationship) captured the crisp articulation of a rock being thrown in the tunnel (its original subtle phasing now lost to MP3 compression, sadly, but you’ll get the picture).

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[Røde NT4 stereo microphone into Fostex FR2-LE field recorder]

The Gateway Drug: Samson Zoom H2

(Part 1 of a 3-part series: Part 2 | Part 3)

The ultimate rule of gathering, be it audio, photography, video, or butterflies, is this: The best tool in the world is the one you have with you. (Not sure who came up with this first, but I heard it initally from Chase Jarvis.)

The humble Zoom H2; even with higher-tech alternatives, still a viable tool.

My first dedicated audio recorder was the Samson Zoom H2, a cheap plastic box packed with four microphone capsules and a teensy screen. Its quirks and dull sound, however, are secondary to its pocket-sized form factor that lets you record stereo (or even semi-surround, using all four mics at once) literally anywhere. I’ve captured tons of sounds with the H2 that I’ve had missed if I carried more “serious” audio equipment with me (which I’ve since upgraded to, and you’ll read more about in the coming weeks).

One such example is this slice of urban ambience, replete with a heated street argument, shot out of a third-story window in San Francisco’s Mission District.

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[Zoom H2, 120°-spread rear mic pair]