field recordings with iPod

[brougham]

Hello,

I'm new to this forum, so please forgive me if this post is redundant. I just bought a 30 GB iPod and wanted to know if anyone could give me advice about how to set it up to record birds in the field. Recommended adapters/microphones? I would appreciate any info given.

Thanks
Paul

[delia todd]

Hi Brougham and welcome from all the staff and moderators at Bird Forum.

I'm sorry I can't answer your question but I'm sure there's someone here who can, and they'll be along soon no doubt.

D

[Dave B Smith]

Brougham,
And another welcome to the Birdforum.

[ermine]

I just bought a 30 GB iPod and wanted to know if anyone could give me advice about how to set it up to record birds in the field. Recommended adapters/microphones? I would appreciate any info given.


I'm not sure you're on the right track trying to use an ipod for bird recording.This (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=94) would seem to indicate that while a video ipod is capable of recording sound, there's no input jack. Presumably you'll have to buy some pricey little i-gizmo to provide that facility, which doesn't seem to be on the market as yet AFAICS.

The quality of your recordings depends primarily on the quality of your microphones. You need directionality for bird recordings because they're not terribly approachable, which means either some sort of shotgun mike or a parabolic dish.

For okay recording your backyard birds you can use pretty much any mike designed to go with a camcorder (except one _in_ a camcorder!). For birds at distances you can see clearly with 8xbins you will get good results using something like a Sennheiser MKE300 or Rode videomic. For a little further away you need to start to get more heavyweight - a Sennheiser ME66 plus K6 powering module. For further than that you can try a ME67, and after that you're in parabolic dish mode. There is nothing that will get you a good recording if you need your scope racked out to the max to see the bird.

Noise is an issue with bird recordings - any gizmo that will enable audio input into your ipod will usually be designed for dictation, bootlegging live concerts or for musicians - all situations that have lots of sound level. It will very likely be hissy with typical bird sound levels.

So for bird recording I figure you're going to work hard to use an ipod. You need a gizmo to enable audio in. You will need an outboard preamp to overcome the noise of the gizmo. Then your mic...

A relatively cheap, low-noise alternative for field recording is a HiMD minidisk recorder, which you can get used from ebay for about $60. Next up are compact flash things like the m-audio microtrack and edirol R9, but note that these are noisy for bird recording sound levels for the same reason as any ipod audio-in gizmo will probably be too noisy - they're targeted as musicians and concert bootleggers.

You have to spend more than $1000 on a CF recorder to match the low noise of the $50-$100 HiMD input stages...

If you want a quick memo of the bird you don't need to go that far.

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=59448

shows it can be done with an earlier ipod, using a griffin Italk adapter. Which will give you the sort of quality of a voice recorder, ie lousy. There's also the remembird
http://www.remembird.com/

which will probably do a much better job.

If you do find something better for the ipod please post the details - nobody seems to have come up a good solution so far but the question has come up a couple of times.

[brougham]

Ermine--

Thanks for taking the time to give such a thorough and thoughtful reply. I really appreciate it. Wow. Now I'm clear about what I need to do. That Sony Minidisc looks like the best choice. Thanks again. If I find out anything new about the iPod, you'll be the first to know.

Best
Brougham

PS

Dave & Delia--thanks for your welcomes the the forum. This is a great place.

I'm not sure you're on the right track trying to use an ipod for bird recording.This (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=94) would seem to indicate that while a video ipod is capable of recording sound, there's no input jack. Presumably you'll have to buy some pricey little i-gizmo to provide that facility, which doesn't seem to be on the market as yet AFAICS.

The quality of your recordings depends primarily on the quality of your microphones. You need directionality for bird recordings because they're not terribly approachable, which means either some sort of shotgun mike or a parabolic dish.

For okay recording your backyard birds you can use pretty much any mike designed to go with a camcorder (except one _in_ a camcorder!). For birds at distances you can see clearly with 8xbins you will get good results using something like a Sennheiser MKE300 or Rode videomic. For a little further away you need to start to get more heavyweight - a Sennheiser ME66 plus K6 powering module. For further than that you can try a ME67, and after that you're in parabolic dish mode. There is nothing that will get you a good recording if you need your scope racked out to the max to see the bird.

Noise is an issue with bird recordings - any gizmo that will enable audio input into your ipod will usually be designed for dictation, bootlegging live concerts or for musicians - all situations that have lots of sound level. It will very likely be hissy with typical bird sound levels.

So for bird recording I figure you're going to work hard to use an ipod. You need a gizmo to enable audio in. You will need an outboard preamp to overcome the noise of the gizmo. Then your mic...

A relatively cheap, low-noise alternative for field recording is a HiMD minidisk recorder, which you can get used from ebay for about $60. Next up are compact flash things like the m-audio microtrack and edirol R9, but note that these are noisy for bird recording sound levels for the same reason as any ipod audio-in gizmo will probably be too noisy - they're targeted as musicians and concert bootleggers.

You have to spend more than $1000 on a CF recorder to match the low noise of the $50-$100 HiMD input stages...

If you want a quick memo of the bird you don't need to go that far.

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=59448

shows it can be done with an earlier ipod, using a griffin Italk adapter. Which will give you the sort of quality of a voice recorder, ie lousy. There's also the remembird
http://www.remembird.com/

which will probably do a much better job.

If you do find something better for the ipod please post the details - nobody seems to have come up a good solution so far but the question has come up a couple of times.

[delia todd]

Dave & Delia--thanks for your welcomes the the forum. This is a great place.

You're welcome Brougham and I hope you manage to get the right equipment for your needs.

And yes, they're a great bunch on this site (well most of them anyway ;) )

D

[ermine]

What I did forget to indicate was that while the Ipod may not be the first choice for recording, there's no reason to leave it at home when birding. What it does do very well is store all your bird calls, along the lines of

http://www.ibirdpod.com/

what you should not do, unless you are a researcher or otherwise have a really good reason validated by the land owners, is fit this with speakers instead of headphones and do this

http://www.noahstrycker.com/birdingipod.pdf

There appears to be a greater acceptance of that sort fo thing in US birding circles, but in ten years' time it will lead to birding locations being full of the sound of birdsong. Not coming from birds :(

However, the ipod field guide looks like a fantastic idea, and a mp3 collection of calls can really help at times.