Quality Parabolic Mic (1 Viewer)

Hi there,

I'm a student studying communications at Keystone College in La Plume, PA. I'm a 41 year old freshman. Never too late, I guess. Anyhow, I'm going to be doing an independent undergraduate research project about crow calls, comparing them to human languages to determine if they follow Zipf's law. I need to find a Parabolic Microphone with the following qualities:

1) I must be able to listen and record at the same time
2) It must be able to record to a digital recorder
3) Should be in the price range of $100-$200

If anyone has any suggestions, or can suggest something better than a parabolic mic, I'm all ears.

As an aside: I'm writing my own software for this experiment, and I'd love to have some crow calls to test it with. It don't have to buy the equipment until the end of the semester. Until then, though, I'd like to have my software working and ready to go. If anyone can donate crow call recordings on dropbox or a similar service, I'd be grateful. High quality is best, but I'll take what I can get. The more variety, the longer, and the louder the better.

Thanks all. Loving the forums so far.

Joe

Sorry, can't help with any info regarding microphones, but can help with the obligatory link to xeno-canto.

I assume you mean `American crow' when you refer to calls. There are 68 available on xeno-canto, and if you decide to branch out into other species of crow you'll find those there too.

Andrea

I'm not in position to comment on parabolic mic, but, I am not aware of any digital recorders that do not allow you to plug in a set of headphones and monitor the microphone input whether you are recording or in standby. The speakers that are built into a recorder are good for checking that you have recorded something, but not much else.

I am considering building my own, but havn't had the time or the space recently.

You may find this website useful. http://www.wildlife-sound.org/index.html

You will find much useful information about microphone options buried in it and the members may be able to help.

Best of luck, it sounds quite a challenge, at least the crow family generally provide lots of data!

kitefarrago said:

Sorry, can't help with any info regarding microphones, but can help with the obligatory link to xeno-canto.

I assume you mean `American crow' when you refer to calls. There are 68 available on xeno-canto, and if you decide to branch out into other species of crow you'll find those there too.

Andrea

Click to expand...

I did indeed mean 'American Crow' and I apologize for not being specific. And thanks for the site. That's just what I need to test the software out.

iveljay said:

I'm not in position to comment on parabolic mic, but, I am not aware of any digital recorders that do not allow you to plug in a set of headphones and monitor the microphone input whether you are recording or in standby. The speakers that are built into a recorder are good for checking that you have recorded something, but not much else.

I am considering building my own, but havn't had the time or the space recently.

You may find this website useful. http://www.wildlife-sound.org/index.html

You will find much useful information about microphone options buried in it and the members may be able to help.

Best of luck, it sounds quite a challenge, at least the crow family generally provide lots of data!

Click to expand...

That website is awesome, and immediately bore fruit. They have a beginner's section, which was exactly what I needed. They also have equipment reviews. Thank you so much!

iveljay said:

I'm not in position to comment on parabolic mic, but, I am not aware of any digital recorders that do not allow you to plug in a set of headphones and monitor the microphone input whether you are recording or in standby. The speakers that are built into a recorder are good for checking that you have recorded something, but not much else.

Click to expand...

The ability to monitor is determined by the recorder, not the microphone. If you already have the recorder, does it allow for a mic with XLR connectors and phantom power, or only Plug In Powered (PiP)?

I've seen 2’ acrylic parabolas on eBay for $80 with microphone, or he will sell just the dish and you can add your own. See http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/330968934095

I've no idea of the quality of the mics he uses, but I would have bought one to try already if the postage to Australia wasn't so high. That size parabola seems to be commonly used for bird recordings. Anything bigger is unwieldy, anything smaller loses too much of the low frequencies. Google Telinga for a look at some more expensive versions.

dogboi said:

Hi there,

I'm a student studying communications at Keystone College in La Plume, PA. I'm a 41 year old freshman. Never too late, I guess. Anyhow, I'm going to be doing an independent undergraduate research project about crow calls, comparing them to human languages to determine if they follow Zipf's law. I need to find a Parabolic Microphone with the following qualities:

1) I must be able to listen and record at the same time
2) It must be able to record to a digital recorder
3) Should be in the price range of $100-$200

If anyone has any suggestions, or can suggest something better than a parabolic mic, I'm all ears.

As an aside: I'm writing my own software for this experiment, and I'd love to have some crow calls to test it with. It don't have to buy the equipment until the end of the semester. Until then, though, I'd like to have my software working and ready to go. If anyone can donate crow call recordings on dropbox or a similar service, I'd be grateful. High quality is best, but I'll take what I can get. The more variety, the longer, and the louder the better.

Thanks all. Loving the forums so far.

Joe

Click to expand...

Joe,

Can't help you with parabolic mics, don't like them but not hard to make iof you can find the parabolic shaped reflector... I built one once but didn't like the frequency response, to high for the American Crow anyhow, you need something that picks up low frequencies around 500 hz with flat frequency response... I use a pair of Sennheiser ME-66/K6 mics and a Olympus LS-11 for handheld or a larger 4 or 6 microphone array using a Marantz PMD661 recorder and a pair of Sound Devices 3 channel portable field mixers. The 4 or 6 microphone array is more of a long range tripod mounted setup. It was built more for recording the local Coyote pack but I have a family of crows (6 or 8 is not a murder in my book) raising young in the trees around my place pretty regularly... They are surprisingly social... Follows is a link to photos, videos, and recordings:

http://www.4shared.com/folder/qkNXaqK_/Crows.html

fmhill said:

Can't help you with parabolic mics, don't like them but not hard to make iof you can find the parabolic shaped reflector... I built one once but didn't like the frequency response, to high for the American Crow anyhow, you need something that picks up low frequencies around 500 hz with flat frequency response.[/url]

Click to expand...

What size parabola did you build? What size would be required for crows?

pshute said:

What size parabola did you build? What size would be required for crows?

Click to expand...

Hi Peter,

Size for crow sounds? American Crows make a very complex sound loaded with harmonics and the base (prime?) is about 500 hz based on spectrogram I have made of recordings made using a ME66/K6 microphone and a LS-11 recorder... As to what size parabola would be optimum, I would refer you to the following information:

http://www.wildlife-sound.org/equipment/stereo_parabol/

http://www.coe.montana.edu/ee/rmaher/publications/maher_aac_0805.pdf

For my experiments I found a stainless steel commercial wok about 1/2 meter in diameter that has a good parabolic shape. My initial test was to see how well it focused the sun's rays and it had a very sharp focal point about 2cm above the rim. This Wok parabola (as purchased, no additional polishing) would burn holes in a narrow softwood (white Pine) stick I was laying across it to find the focal point where to position the microphone... It worked quite well for small migratory bird sounds such as Warblers but I was looking for lower pitched sounds, mainly the waterfowl and crows that are native to this coastal area. And I quickly realized it was lacking gain at the frequencies I was interested in...

I have found Sennheiser ME66/K6 shotgun mics do a much better job and are much less clumsy to handle. For a while, I has an ongoing watch on E-bay for Sennheiser ME series microphones and I presently have a collection of 5 ME/K6 as well as a pair of R0DE NTG-3 which is a comparable shotgun to the ME66/K6 mics but without the battery power option... I often put two ME66 and the two NTG-3 in a 2 x 2 side by side stereo array which works very well on a tripod for picking distant sounds and has much better frequency response than a parabolic mic in my experience and stands up better to use in our breezy coastal location..

I'm convinced the gun mics are a much better option than a parabolic mic and more versatile...

If you are interested on building a parabolic mic, there is a lot online information you can search for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_microphone

And there is a Yahoo group:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/micbuilders/

A few messages of interest:
http://tech.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/micbuilders/message/8865
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/micbuilders/message/14639

fmhill said:

Joe,

Can't help you with parabolic mics, don't like them but not hard to make iof you can find the parabolic shaped reflector... I built one once but didn't like the frequency response, to high for the American Crow anyhow, you need something that picks up low frequencies around 500 hz with flat frequency response... I use a pair of Sennheiser ME-66/K6 mics and a Olympus LS-11 for handheld or a larger 4 or 6 microphone array using a Marantz PMD661 recorder and a pair of Sound Devices 3 channel portable field mixers. The 4 or 6 microphone array is more of a long range tripod mounted setup. It was built more for recording the local Coyote pack but I have a family of crows (6 or 8 is not a murder in my book) raising young in the trees around my place pretty regularly... They are surprisingly social... Follows is a link to photos, videos, and recordings:

http://www.4shared.com/folder/qkNXaqK_/Crows.html

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I didn't know enough about Microphones to know about the frequency information, so thanks for that. While I can't afford your setup, I can build something similar using other shotgun microphones. If it isn't too much trouble, I'd love to see a picture of the tripod array setup you spoke about.

Sorry for the delay in responding, btw. I have strep and septic arthritis. It's loads of fun.

dogboi said:

Thanks for the info. I didn't know enough about Microphones to know about the frequency information, so thanks for that. While I can't afford your setup, I can build something similar using other shotgun microphones. If it isn't too much trouble, I'd love to see a picture of the tripod array setup you spoke about.

Sorry for the delay in responding, btw. I have strep and septic arthritis. It's loads of fun.

Click to expand...

Here is a link to the microphone arrays that I use:

http://www.4shared.com/folder/F1FPcina/Microphone_tests.html

Its not as expensive as you might expect. Moist of the microphones I have were purchased on E-bay. The two R0DE NTG-3 I purchased new from a retailer before I discovered that E-bay is a great source. All the used ME/K6 microphones purchased on E-bay cost me half or less than retail price and all are in like new condition... I never bought a problem microphone on E-bay...

fmhill said:

Here is a link to the microphone arrays that I use:

http://www.4shared.com/folder/F1FPcina/Microphone_tests.html

Its not as expensive as you might expect. Moist of the microphones I have were purchased on E-bay. The two R0DE NTG-3 I purchased new from a retailer before I discovered that E-bay is a great source. All the used ME/K6 microphones purchased on E-bay cost me half or less than retail price and all are in like new condition... I never bought a problem microphone on E-bay...

Click to expand...

Thanks! Good stuff. Now I have enough information to proceed. And thanks for sharing all of the great pics, videos and sound files. I really appreciate it.

Telinga is the one!

The Swedish company Telinga makes fantastic mics for bird recordings, but way overprized for this project. BUT ou can buy the Dish only and build any mic into the handle, check out telinga.com for what the offer for this purpose!. I use a PIP Stereo mic with Parabola, check out some of my recordings at http://xeno-canto.org/recordist.php?id=TLPLNAINFU
Yours Stein, Norway o