Some microphone Q's (1 Viewer)

For making bird sound recordings, I use an ordinary $10 microphone that is attached to the microphone jack on my laptop. The sounds are recorded in Windows Sound Recorder, at 187kbps, PCM 48.000 kHz, 16-bit, stereo. I'm not sure what all of that means, and the recordings are great: assuming the birds are very close to the window, where the mic sits. This isn't a problem, as there are always birds at my feeders. However, there is still a noticeable hum or hiss. Whether this is from the microphone, or simply the bitrate of the recording I wouldn't know.

Here is an example of a Steller's Jay I recorded last year: I love this recording, but it would be even better if I could eliminate the noise(it's best heard through headphones--if you listen carefully, you can hear the jay land on the deck that's right by the window): Steller's Jay MP3

Is there a reasonably inexpensive microphone(under $100)which would improve things on that aspect, or otherwise amplify the sounds it picks up(it needn't be perfect)? I've seen the Telinga parabolic mics at Naturesongs.com: those would be wonderful if they weren't so expensive! :eek!:

I've looked online at microphones, and there are so many that it's confusing. I also wonder whether a unidirectional or omnidirectional mic would be best for recording sounds through my window. Also, I'd like the mic to be compatible with my computer's microphone jack, so that I could make audio CDs of the sounds for safe keeping.

Do any of you fellow bird-lovers have any experience with this sort of thing? I'm a major beginner.

The hiss is due to background noise -wind is an especially bad culprit, but also distant traffic and aircraft. I had the same problem earlier this year when I was recording at nests with a basic digital dictophone. A parabolic mic would help a lot.

You may be able to remove it from the digital recordings using better software (do a google for sonagram or sonogram, software etc), as the hiss will be restricted to a certain frequency range (usually low), and will be distinct from most higher-pitched bird calls. You should, therefore, be able to isolate the calls. If you're not doing so already, I'd recommend that you make some sonagrams to look at the calls, as it adds a whole different dimension to handling/using/analysing/playing with them

Offord said:

The hiss is due to background noise -wind is an especially bad culprit, but also distant traffic and aircraft. I had the same problem earlier this year when I was recording at nests with a basic digital dictophone. A parabolic mic would help a lot.

You may be able to remove it from the digital recordings using better software (do a google for sonagram or sonogram, software etc), as the hiss will be restricted to a certain frequency range (usually low), and will be distinct from most higher-pitched bird calls. You should, therefore, be able to isolate the calls. If you're not doing so already, I'd recommend that you make some sonagrams to look at the calls, as it adds a whole different dimension to handling/using/analysing/playing with them

Click to expand...

I noticed that even when I recorded my parakeet and zebra finches, I can still hear a sort of hum, which is probably from the microphone itself. I've seen Sony mics that are supposed to reduce background noise, not sure if that would matter or not.

Hi,

Not sure what microphone prices are like over in the states, but over here in Britain they are high.

For high quality, noise free recordings you will need to use something like a Sennheiser rifle mic possibly coupled with a parabolic dish (plus a wind sock - like a big wooly sausage - will cut down wind noise).

The following link is a paper worthy of reading by Cornell University

http://dwickstrom.com/or_bird.htm

As you can see, top end equipment is very costly, but it is possible to make do with budget alternatives as suggested in the article plus it lists US suppliers - you could also browse the on-line auction sites as I did for my kit.

On of the reasons for the hum could be that if your mic is on the same surface (i.e. a table or shelf) as the PC, the vibration of the internal fan is being transmitted through the surface to the mic and being recorded (parabolic dishes are designed with rubber mounts to prevent exactly this type of mechanical noise being picked up!).

If you're not doing so already, I'd recommend that you make some sonagrams to look at the calls, as it adds a whole different dimension to handling/using/analysing/playing with them

Click to expand...

I agree with Offord that this does make a big difference to looking at the sound recordings, and there is plenty of sonogram software available as freeware/shareware on the net.

Good luck with the recordings & I hope you have plenty of success.

I just remembered that I do have software which creates sonograms: Audacity, which is a nifty program.

On Amazon.com, I've found a shotgun microphone which can amplify sounds up to 100 meters away: this seems to be what I'm looking for. I don't know if it would work with my laptop, but I don't see why it wouldn't: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t..._1/104-4587254-7120702?v=glance&s=pc&n=507846

It records only in mono, but I doubt that would affect me much: I've been completely deaf in my left ear since birth, which means I can't hear stereo effects anyway. ||

Even if it doesn't eliminate noise, the amplification alone should help a great deal. Would a parabolic dish or something similar be needed as well?

Lastly, thanks for the info, I'll let you all know how everything turns out.

Looks like a good piece of kit - I would say that whils a parabolic dish will enhance your sound recordings, this mic looks like it should give good performance straight out of the box.


Probably a good idea to put a parabolic dish (like the Telinga) on your Christmas or birthday list.

HouseFinch said:

It records only in mono, but I doubt that would affect me much: I've been completely deaf in my left ear since birth, which means I can't hear stereo effects anyway. ||

Even if it doesn't eliminate noise, the amplification alone should help a great deal. Would a parabolic dish or something similar be needed as well?

Lastly, thanks for the info, I'll let you all know how everything turns out.

Click to expand...

My understanding is that when recording birdsongs, unless trying to record two or more birds at once, mono is just fine.

The best way to increase the volume of your recordings is to get closer to the singing bird. A parabola is also useful for increasing volume as it directs the sound waves to the mic. Shotgun mics are good because they have high directionality, thus recording whatever you have it pointed at and excluding background/off-axis noise.

Try browsing website for the Macauley Library at Cornell, a treasure trove of information: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/macaulaylibrary/

Brad

HouseFinch said:

On Amazon.com, I've found a shotgun microphone which can amplify sounds up to 100 meters away: this seems to be what I'm looking for. I don't know if it would work with my laptop, but I don't see why it wouldn't: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t..._1/104-4587254-7120702?v=glance&s=pc&n=507846

It records only in mono, but I doubt that would affect me much: I've been completely deaf in my left ear since birth, which means I can't hear stereo effects anyway. ||

Even if it doesn't eliminate noise, the amplification alone should help a great deal. Would a parabolic dish or something similar be needed as well?

Click to expand...

That seems to be a very similar type of mic that I use to record and ID Crossbills with - I use it on the "tele" setting unless the birds are very near. Produces a bit of noise but then I am not looking to win awards - merely ID the birds on a sonogram. I use Sony MZ-710 Minidisc.

Mic has taken a real beaten in the last two years ( rain, snow, -15 - + 25 )and is still going strong. I agree that a Telinga would produce much better results - but £320 cheapest in Uk if you can get them !

I would recommend you give that mic a try for that dollar price.


Linz

Lindsay Cargill said:

That seems to be a very similar type of mic that I use to record and ID Crossbills with - I use it on the "tele" setting unless the birds are very near. Produces a bit of noise but then I am not looking to win awards - merely ID the birds on a sonogram. I use Sony MZ-710 Minidisc.

Mic has taken a real beaten in the last two years ( rain, snow, -15 - + 25 )and is still going strong. I agree that a Telinga would produce much better results - but £320 cheapest in Uk if you can get them !

I would recommend you give that mic a try for that dollar price.


Linz

Click to expand...

Ah, snow. I would love to record bird sounds in the snow! Unfortunately, we don't get much here on the Pacific Coast, being so low in elevation. Global warming doesn't help much either. ||

I did end up ordering it: it shipped yesterday, and I keep going to Amazon.com to track the order(apparently it's in Salt Lake City currently). I imagine it'll come next week sometime, as I've had good experience with their delivery times, even with free shipping.

I'm really looking forward to getting it. It seems to be very versatile, which will come in handy when I record 'my' feeder birds: all those American Goldfinches and House Finches, and in a few months, Golden-crowned Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos(the Juncos only seem to come around in autumn, winter, and early spring, even though they're supposedly resident).

MP3 attachment??

HouseFinch said:

Here is an example of a Steller's Jay I recorded last year: I love this recording, but it would be even better if I could eliminate the noise(it's best heard through headphones--if you listen carefully, you can hear the jay land on the deck that's right by the window): Steller's Jay MP3

Is there a reasonably inexpensive microphone(under $100)which would improve things on that aspect, or otherwise amplify the sounds it picks up(it needn't be perfect)? I've seen the Telinga parabolic mics at Naturesongs.com: those would be wonderful if they weren't so expensive! :eek!:

Click to expand...

HouseFinch - how did you attach the link to the MP3? I have run your recording through a programme called Audio Cleaning Lab and got some good results and would like to post the result. Looking at the permitted attachments MP3 is not there, so I'm a bit stumped.

Most of the noise is in the 50 - 60 Hz area, tailing off as it approaches 5kHz, also there are lots of silent areas (no birdsong) which made it easy to sample and clean.

My result is not BBC quality, but I only spent a couple of minutes taking a 'noise sample' and did not try refining the filtered frequencies, so I could probably have got better results with a bit more time.

Mike

Mike D said:

HouseFinch - how did you attach the link to the MP3? I have run your recording through a programme called Audio Cleaning Lab and got some good results and would like to post the result. Looking at the permitted attachments MP3 is not there, so I'm a bit stumped.

Most of the noise is in the 50 - 60 Hz area, tailing off as it approaches 5kHz, also there are lots of silent areas (no birdsong) which made it easy to sample and clean.

My result is not BBC quality, but I only spent a couple of minutes taking a 'noise sample' and did not try refining the filtered frequencies, so I could probably have got better results with a bit more time.

Mike

Click to expand...

I didn't actually attach the MP3: I remote-linked it. I have it hosted on a site called Ripway, and I simply added the link into my post.

The other day I downloaded a free program called WavePad, and I ran the file through a noise removal filter, and was able to remove all of the noise save for the jay's calls(I might post it later). Unfortunately, it also took out a crow calling in the background, which I would like to have kept, but, oh well. The noise filter only worked this well for the jay call, since in most of my other recordings, the bird calls sort of blend in with the noise, and aren't much louder than it. I'm hoping if my new microphone, in a sense, makes bird sounds closer, that shouldn't matter anymore.

I have been experimenting with making my own recording equipment. It is nice to have a place to see what others have done.

HouseFinch said:

For making bird sound recordings, I use an ordinary $10 microphone that is attached to the microphone jack on my laptop. The sounds are recorded in Windows Sound Recorder, at 187kbps, PCM 48.000 kHz, 16-bit, stereo. I'm not sure what all of that means, and the recordings are great: assuming the birds are very close to the window, where the mic sits. This isn't a problem, as there are always birds at my feeders. However, there is still a noticeable hum or hiss. Whether this is from the microphone, or simply the bitrate of the recording I wouldn't know.

Here is an example of a Steller's Jay I recorded last year: I love this recording, but it would be even better if I could eliminate the noise(it's best heard through headphones--if you listen carefully, you can hear the jay land on the deck that's right by the window): Steller's Jay MP3

Is there a reasonably inexpensive microphone(under $100)which would improve things on that aspect, or otherwise amplify the sounds it picks up(it needn't be perfect)? I've seen the Telinga parabolic mics at Naturesongs.com: those would be wonderful if they weren't so expensive! :eek!:

I've looked online at microphones, and there are so many that it's confusing. I also wonder whether a unidirectional or omnidirectional mic would be best for recording sounds through my window. Also, I'd like the mic to be compatible with my computer's microphone jack, so that I could make audio CDs of the sounds for safe keeping.

Do any of you fellow bird-lovers have any experience with this sort of thing? I'm a major beginner.

Click to expand...

Couldn't get to the linked file anymore, so I can't hear what's going on, but have you considered that the hiss may come from the soundcard? Laptop soundcards are notorious for adding noise due to all of the electronic components jammed in that box together. The fact that you mentioned there's a hum as well as hiss made me think that this is a possibility. You can "cure" this by buying an external usb soundcard, someof which are pretty decent for less than $100.

Here's another way you might record songs in the garden cheaply: instead of investing in the microphone, buy a longer cord, and rig up the microphone close to where the birds are calling/singing - if you can predict when and where they are likely to call.

Rob

lachlustre said:

Couldn't get to the linked file anymore, so I can't hear what's going on, but have you considered that the hiss may come from the soundcard? Laptop soundcards are notorious for adding noise due to all of the electronic components jammed in that box together. The fact that you mentioned there's a hum as well as hiss made me think that this is a possibility. You can "cure" this by buying an external usb soundcard, someof which are pretty decent for less than $100.

Here's another way you might record songs in the garden cheaply: instead of investing in the microphone, buy a longer cord, and rig up the microphone close to where the birds are calling/singing - if you can predict when and where they are likely to call.

Rob

Click to expand...

Currently, I'm using my Audio Technica microphone with a 6-foot cord that leads from my computer to the stand where the mic is propped(it's indoors, I open the window to record sounds). Since the mic itself is external, I'm not sure how computer noise would influence it. I think it's just the mic itself, since I have a cheaper alternative to a more expensive type, such as a Telinga(one of those would be my dream mic, but way beyond my budget ).

Here's a recording of some House Finches I created yesterday while they visited my feeders: House Finches

It certainly does a good job of 'grabbing' the sounds, I just have to contend with a little noise as well.

HouseFinch said:

Currently, I'm using my Audio Technica microphone with a 6-foot cord that leads from my computer to the stand where the mic is propped(it's indoors, I open the window to record sounds). Since the mic itself is external, I'm not sure how computer noise would influence it. I think it's just the mic itself, since I have a cheaper alternative to a more expensive type, such as a Telinga(one of those would be my dream mic, but way beyond my budget ).

Here's a recording of some House Finches I created yesterday while they visited my feeders: House Finches

It certainly does a good job of 'grabbing' the sounds, I just have to contend with a little noise as well.

Click to expand...

I'm afraid my browser gave me an error on that link (Playlist not recognized)... maybe because I'm using a mac (windows media files sometimes don't work that well, although they ought to...).

What I meant about the laptop noise is the following (and sorry in advance if you know all this): your computer's soundcard has to convert the analog electric signal coming from the microphone into a digital signal. Once the signal is digital, lets assume it is more or less fixed. However, the analog signal itself can be disrupted by all the other electromagnetic components in the computer. Also, the analog-digital conversion itself can be done more or less cleanly depending on the quality of the soundcard.

Therefore different computers and different soundcards can strongly influence the recording quality. In particular, laptops, where everything is jammed together in a small volume, and where sound-chips tend not to be priorities are notorious for having less than great sound. Just like with the microphone, you can spend any amount of money you choose to address this problem. But you can buy decent USB soundcards, where the AD converter sits outside the main computer for not much money ($50-$100). Maybe you already have a good soundcard in your computer, and I'm talking hot air here...

On the other hand, having a cheap, non-directional microphone means that the recordings are likely to be quite faint. This DOES mean that any limitations with the soundcard/A-D conversion will be amplified.

I certainly haven't tested many microphones thoroughly, so take the following with a pinch of salt, but I doubt that the microphone is *generating* much noise per se. As far as I know, what you pay for with microphones is the quality of frequency response. Expensive microphones record sounds of a wide a range of frequencies equally loudly. The good news is that bird song, which is often tonal, and at a similar frequency range to music/human hearing, often sounds not too bad through quite cheap mics.

lachlustre said:

I'm afraid my browser gave me an error on that link (Playlist not recognized)... maybe because I'm using a mac (windows media files sometimes don't work that well, although they ought to...).

Click to expand...

Try this link:
House Finches

It's an MP3, so it should be downloadable by virtually any computer music/sound player.

If the noise is due to my computer itself, I reckon I'm stuck. The noise isn't any more or any less than my old laptop. At least it's not worse.

HouseFinch said:

Try this link:
House Finches

It's an MP3, so it should be downloadable by virtually any computer music/sound player.

If the noise is due to my computer itself, I reckon I'm stuck. The noise isn't any more or any less than my old laptop. At least it's not worse.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I downloaded the recording, and played about with it a bit, and compared it to *my* $10 microphone, that's been sitting getting beat up at the bottom of a chest. I also re-read your earlier posts and did some thinking. Some observations and questions:
1) The hiss in this recording could be partly from the soundcard. There's a slight hum that makes me a bit suspicious.
2) Have you normalized the amplitude of your recording? If not, then the hiss is much louder than you should expect, even given a cheap microphone & soundcard. My cheap mic (and it really is cheap), plugged into my laptop sound card sounds much better without any amplification. On the other hand, I got some weird noises when I plugged the mic into my usb-soundcard which I bought for playback purposes. This shouldn't happen... USB soundcards should be a big step up from a laptop card, so... hmmm. I will try to use the mic with my Marantz field recorder, when I can get it from work. That is normally very clean, so will give a good reference of how much noise you should expect from a cheap mic alone.
3) Is your mic for this recording the $50 audiotechnica gun mike you referred to last year, or the $10 mike you started with on this thread? I'd be curious to hear your experiences with the former, since I'm looking for a cheap-ish mic for a biomonitoring experiment.
4) How far away are the birds you are recording? If they are always sitting on the feeder, have you considered running a cable to the feeder and leaving a cheap-ish omni-directional microphone on the feeder? I bet you could get some great recordings that way...

I'll let you know the outcome of my test...
Rob

Yes, the mic I'm using is the ATR55 that I bought last year: with it, I can hear birds in the background that I otherwise wouldn't hear with my old mic.

I do amplify my recordings, so that I don't have to turn the volume up uncomfortably loud to hear them. I've never normalized them however, I just usually run them through a hiss filter in Adobe Audition(The finch file is unedited, however--it's just been amplified and not filtered).

Some of that humming may be due to the outdoor unit of our heat pump, which unfortunately is located on the same side of the house as my bird feeders! |=o| On a cold morning, like yesterday when I recorded a Varied Thrush for the first time, the heat pump was running and there was no way I could avoid it.

There is always hiss in my recordings, which could very well be due to the compactness of my laptop. I tried to make a recording on my stepmother's desktop, but for some reason sounds wouldn't register in the recording, even though my microphone was connected.