Eviepoohs said:
Can anyone help? I am currently making recordings of Tawny Owls calling right outside my window. I have only a small digital camera which allows me to download the sound onto the computer. Unfortunatley the camera also records itself at the same time! So I get a lovely Owl recording with the camera providing the backing!. How can I, without spending a fortune, record the calls and then get them onto the computer for editing?
As always with equipment, there's a sliding scale of options depending on how much money you want to spend!
If the owl's right outside the window, you could buy a cheap microphone (ca GBP 20) and hook it directly up to the microphone jack on your computer - assuming your computer is near enough to the window/could be moved there. You can then record directly onto your hard-disk.
I'd highly recommend the free computer program "Audacity" (
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) as a sound editing program - it even shows sonograms! If you want a professional-looking sonogram of the owl, another great free program (it's an academic research project) is SoundAnalysis Pro (
http://ofer.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/html/body_sound_analysis.html). But this will involve a greater cost in time getting to learn it.
If you have a laptop or your computer's soundcard isn't that great, you might still be unhappy with the audio quality. Rather than hearing the camera, you might possibly hear the computer's innards instead. But computer soundcards have improved rapidly, so I'd definitely test this first. The next obvious step would be to buy a usb soundcard (ca GBP 50).
If you can't record to the computer, then things get more difficult. Many scientists are still making high quality field recordings with Sony Professional Walkmans - cassette recorders. You can pick them up quite cheaply on ebay (< GBP 40). Wow - I just noticed that the starting bid for a Professional Walkman + Sony microphone together is GBP 25. That could be a good deal, I think.
If you record onto a cassette, you still have to digitize it the sounds, and you should make sure you have a soundcard on your computer with "Line-In" as well as "Microphone" inputs to do this. You may have to buy a cable from your local audio store for one or two pounds to connect the tape player to your soundcard.
If the owl isn't as close as you think it is, or if there is a lot of background noise, then you might still be disappointed with the quality of your recordings. The next step is to buy a directional microphone, and this is where, as far as I know it is difficult not to "spend a fortune", since these are a niche product, really. Gun-mikes from Sennheiser typically cost a couple of hundred pounds.
Hope this helps,
Rob
