Sound recording

[Darryl of Sussex]

I need something that will record high quality sound and which is easily portable, hopefully pocket sized, to take on woodland walks.

Does anyone have any experience of such things?

Many thanks,

Darryl

 

[garethw]

It's not so much the recorder as the microphone. To get the best quality recordings you need a good quality mic. I'd suggest a directional shotgun type mic. Rode or Sennhieser are the ones I use for video work.
As far as a recorder goes. Zoom make good ones, as do Tascam. You'd probably need one with XLR inputs if you want to plug in an external mic. All the pocket recorders have build in mics, but they are not the best quality and not very directional. I have the Zoom H4n which is a nice recorder.

If you don't want to splash out on a recorder separate mic, the Zoom H1 is not bad..It doesn't have XLR inputs though.. you could try it with its own built in mics to see if that is good enough. They cost about £70 or £80. I'm sure you can pick them up second hand on Ebay.

What ever mic you use, the built in or separate, wind protection is vital if you want good recordings. Rode make windjammers for shotgun mics and for the recorders I believe.

Oh and don't forget some decent headphones so you can hear what you record..
cheers Gareth

 

[Klenchblaize]

https://www.hhb.co.uk/product/tascam-dr-44wl/3280/

K

 

[garethw]

https://www.hhb.co.uk/product/tascam-dr-44wl/3280/

K

That's expensive especially as it's ex VAT.. The Zoom H4n Pro is better value.. I've bought several items here.. cheaper even with shipping.
https://www.thomann.de

 

[Darryl of Sussex]

Thanks very much for the suggestions. I’m on the case.

Best wishes,

Darryl

 

[Laurentius]

It's not so much the recorder as the microphone. To get the best quality recordings you need a good quality mic. I'd suggest a directional shotgun type mic. Rode or Sennhieser are the ones I use for video work.
As far as a recorder goes. Zoom make good ones, as do Tascam. You'd probably need one with XLR inputs if you want to plug in an external mic. All the pocket recorders have build in mics, but they are not the best quality and not very directional. I have the Zoom H4n which is a nice recorder.

If you don't want to splash out on a recorder separate mic, the Zoom H1 is not bad..It doesn't have XLR inputs though.. you could try it with its own built in mics to see if that is good enough. They cost about £70 or £80. I'm sure you can pick them up second hand on Ebay.

What ever mic you use, the built in or separate, wind protection is vital if you want good recordings. Rode make windjammers for shotgun mics and for the recorders I believe.

Oh and don't forget some decent headphones so you can hear what you record..
cheers Gareth

I think you are right there. So far as the recording device goes I can remember going from mono cassette recorder to stereo cassette recorder to microcassette recorder to digital recorder skipping the minidisc recorderr in the process, now there seems to be nothing that your smart phone cannot do, for example it can record video with much higher pixel count than was ever imaginable with my first dv camcorder, and without tape, however it is still at the mercy of the tiny lens so yes the initial stage of capture is very important, if the mike can't pick it up or just picks up wind noise then no matter how high quality the recording you will not be getting very much from it.