I pass on the following appeal from David Stewart, the bird song-and-call expert, for birders to show as much interest in obtaining records of their voice as well as their appearance. In this case I am one of the guilty because for much of my life my vision has been superior to my hearing. Moreover, with age, the latter deteriorated faster!
Mike Carter 30 Canadian Bay Road Mount Eliza VIC 3930 Tel (03) 9787 7136
I’ve been enjoying this discussion, thanks everyone!Yes, earbirding.com is great, I like Nathan Piepelow’s article entitled The Microphone You Already Own – http://earbirding.com/blog/archives/2240. I can’t afford any of the equipment discussed right now, but I do have a simple voice recorder – and most people already have some means of recording – using a mobile or camera. So for those who are a bit put off by the scary equipment list that is being discussed (like me) it would be worth giving it a go with what you already have. It may not give you the quality required for serious analysis, but it’s a start, and can be great for ID purposes and also learning calls. I am trying to make it a habit to always bring my recorder with me – and as I don’t currently own an external mic, it just fits in a pocket, I just have to remember to get it out and turn it on (and then I have to remember to not start chatting with my toddler while it’s recording)!By the way, you can extract audio from recordings made on your camera using a free editing program like Virtual Dub which I have recently come across for work: http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/Someone mentioned xeno-canto – I found it very helpful for South America too. But I looked up Rockwarbler today and it’s not there! I recorded Rockwarblers during a survey in Lawson (Blue Mountains) this morning, spurred on by this discussion (first recording in ages!) but I doubt it would be of suitable quality for xeno-canto, though I’m not sure if there is a requirement on this. Interestingly, the format required is MP3, so I’m not sure what good the files are for more detailed analysis, but there is a list on there of scientific publications using files from xeno-canto, so how does that work? Wouldn’t the files be missing important information due to the compression process?
………………………………….. Arwen Blackwood Ximenesarwenbx@hotmail.com
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The mention of recording with a DSLR camera reminded me that my somewhat ‘ancient’ Panasonic NV-GS15GN Digital Video camera records audio in stereo in PCM mode sampling at 16 bit (48 kHz/2 channel) or 12 bit (32 kHz/4 channel). There is a socket for an external stereo microphone. Don’t ask me to explain the recording jargon but it does all sound reasonably good to me, both the specifications and the actual sound.
I haven’t done any serious audio recording and editing with this camcorder but I have recorded frog sounds by using the unit as if taking a video but with the lens cap in place. I haven’t kept any of the recordings for any length of time but have simply listened to the recordings to see how many different frog species I could make out in each event. Quite effective.
So, another alternative which some birders may already have is a digital camcorder.
Cheers
Bob Inglis Sandstone Point Qld ===============================
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Agree totally – and of course make sure you back it up regularly!
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Dear Peter,
This is tough one to answer, as it depends upon what you want to use the sounds for. If they are to be used as a guide for birders to learn species X call in Location Y, than mp3 is fine. If they are to look at syllables (subunit of a song) in terms of presence absence, than mp3 is ‘probably’ OK for manual scoring by ear. For example, a species might sing a song that goes ‘Tweet chirp trill’. Mp3 is probably good enough quality to see if in a different population it sings these syllables (tweet, chirp, trill). They may, for example, sing instead ‘Trill burp tweet’, thus introducing a new syllable, losing another and changing the order that syllables are presented. This might all be doable with mp3 files if the song is fairly simple as above. More complex calls/songs would need statistical assessment, and that’s where mp3 won’t cut it.
Further, if you then wanted to try and identify individuals from the calls, e.g. as they have done in the past with Corn crakes, Sacred Kingfishers and so on, you need better quality audio. Also, if you wanted to look at regional differences in the calls (ie bandwidth, relative amplitudes/power at various frequencies and so on that might be indicative of things such as dialects) than the mp3 is not suitable – you need PCM quality for these types of analyses. You’d also need that level of detail to prove subspecies, such as in the Cicadabird example.
The problem is that the calls are changed when converted or recorded into mp3 format in a relatively unpredictable way, and this means that we cannot recreate or even identify what has been lost.
Sound is pretty low in terms of memory requirements, my picture/video folders are much larger than those I have for sound. Memory is becoming cheaper all the time (store things on hard drives not DVD/CDs that may degrade), I use Lacie Rugged drives that have proven very reliable, 1TB drive is now just $250 and could be used to archive any file, not just sound. YOu can also cut out the bits of interest, and remove the silence between songs, as well as strip out a channel that isn’t relevant, ie no point recording in stereo if you have only one mic, so dropping the file back to mono saves almost half of your file size and so on.
I haven’t used the Sony, but remember reading a positive review somewhere or other, and your solution of PVC pipe as a shockmount is likely as effective as the expensive Rycote grips.
Haven’t recorded on DSLRs, sadly don’t own one. The caveats outlined below would all still apply in terms of the quality that they could provide. Connecting a shotgun mic would improve things markedly I’d imagine, and might simplify kit in the field. However, I haven’t looked into them.
I guess in short, something would be better than nothing (ie we’d love a call from the dodo, regardless of quality!), but if you can record in a better format that is suitable for any application that is likely to arise. In this way we have the most information going forward. If serious about it, you should also invest in good quality gear. Each of the bottlenecks of sound recording revolve around key pieces: a bad microphone will not record a song well, regardless of how good the recorder it is attached to is and so on.
I hope that this helps, Paul
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Paul, can you please elaborate on the issue of mp3 format vs PCM format? I initially used PCM after reading advice similar to yours, but found the file sizes involved daunting in terms of storage and download times, not to mention backup times, so I reverted to mp3 format.
As you said, they both sound the same to me. Are they totally useless for analysis, or just less useful? If the former then people considering buying equipment might want to factor the cost of extra memory cards and hard disks into it.
I’d also like to make a comment about choosing equipment that I would hope might be discussed at the WA workshop. One problem I had was local availability. Perhaps I was trying the wrong shops, but I could only find the occasional camera shop with a small range of Olympus recorders at exhorbitant prices (well over double the internet prices), and music shops refuse to sell anything but Zooms (but at good prices).
I didn’t want a Zoom, despite them being multi track and having phantom power, because I was told they are slightly noisier than Olympus and have far less battery life. I wanted to try an Olympus LS-7, which apparently is quieter than the LS-11 and has a pre record buffer, but wan’t going to risk buying sight unseen something very few nature recordists were using.
I ended up with a Sony PCM-M10, which appears to be well regarded and widely used despite not being mentioned in this thread yet. Like many of the other models that have been mentioned here, it was only about $250 from for B&H in the USA. I simply couldn’t find one here.
I bought a Sennheiser K6/ME66 shotgun microphone on eBay for $300 with a wind cover, and made my own mount from PVC pipe and rubber bands. So I believe it’s possible to get set up for way less than the figures quoted previously, and it’s all smaller and lighter than a DSLR and lens.
I’m also interested to hear what the experts think about recording on DSLRs. Many of these now do video, and have an external microphone jack. I see many references on the net to people mounting a shotgun microphone on the camera. Is this to be encouraged, or is the quality insufficient for this analysis you refer to?
Peter Shute
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Dear all,
It would be fantastic if more people were collecting bird calls and depositing good quality ones on pages such as these discussed.
It has been covered before, but I just want to point out that if you are to record calls for distribution to others, you need to record in PCM (ie uncompressed) format. If you choose a recorder that only allows compressed formats such as mp3, for example, this creates very small files, but does so at the expense of fidelity to the original sound. It is a complex process, but essentially mp3 and other compressed formats use algorithms that ‘chop out’ bits of sound that human ears cannot resolve (ie if two sounds are so close together that the human ear can’t resolve them, but hears it as ‘one’ sound, the algorithm will essentially delete one). This saves space, but in terms of archiving sounds for later analysis, this is not good news. The calls are changed in a way that is impossible to revert. They sound fine to us, but to a birds ear probably very different, and the things that we cut out may well be important features that are used to define species, for example. It might also make no difference at all, but the point is we can’t tell.
So, if you simply want to record and listen to some sounds, than small hand held recorders are fine. However, they won’t yield calls that can be examined in the way that Murray outlines below.
If you can afford it, Sennheiser microphones are great (I use a ME67 with K6, but smaller mics would do, particularly for loud passerines), but as a rule any mic plugged into a unit will yield superior quality than the on-board tiny mics. Someone asked earlier about omni versus shotgun mics, if you are using an omni-directional mic you’ll probably need something like a parabolic reflector to ‘focus’ the microphone onto what you’re trying to record. These can be cumbersome in the field, so I prefer to use shot guns with a simple foam wind block over the top. Think of the difference as a bit like filed of view, omni records over a very wide arc, whereas shotgun mic record from a much smaller arc and are basically directional towards where they are pointed.
Lots of different options for recorders, I use Sound Devices (beautiful but very very expensive) and Marantz PMD661 for hand held things. Note that there are smaller, cheaper models, such as Microtraks, available, but the latter has always introduced artefacts into the recording for the units I’ve tried, so wouldn’t recommend them. Edirol and Fostex are also well known and trusted field recording brands in addition to Marantz. Lots of suppliers out there, Wingfield audio in the states, Video Guys in Australia, shop around.
Recording gear is a bit like binoculars, everyone has a favourite. Some standard requirements for mine regardless of brand: Record in PCM,with sampling rates of 44.1kHz or 48kHz, 16 or 24 bit accuracy). Record some notes on weather, behaviour and putative individual identity, and you’ll be gathering calls that sound great, but can also be used by anyone down the track.
There are general sites on what is required and so forth, so I’d also recommend becoming familiar with what is around before buying if you are considering this, but it can be a whole lot of fun…
Cheers, Paul
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A question was asked during last week’s discussion on sound recording about why birders should make more effort recording calls. Here are two examples that come to my mind of where more call recordings could impact on our knowledge of Australian bird taxonomy.
First, the lurida race of boobook. At least one recent publications [Owls of the World 2nd edition by Koenig and Weick] treats this as a separate species. Yet the fieldwork that could establish whether this is the case has not been done in Australia. Sound is a part of this – the majority of changes in owl taxonomy in recent years have been based on calls. How many recorded calls are there of lurida boobooks to use as part of a taxonomic review? As far as I know, just two, one by Dave Stewart and one by Fred van Gessel. If anyone else is aware of other recordings, please let me know. Of course for such recordings to be useful it would be necessary to see (and ideally photograph) the calling bird as it is necessary to confirm the recording is really of lurida. Also it should be noted that calls don’t seem to vary as much between species in the Ninox genus as they do in some other owl groups.
Second, Cicadabirds. The possibility of there being two species of Cicadabird in Australia has been discussed for a while [e.g. Glenn Holmes, The Bird Observer, 801; 12 (1999)]. While it has recently been suggested that this won’t be resolved properly without additional collecting of specimens [L. Jospeh, Emu 111(3) p. iii], given that calls are a significant part of the puzzle, more progress could be made if a lot of recordings were available to analyse. If a sufficiently large sample proved that certain call types were only heard in rainforest habitat and others only in dryer woodland then it would tend to support there being two species.
I recommend http://www.earbirding.com as it has a lot of posts on calls of American birds and shows the sort of information that can be obtained from sound recording. For example, the calls of a recent vagrant sparrow were compared to recordings from various locations to see if the bird was from a migratory or resident population, which was relevant to the chance of it being an escapee. There are also some recommendations on equipment (see the equipment tab on the right side of the page).
Murray Lord Sydney
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Stewart,
There is a good beginners guide at http://www.wildlife-sound.org/equipment/newcomersguide/
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
Hi Mike, David et al.
I’ve wanted a decent sound recording setup for a while, but finding the bits of equipment that work well together seems to be a pretty complex exercise. Different recorders with charged or uncharged mics, amps, preamps, wind baffles, booms, omnidirectional or directional mics – and that’s just the gear side of things, never mind the frequencies, decibels and the like on the technical side.
What might help is if an expert like David could suggest a few kits that would work well together (specifically for bird recording) at a couple of different price points. A sort of dummies guide to sound recording equipment would make it a bit more accessible to novices like me.
Cheers,
Stewart
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Thank you, Mike, for passing on David Stewart’s request.
David may not remember but I met him a long time ago when I showed him the SIPO at Clontarf on the Redcliffe peninsular in SE Qld. I, of course, had known of David before that event and it was a ‘moment’ for me to meet him. Unfortunately, one might say, this was at a time when I had decided to get involved in bird-photography rather than bird-song recording. In those days I had ‘dabbled’ in bird-song recording but, like most birdwatchers, had become confused and daunted by the process. In those days bird-song recording was done on tape and the ‘good gear’ was a little out of the range of my finances. I was ‘familiar’ with photography and that is what I gravitated to although I always have had the sneaking suspicion that I should have ‘gone to recording’. In the interim I have watched the recording ‘scene’ but I have never been convinced that it could be better than photography. That is, until last year.
last year, through a process of serendipity, I met a wonderful person who records Pied Butcherbird calls and puts their calls to music. I was even able to observe ‘H’ as she recorded the Pieds near where I live. I hope I never forget that. ‘H’ even allowed me to record one Pied Butcherbird while she recorded another a little further away. ‘H’ had the ‘good’ gear (I like ‘gear’) while I used the back-up recorder. This recorder was something that would be a good device for birdwatchers to consider but it has since been superseded. The recorder I was trusted with was, from memory, an Olympus LS-10, but that has been superseded by the LS-11. I am not sure the LS-11 is better but the LS-10 may no longer be available. As I understand it, the LS-10 was/is considered by nature sound recordees to be more than acceptable for the purpose.
Seeing and using that recorder (and meeting ‘H’) awakened an interest in recording bird-song but I have to admit I am too deeply committed to bird-photography to change direction now. Today I spent a couple of hours photographing a Wandering Tattler during which time the bird spent at least half an hour ‘sleeping’ a mere 12 metres from me. Happenings like that keep me connected with birding but I would encourage birders who are not committed to photography to think seriously about bird-song recording. It certainly would be a lot less financially devastating than digital photography and it would be at least as absorbing and fulfilling.
Incidentally, for those birdwatchers who are colour blind, recording song can be a rewarding activity. “Seeing” birds by their song (or sonograms on a PC monitor) can be very exciting. And, it would be a case of doing something more than “the average”.
Bob Inglis Sandstone Point Qld ===============================
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Not sure if this helps (since it is from the USA) but here are two internet resources for bird/nature recording.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/page.aspx?pid=1676#macaulayHighlights=1
http://www.stithrecording.com/
I have no commerical interests in either (in fact the Stith recording seems to be too expensive as compared to other companies). However, these suggest some packages and provide some basic information.
Hope this helps,
Jim Holmes
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I second Stewart’s call for suggestions! I don’t have great hearing but started thinking about recording bird calls/songs after my brother asked for PNG bird calls to assist him in his work (he’s anthropologist) and I had difficulty sourcing some common birds through xeno-canto or Cornell etc. Plus after we moved here to the Qld Wet Tropics from Darwin, we realised that many birds here have different ‘dialects’ as well as colour. Any help with ideas as to easiest/best gear to obtain (that doesn’t weigh a ton and is not cumbersome as I ain’t very big) would be much appreciated. Helen
< ')////==< ________________________________ Cc: David Stewart sen.; BIRDING-AUS Sent: Fri, 19 August, 2011 17:29:07
Hi Mike, David et al.
I’ve wanted a decent sound recording setup for a while, but finding the bits of equipment that work well together seems to be a pretty complex exercise. Different recorders with charged or uncharged mics, amps, preamps, wind baffles, booms, omnidirectional or directional mics – and that’s just the gear side of things, never mind the frequencies, decibels and the like on the technical side.
What might help is if an expert like David could suggest a few kits that would work well together (specifically for bird recording) at a couple of different price points. A sort of dummies guide to sound recording equipment would make it a bit more accessible to novices like me.
Cheers,
Stewart
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I’ve recently got myself some recording equipment, but I’m still on the steep bit of the learning curve.
I’m interested in recording various mystery calls I’ve been hearing in the few years I’ve been birding, and some of the calls that just don’t appear on the BOCA CDs, etc. I’m also hoping to use it for id, and so I can properly analyse calls afterwards, because my hearing’s not the best either, and I’d like to find out what I’m missing out on.
Did David Stewart explain why he thinks more people should do this? I can’t argue with the fact that very few do, because I’ve only ever run into one other person with recording gear in the last 5 years.
For those seeking information about equipment, the people on the naturerecordists list on Yahoo are very helpful.
Peter Shute
Hi Mike, David et al.
I’ve wanted a decent sound recording setup for a while, but finding the bits of equipment that work well together seems to be a pretty complex exercise. Different recorders with charged or uncharged mics, amps, preamps, wind baffles, booms, omnidirectional or directional mics – and that’s just the gear side of things, never mind the frequencies, decibels and the like on the technical side.
What might help is if an expert like David could suggest a few kits that would work well together (specifically for bird recording) at a couple of different price points. A sort of dummies guide to sound recording equipment would make it a bit more accessible to novices like me.
Cheers,
Stewart
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