Edirol R-09 portable field recorder
The Edirol R-09 is a portable field recorder with built-in stereo microphones. I used it as my field recorder for ‘Loop:recycle’ and for capturing various ambiences. For professional work I would be using something like an SQN or Sound Devices 702T.
For its price (around £200) the R-09 has pretty good sound quality, though the noise floor is quite high especially on high mic gain setting. Its main advantages are size and good battery life. The R-09 fits easily into a coat pocket and runs for hours off 2 AA batteries.
Here is a recording of a rainstorm with some thunder from my bedroom window. The Edirol was attached to the inside of a velux window with electrical tape. Although it has a neoprene case it isn’t waterproof! From around 15 minutes of recording this was edited down to 5 minutes of usable sound (without sirens, aeroplanes, traffic and rail noise)
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Electromagnetnic Microphone
This is a journey.. into sound… Electromagnetic sound!
These mics are sold as ‘telephone pick-up coil’ for about £5 in Maplin. It’s a small pick-up coil in black plastic moulding with rubber suction pad to attach to a telephone, designed to pick up conversations for recording. Kind of like old-school spy equipment..
Anything electronic or electrical will generate a magnetic field, and this baby will pick up that signal..
..and it goes a little something like this:
- Library card reader
- Lift
- G4 Mac
- iMac
- Mobile phone
- Photocopier
- PC Laptop
- TV
- Payphone
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Sony ECM-MS957 Stereo Microphone
As part of a field recording exercise for my Sound Arts course at LCC, I recorded some ambience at the Walworth Road market. This was the day after Barack Obama was announced as the next President of the United States (and also my birthday), so there was quite an atmosphere of optimism amongst the traders and market-goers.
Although a relatively cheap mic, the ECM-MS957 delivers quite natural-sounding dynamic stereo recordings. It also features rotating Mid/Side (MS) capsules with switchable pick-up angle. The midcapsule picks up monophonic sound while the side capsule picks up left/right-difference sound. Subtracting and adding the two capsule signals yields separate left and right channels, and permits electronic adjustment of the pickup angle. The mid/side switch also selects the pickup angle between the left and right channels, either 90 or 120 degrees. The recordings were made with a Marantz PMD-660.
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