jerryfreak
Active Member
Hi everybody,
I stumbled across your cool site today, and wanted to introduce myself
I do field recording with various portable microphone/preamp/ADC/recorder configurations and am a part of a larger group of same interest. Most people do recording of live performances, everything from 2 channel microphones at rock concerts to multiple microphone setups at classical halls/houses of worship etc. Most are amateurs as opposed to the guys who do audio recording on film sets and broadcast journalism, etc
We mostly hang out at our site taperssection.com (I'm same username over there). The scene grew out of the Grateful Dead taping scene in the 70s when people would lug large cassette decks and massive SLA batteries, and later the 2-piece PCM F1 setup. It has evolved over the years as a scene into itself which is continually evolving with the advent of all the new technologies
There is a different subset of field recording enthusiasts that do nature sounds, birding, etc. A little bit of overlap between the two groups as the gear is largely the same
a typical portable setup would include small diaphragm condenser microphones like schoeps/neumann/DPA/sennheiser/gefell/AT/AKG/etc. most of these require phantom power but there is always a move for more compact and power efficient powering of microphones. In some cases, depending on the performance, small unobtrusive setups are required. For both reasons there has been a move towards everything from low-power preamps intended for wireless transmitters, to custom-built miniature preamps, and other options, to drive the modular microphone capsules directly.
So there are a slew of different angles to that, often approached differently, such as variations on capsule polarization voltage, gain stage topology, etc. Custom solutions which come with of course varied opinions on their sound and specs.
Apart from the microphones themselves, proper powering (48V phantom) and preamplification was needed, and historically this was accomplished with portable preamps of old like the Grace Design V2, Sonosax SX-M2, Sound Devices MP2, etc. These would usually be followed by an ADC, anything from the sony SBM1, to the Apogee AD500 and AD1000, to the Benchmark AD2402-96
soon after (early 00s) we saw some nice integrated solutions like the Grace V3, Apogee Mini-me, and Sound Devices USB-pre. At the time 24-bit was the rage and we developed all kinds of ways to field record spdif into laptops and other handhelds like palm pilots etc.
late 00s brought some amazing all in one portable solutions like the Sound Devices 7xx series (722, 744,788, etc). these were expensive professional ENG solutions with timecode and a bunch of other things.
years later we are graced by many great affordable pro-sumer all-in-ones, from Roland, Zoom, Sound Devices among others
the latest trend is for recorders like the Sound Devices Mixpre II and Zoom F6 to use 2 or more ADCs at different levels and summing them to match the dynamic range of a high performance microphone input (~120-140 dBA EIN). These recorders are writing files to 32-bit float which removes the 144dB dynamic range limit of a 24-bit file, in favor a floating point (think of it as scientific notation for PCM data), which can account for an astonishing 1550 dB of dynamic range in the file.
Apart from the pro-sumer all-in-ones that generally have 2-8 or more channels of phantom power on balanced inputs, some of the other popular gear are good sounding handhelds (Sony, Roland, Tascam, etc) that take 1/8" in and sound good with a line-level signal from a portable preamp on an 1/8" minijack. This type of rig with a custom miniature mic pre, can drive a pair of SDCs and record a 24/96 file with adequate dynamic range, and fit in one pocket.
Long story short is we are a bunch of guys with a bunch of gear and perhaps we could collaborate a little to learn some things?
I stumbled across your cool site today, and wanted to introduce myself
I do field recording with various portable microphone/preamp/ADC/recorder configurations and am a part of a larger group of same interest. Most people do recording of live performances, everything from 2 channel microphones at rock concerts to multiple microphone setups at classical halls/houses of worship etc. Most are amateurs as opposed to the guys who do audio recording on film sets and broadcast journalism, etc
We mostly hang out at our site taperssection.com (I'm same username over there). The scene grew out of the Grateful Dead taping scene in the 70s when people would lug large cassette decks and massive SLA batteries, and later the 2-piece PCM F1 setup. It has evolved over the years as a scene into itself which is continually evolving with the advent of all the new technologies
There is a different subset of field recording enthusiasts that do nature sounds, birding, etc. A little bit of overlap between the two groups as the gear is largely the same
a typical portable setup would include small diaphragm condenser microphones like schoeps/neumann/DPA/sennheiser/gefell/AT/AKG/etc. most of these require phantom power but there is always a move for more compact and power efficient powering of microphones. In some cases, depending on the performance, small unobtrusive setups are required. For both reasons there has been a move towards everything from low-power preamps intended for wireless transmitters, to custom-built miniature preamps, and other options, to drive the modular microphone capsules directly.
So there are a slew of different angles to that, often approached differently, such as variations on capsule polarization voltage, gain stage topology, etc. Custom solutions which come with of course varied opinions on their sound and specs.
Apart from the microphones themselves, proper powering (48V phantom) and preamplification was needed, and historically this was accomplished with portable preamps of old like the Grace Design V2, Sonosax SX-M2, Sound Devices MP2, etc. These would usually be followed by an ADC, anything from the sony SBM1, to the Apogee AD500 and AD1000, to the Benchmark AD2402-96
soon after (early 00s) we saw some nice integrated solutions like the Grace V3, Apogee Mini-me, and Sound Devices USB-pre. At the time 24-bit was the rage and we developed all kinds of ways to field record spdif into laptops and other handhelds like palm pilots etc.
late 00s brought some amazing all in one portable solutions like the Sound Devices 7xx series (722, 744,788, etc). these were expensive professional ENG solutions with timecode and a bunch of other things.
years later we are graced by many great affordable pro-sumer all-in-ones, from Roland, Zoom, Sound Devices among others
the latest trend is for recorders like the Sound Devices Mixpre II and Zoom F6 to use 2 or more ADCs at different levels and summing them to match the dynamic range of a high performance microphone input (~120-140 dBA EIN). These recorders are writing files to 32-bit float which removes the 144dB dynamic range limit of a 24-bit file, in favor a floating point (think of it as scientific notation for PCM data), which can account for an astonishing 1550 dB of dynamic range in the file.
Apart from the pro-sumer all-in-ones that generally have 2-8 or more channels of phantom power on balanced inputs, some of the other popular gear are good sounding handhelds (Sony, Roland, Tascam, etc) that take 1/8" in and sound good with a line-level signal from a portable preamp on an 1/8" minijack. This type of rig with a custom miniature mic pre, can drive a pair of SDCs and record a 24/96 file with adequate dynamic range, and fit in one pocket.
Long story short is we are a bunch of guys with a bunch of gear and perhaps we could collaborate a little to learn some things?
