What old Sony's are good to look up? Any come to mind?
The zoom h1n is ridiculously cheap brand new option and probably a good option for my needs too. But the build quality doesn't look amazing. (I also remembered I broke the battery door off my very old zoom H2 😠). Sony does tend to have better build quality in my limited experience.
(But yeah, definitely into getting some contact mics eventually for more options and to muck about with too tbh lol).
I have sony d50, but the newer stuff is probably better is some regards. D100 is maybe too expensive.
The built quality of D50 is exceptional, it's mostly metal and the batteries last forever.
Old zooms were ok, but never great in sound quality. None of the small recorders are "studio mic quality", but zooms had that whispy cheap grainy top end quality with empty midrange that can be ok for certain things, but no go if you wanted something natural. Sony mics are a bit metalic sounding, typical for this class of electrets, but it's often good enough.
Where I find these electret mics fall short are indoor atmos and wallas, it just sounds more messy than it should (in comparison to a nice pair of sennheiser mkh or schoeps mics... but that's xlr). I'm quite sure it's also because how they are mounted to the recorder, the reflections from the recorder body are a part of the metalic character of the sound.
Yeah Sony d50 comes up a lot, I think this is perhaps pushing beyond the 'pocket-sized' maybe, but also maybe that is another option to consider. I'll have to have a think lol:) but thank you. I'm looking at an old Roland which may do the trick, it's sometimes a bit iffy buying such old electrical stuff, so build quality is doubly important here, is my thinking.
Btw.. What is it you do? Not that you need to DO anything with these sounds.
(Maybe one day freesound will be on nostr lol)
I have a tascam portastudio x6. I have been using less for field recording and more for recording without turning my computer on.
I tried doing some field stuff, and it wasn't coming out as good as what I found on freesound.
I did find a emf like detector thing with 3.5mm out that is really fun though.
there is a certain magic about getting your own sounds, obviously there's loads of stuff on freesound you couldn't possibly get due to eg geography and probably not in the quality it is there.
But it's also quite a fun thing to do :) imo lol
Oh yes for sure. I'm just not that good at capturing the sound bit. Like the editing and cleanup is a big part of it.
I tried it a few times and I have sounds of cars with occasional sounds I wanted.
Oh, unless you can stage things somewhere in the desert on a calm cold day with no insects, it's always a thing of chance and looking for a cleanish window in the environmental noise. Record more, choose the best, salvage and retouch what you have to.
If you don't like what you're getting, you should work on your mic placement. Some objects may emmit sounds from spots/angles that are not really intuitive.
The distance could be also the major factor. The closer you get to an object, the smaller part of the sound you get. Which can be good/interesting or just wrong sounding. The proximity effect with cardiod patterns also plays a role, it gets boomier as you get closer.
If you're too far you get more noise, less definition (esp with cheap mics) and the more room/reverb if inside. Small reflective rooms make recordings sound much further than you think and you can't make the reflections to go away "completely", you'd need a dead room or outdoor enviro for that.
I'm using my field recordings for game sound design and all the weird different sounds I captured in the past without any real reason are now suddenly very useful.
Great tips, thank you!
Amazing tips:)
I am in this buyer's limbo I often get with researching almost anything nowadays:
Great, durable products which were once at reasonable prices brand new are discontinued and are rare, collectibles, at stupid 2nd hand prices or impossible to find (eg lots of the Sony's).
I'm only just learning about 32 bit float, which is totally new to me. It seems like the zoom H2 essential offers a good, very cheap option. Probably good enough for me and readily available. Or the Olympus ls-p1, which is actually the device in the original post is also probably good enough for me.
Sony should just undiscontinue their stuff:)
And don't let me start on sony heaphones. MDR7520 got banned by the EU (yes, no kidding) so Sony discontinued them. One of my favourite closed cans.
Olympus recorders are probably just as good as sonys, at least they had that reputation back then when a I bought my d50. No point in spending a lot of money on old D50, it's a good machine, but that's about it.
I paid like $250 for 2nd hand one in early 2010s. Should have bought some bitcoin instead 🤓
Oohhh yeah I have tons of stuff from across the globe. Amazing memories...time captured in sounds.
It also gets pretty personal..choices...situations..time.
I have far fewer audio recordings on my phone than photos, but they are far more precious and personal as captures/recordings.
I think I am looking at your Olympus model and I feel like it might actually be a very good choice for me. Certainly better than my phone lol.
Oh and if you don't listen with headphones to what you're going to record, chances that you don't get optimal results are quite high. I know it's not convenient, but especially if you're less experienced, it matters a lot. And if you're experienced, then you know going "blind" is not a good strategy if you want to get best out of it and reduce all possible fuckups close to zero.
Sure. Headphones take you straight into the zone!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peks6M17f4U
I thought this was quite good (in the video, I never tried it myself) and you can still buy it for little over $220.
I hate the pre-buyer's regret and pointless researching lol. Why am I looking up and worrying about EIN, looking at Reddit etc. I'm at most just a hobbyist.
