Microphone for recording trains?

[CaptOblivious]

One of my projects while I'm in Tokyo in December is to take field recordings of ambient sounds at Akihabara Station. If I can afford it. I've got no experience with taking field recordings, and I need some advice. I'm looking to do three things: First, take non-directional ambient recordings of crowd and traffic noise on the plaza below the station, and at the platform. Second, take modestly directional, preferably stereo with a high separation, recordings of specific trains as they arrive and leave. Would prefer to minimize ambient noise in these recordings. Third, if possible, take highly directional recordings of station announcements, etc.

 

I'm on a tight budget! I know I can't achieve all three goals with just one mic, but I wonder if anyone here could advise me on mic selection and recording medium?

[Bernard]

Don - What we use when we are on location shoots are "shot gun" mics. We also take along either a "blimp", fuzzy sock, or a foam insert. This is in case we are filming under noisy or windy conditions. Mind you these mic can be very expensive. Here is a link to B&H to give you an idea of what is out there:

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Shotgun/ci/8533/N/4291086008

 

What do you plane to record to MP3, DAT tape, etc.

 

What is extremely important is to give an audio "head slate" as to what you are recording so you have a record/log of what you did. (My sound effects editor gets really angry when a location sound person doesn't do this.) I'll ask her what she uses when she goes out on location shoots.

[CaptOblivious]

Those can be very expensive indeed, although I do see one inexpensive option. You don't think a shotgun would be too directional, do you? But perhaps that's what I need…instead of recording an entire ambient soundscape, record it one piece at a time, and then put them back together algorithmically in a layout module to form dynamic ambient soundscapes?

 

I'm interested in hearing more about these head slates, too, as I'd wondered how best to document the things I record. When I shot film last time I was there, I kept careful records on index cards, which was annoyingly tedious.

 

Anyway, I'd love to hear more about your experiences with this sort of thing!

[Bernard]

A "Head slate" is just a quick simple ID on whatever medium you are recording onto. For example, if you were at a station and an 500 Nozomi were coming into the depot all you would say into the mic is "500 Nozomi coming into station and stopping" then point the mic at the direction of the train. Next take: you'd slate "500 Nozomi pulling out of station". You don't want the slates to be too long or you'll what you want to record. Later you can make a log by using the digital counter on the recorder, so in the future you will be able to locate a specific sound you were seeking.

[CaptOblivious]

Oh, and answering your other question, I want to record digitally onto something small and hand-held or pocket-held, that won't totally shred the audio quality. My laptop would probably be too unwieldy.

[scott]

Once you get something set up, please post about it. This is something I'd like to try, but I've never made the investment.

[Bernard]

Don - Don't use your laptop, once you're in a crowd any audio equipment can get banged around and they aren't made for location sound recording.

Take a look at these portable digital recorders. I think these might be in your price range:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Portable-Digital-Recorders/pn/2/ci/14934/N/4248627700+4293918168

 

To use an external mic I believe you would need a mini jack.

 

The other choice is a portable DAT recorder that takes small digital tapes...but it is old technology which is being fased out (they are really aren't being made any more.)

Here is a page from ebay to show you what they look like: (but most of them listed are too expensive)

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=dat+recorder+portable+&_sacat=See-All-Categories

 

You might even be able to find an inexpensive portable DAT recorder on Craig's list

[CaptOblivious]

Bernard,

 

Thanks again, this is really helpful. Those digital recorders look quite nice, and many are within my price range. I presume I should still consider a shotgun mic to go with them? Are the built-in mics usually any good for their intended purpose? What should I look for in a good recorder?

 

Edit: Considering the Zoom H1, being cheap and well-reviewed. Any opinions here about that one?

[Bernard]

If you do decide to go buy one of the digital recorders that I've listed.....try it out first with its internal mics, if the sound quality is good enough then you probably don't need a shot gun mic....(also you can rent one)

Most shot gun mics work with its own power source and have XLR connections, the digital recorders are so small that it probably uses a mini jack...so take this into consideration if you go with a shot gun mic, you'll probably need a cable and some audio adapters.

[grumbeast]

Bernard's advice is excellent and goes way beyond my experience but I do have some experience doing location sound and soundscape production on the cheap for our animation production.

 

I think your spot on going for minijack rather than anything XLR as the bulk will increase substantially.  Also digital recorders will be way better than DAT (I always risked problems with machine noise with the portable DAT recorders I've used).  While I have a decent shotgun and omni, when we had less funds I used a simple sony mini-jack mic, and earlier version of

 

http://www.sonystyle.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=100803&storeId=20153&langId=200&productId=11035340

 

It has a switchable sensitivity (90 or 120 degrees) and so while not as tight as a shotgun might offer a good compromise, certainly the results I had were quite nice (I even fashioned a boom out of an extendable squeegy pole :)  One thing that Bernard mentions that I can't stress enough is that you use the wind screen or sock, even a slight breeze can screw things up.  Oh and don't forget some enclosed headphones to listen to the recording as it happens, so you can hear what the mic hears and adjust accordingly, it'll also help you know when the levels are peaking too much (though you can moderate hot spots post-recording its best to have the cleanest recording to work from)

 

Hope this helps too.  Decent audio doesn't have to be expensive but you do need to be aware of whats going on around you.  It would be fantastic to hear some of your recordings.

 

Graham

[keiman]

Good digital recorder that I have is http://www.roland.co.uk/products/productdetails.aspx?p=1077. very compact and I have even used it connected to the tape out put of my hi fi to convert cassettes and Lp's to MP3 .

 

Used to work in the proffesional recording industry using 24 track recorders and have found this is an excellent piece of kit even able to plug headphones etc in.

[Bernard]

Don - I heard from my sound person and am PMing you with what she had to recommend.

[cteno4]

Don,

 

with the shot gun vs a medium directional mic its all about if you want to isolate a particular sound from a scene. the shotguns are great at isolating a single sound from a scene, but it comes at a cost as a good quality one that will give good sound is not cheap.

 

one of the guys i have worked with in the past does nature soundscapes and he does different ways. one way is to record very pure isolated sounds via shotgun mics and then he re-assembles the scene later how he likes placing the sounds when and where he wants them. sounds easy but it a lot of work. other way is to blend more ambient tracks, less control, but can make some really rich, full backgrounds that are interesting. it was all in what you wanted folks to focus or not focus on in the exhibit.

 

whats your final use for these sounds? for the layout to try and recreate a soundscape like this? if so then it might be worth getting something directional and then carefully placing sounds with different speakers on the layout with their own playback. if you want more of just an ambient background sound then you could probably do with the semi directional mics and then just blend a scene with those with mixing.

 

also what is your intended playback system. if its low fidelity you might get away with some cheaper mics. always good to get the best quality you can in the can if possible as thats usually the greatest expense and trouble (ie getting there!), but if you have a limited budget then its a balance... high fidelity is wonderful, but like HD at times on some projects it turned out to be a waste and actually a big draw back and going regular def was a big plus! although this is less true with sound than video.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

Thanks for the replies!

 

The final goal is to provide sound for my model of Akihabara Station. The model itself is quite small, about 32" wide, and not a lot of room for speakers in the model, so I'll probably just place a pair of stereo speakers on each side. Playback will be a computer running Boodler, which is a nice library for writing dynamic soundscapes in Python. I don't have the inclination to fiddle around with lots of very fine-grained sounds, but I don't just want a simple single recording playing in a loop, either. I expect to take several samples of traffic on the road in my model, and people in the plaza. These don't really need to be recorded in stereo, I guess. I will also record ambient sounds at the platform level, and station announcements (this is where a shotgun mic might be really useful!), as well as recordings of specific trains (i.e., I want to record the E231s and E233s separately; I might even head up to Ueno or Nippori to record other trains as well) arriving and departing, to be synchronized with the actual model trains (and this is where having a nice stereo mic would be useful). (BTW, are there 209-0's still running anywhere in Tokyo that I could capture?)

 

So, as I see it now, I am supposing the best bet is to get a hand-held digital record with a half-way decent stereo mic built in, and a shotgun with a mini-jack to use as an external mic for capturing more specific sounds. Plus windscreens and other accessories. I'm hoping (hoping!) to come out of this spending less than $200, but it might end up being more.

 

The somewhat annoying thing is that I won't have a very big time window to do all this, a few hours at most :( The good news is that I will have lots of time to practice my technique in Budapest and Kyoto! And I would be willing to take requests!

[risingsun]

I have lots of experience recording with microphones (not a lot of experience recording trains). If you want a cheap alternative to a shot gun mic, you can buy a relatively cheap good microphone and recorder (I recommend the MC-50, a common good mic), then make a plastic cone around the microphone. Line the outside of the plastic cone with a cork board material so that the plastic won't vibrate and give you an echo feedback. That is a cheap way to make a homemade shot gun mic. You can get the whole setup for ~4200 Yen.

[CaptOblivious]

I have lots of experience recording with microphones (not a lot of experience recording trains). If you want a cheap alternative to a shot gun mic, you can buy a relatively cheap good microphone and recorder (I recommend the MC-50, a common good mic), then make a plastic cone around the microphone. Line the outside of the plastic cone with a cork board material so that the plastic won't vibrate and give you an echo feedback. That is a cheap way to make a homemade shot gun mic. You can get the whole setup for ~4200 Yen.

 

That's very interesting. Hadn't thought about doing something like that. Thanks for the tip!

[cteno4]

Ill second rising sun, a long time back i did this with pvc pipe for field recordings of sea lions and it worked pretty well.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Don,

 

interesting, i have never tried soundscapes yet with a tiny display, all have been human sized exhibits! here you can shrink the audio scape some, but you are still working with bigger, more human scale distances. it will be interesting to see what the mind plays with when looking at a small display at 1/150 scale and equating the more 1:1 scale sounds with. there are going to be differences in the ear<>mind tricks vs the eye<>mind tricks.

 

background ambience sound track may just lull the mind into the scene, but also may be odd to have a more bigger sound coming from a small display, not sure if the mind will jump over that well or not.

 

small point source sounds with little speakers might create a more dynamic soundscape, but with tiny sound comes hard to hear and starts to sound tiny and tinny usually. might not trick the brain in to filling in the sound picture with the mental perceived scene.

 

always interesting what you can do with the mind's eye and modeling. a combo of both might as well work. also there is the use of sound that mentally connotes motion and those that dont. since most things on the layout are not in motion, motion sounds for things not in motion (ie traffic) may or may not work, something to play with! very curious to see/hear any results!

 

btw i have a couple of cheap chips with lips digital playback units on order to play with for this very idea. wanted to put a few specific audio cues in some places on the jrm layout. hoping to have some random station announcements in the station, dog barking, backup beep, and of course a godzilla roar. want to play with triggering them remotely, with random timers, and with motion sensors for the public, and reed switches with the trains going by (ie the dog barks every time the train goes by ala triplets of belleville) One issue we have is usually the jrm layout is setup in a pretty noisy environment so a lot of this stuff may just be lost.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

Well, after reviewing the options, I've come to the conclusion that Bernard's sound-person is right: Although what this means will have to wait for the conclusion below :D.

 

Here are my thoughts, based on reviews I've read and sound samples I've listened to:

 

Zoom H1. $100, good sound quality, but very flimsy. This thing has to survive four months in a carry-on before it reaches its intended destination, Akihabara Station, and I don't want to risk disappointment because it broke.

 

Zoom H2. $200, includes a ton of cool accessories in the box, and offers an intriguing 4-mic setup for capturing 360º surround sound, and supposedly good mics. But sound samples I've listened to are consistently...bad. Muffled. Also filmsy build quality; uses membrane buttons which I always worry about.

 

Zoom H4n. $400, lots of good features. Adjustable mic pattern. Pretty good sound, certainly good enough for me. Two XLR outputs (although relying on phantom power is apparently problematic), can record four tracks simultaneously. Nice. Still relies on cheap plastic construction, and the XLR outputs make the thing quite large. I'd consider it, but for only $50 I could have something considerably nicer (see below).

 

Tascam anything. Range in price from $100 to $500. Sound quality considerably lower than on the H1 and H4n; a very high noise floor (although how much this will matter for recording very loud trains, I'm not sure). Plastic construction, although of better quality than the Zoom offerings. Maybe...

 

Olympus LS-10/LS-11. $200/$300. Excellent build quality, body is solid aluminum. The LS-10 sounds awful, but the LS-11 isn't bad at all, except...there's always a catch, isn't there? Deliberately crippled bass response. Why? It's apparently designed for interviews, and the reduced bass response helps filter out unwanted wind noise and background noise. Also helps filter out that low-rumble of a nearby passing train.

 

Sony PCM-M10. $250. Good build quality, not as nice as the Olympus, but still pretty good. Good sound mics...but...they're omnidirectional? Not clear why Sony chose omnidirectional mics for a stereo recorder, because the stereo imaging is crap. It seems that I want a pretty wide stereo image in my recordings, so I can manipulate the left and right sides of the layout's sound scape more or less independently.

 

which pretty much leaves

Sony PCM-D50. $450. Holy crap. Plus another $50 for the windscreen. But it sounds awesome. Not as awesome as Sony's top-end recorder (PCM-D1, $1500 (!!!) ), but damned good, with nice stereo imaging. Adjustable mic pattern. Solid and durable aluminum construction. Lots of fancy features (it better have, for this price point!), but not so large it won't fit in the hand (unlike Zoom H4n), some of which I might even use (sophisticated auto gain function that works by making /two/ simultaneous recordings at different levels, and switching between them together when the louder one begins to clip.)

 

Bernard's sound-person basically said the same things to me, albeit in fewer words.

 

So, now I just need to get some decoders installed to pay for this ;) Looking for work!

[CaptOblivious]

So, while busying myself installing decoders to pay for a PCM-D50, I've gone ahead and purchased a shotgun mic for recording point source sounds (e.g. station announcements, etc), an Audio Technica ATR 6550. It's cheap, and is rather well reviewed. Looking forward to playing with it and learning something about recording.

 

Ken mentioned to me that I might like to capture recordings suitable for use in sound decoders. Has anyone here any experience with that?

[CaptOblivious]

So, while busying myself installing decoders to pay for a PCM-D50, I've gone ahead and purchased a shotgun mic for recording point source sounds (e.g. station announcements, etc), an Audio Technica ATR 6550. It's cheap, and is rather well reviewed. Looking forward to playing with it and learning something about recording.

 

Scratch that. ATR-6550 sucked. Bought a AT-8015 instead. Four times the price, but worth it.

[cteno4]

good thing i looked at you second post i was ready to pounce at a $50 shotgun that you thought was decent! always wanted one, but thought it would be at least a couple of hundred for one and guess thats right!

 

ive found the audio technica stuff pretty good. pros usually sneer at the stuff, but for some non profit clients that could not afford better stuff and were pretty low pressure work its worked out great.

 

looking forward to hearing your results!!!

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

good thing i looked at you second post i was ready to pounce at a $50 shotgun that you thought was decent! always wanted one, but thought it would be at least a couple of hundred for one and guess thats right!

 

ive found the audio technica stuff pretty good. pros usually sneer at the stuff, but for some non profit clients that could not afford better stuff and were pretty low pressure work its worked out great.

 

looking forward to hearing your results!!!

 

jeff

 

Just to be clear, the sound quality of the ATR-6550 was fine, but the very short coiled cable and the directionality left something to be desired. The AT-8015 does have better sound quality, but it is a very long shotgun—longer than any other make, in fact—and gives some of the best directionality available in a shotgun. Which is what I wanted :D I understand that Sennheiers have better sound, and are more sensitive however.

[cteno4]

thanks captain,

 

then it might be ok for my occasional use. mainly just want to get rid of side noises on the boat when shooting stuff, dont really need pin point. dont need a monster either!

 

yes the sennheiers are usually more sensitive/quality mics but usually pricy! one job the one buyer i use to get a lot of av gear from was really pushing them and actually refused to order some audio technica stuff (rf and fixed mics) i ended up deciding on as they were a much better deal and from all accounts from others perfectly fine for my application and client's budget. he wouldnt budge even after i said i was going in eyes wide open so i ended up dropping him as a supplier. found out later from another buyer that he was getting 'bonuses' for pushing the sennheier stuff at the time.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

It is done. Today I spent hours in and around Akihabara Station (in the morning with gmat! Thanks for coming out to hang with me Grant!). We'll see if it pays off later, after we land (flight leaves in the morning…lots of stuff to haul to Keisei Ueno…ugh). Thanks to everyone who chimed in. I love my little Sony PCM-D50 and AudioTechnica AT-8015—look forward to more, as I practiced recording around Budapest and Kyoto too.