The challenge is to get the mic in the right place to start with. Shotgun and other directional microphones are useful for avoiding some sounds, but when I work on my own I like to use omni mics as they’re like a prime lens in cinematography. Producing a thin wire coat hanger from one of his boxes, Chris attaches an omni to either side and goes on to explain why this arrangement has become one of his everyday rigs: “I’m favouring omnidirectional capsules more and more in my work. Chris says these are great for working on-location due to their tolerance of humidity – they’re designed to be worn on the body, near the mouth and so on, so they cope with moisture quite well. The first on show was a pair of omnidirectional condensers, the tiny DPA 4060 lapel microphones. If you take this route, ensure that the sound quality of your earpieces is up to the job.Ĭhris turned up on the first day with boxes containing his recorder, cables and attachments and an arsenal of mics. We opted to use our moulded EERS earpiece headphones for maximum noise exclusion, letting us truly use the microphone as our ears as we explored. What’s more, every part can be easily replaced in the event of damage. When it comes to monitoring in the field, Chris opts for Sennheiser HD25s, stating that he’s not heard anything better for the job. If you don’t want to carry a DI box around, choose a recorder with instrument-level jack inputs. In addition to the condensers we also used a range of contact mics and hydrophones, which have a high- impedance output and therefore require a DI box for conversion into low-impedance mic-level signals. As he points out, he wouldn’t want to return to a wildcat habitat to change the batteries in a set of mics when he can place himself safely far away at the end of a long cable run, providing power from the device at his fingertips. Mics and DI boxes can be powered by onboard batteries but Chris advises against this approach, preferring power to come from the recorder itself for practical and reliability reasons.

During the workshops we used condenser microphones and DI boxes requiring both XLR connections and phantom power. If you can, therefore, arm yourself with a recorder that has tactile, easily accessible controls.Ĭonnectivity is of prime importance. If you own a compact mobile phone-size device, you may find that these kinds of operations or features are buried deep in some sub-menu, which isn’t ideal, especially in harsh weather conditions (you don’t want to be taking out your recorder in snow, rain or high winds to navigate menus). Input level, record start/stop, limiter and low cut-filters will all need to adjusted or operated as you work. At the heart of your location-recording setup is obviously some sort of recording device, which you’ll need to learn certain aspects of inside out.

Whole note recorder hanger