How to make good audio recordings in the field?

1. How to make good audio recordings in the field? held January 2006 at the LSA meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico Sven Grawunder Max Planck Institute for evolutionary Anthropology, Dep. of Linguistics, Leipzig, Germany

2. How to decide on what I need? What is good? Everybody will tell you: “It depends on… • What do you want to do? What for? • What is the field (recording) situation like? • What can You handle? • How big is your budget? S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

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5. Goals (purpose) • Recorders • Microphones (incl. wind shield) • Setups • Field situation (recording environment) S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

6. Transcription Annotation Human hearing (20-18000Hz) Pitch Intensity Formant estimation VOT Voice Quality Common practice in acoustic phonetic analysis (40-12000Hz) Analysis S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

7. language documentation (variety of linguistic genres, incl. musical genres) conversational analyses oral history specific elecitation of paradigms for a decent number of speakers (morphosyntax, phonology, phonetics) Wordlists Narrative interview Short stories Why field recordings? S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

8. Example 1 S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

9. Field situation • Ambient noises (people, animals, natural sources, vehicles, machines etc.) • Climate (temperature range, humidity) • Long Distances (Transport) • Energy supply • Interacting in foreign languages (working language, contact language, elicited language) S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

10. Equipment

11. Recorders • Analog/Digital (costs, formats, media) • Digital Formats (16bit PCM, 22.05kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz) • Quality (signal-to-noise ratio) • Power Supply (accumulator / battery) • Metering (details, delay, channel split) • Media (costs, durability, long-lasting) S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

12. Acceptable (but not recommendable) IPod PC/Mac Laptop internal soundcard dv-camera tone (ext. mic) Barely acceptable (but not recommendable) Micro cassettes via Dictaphone Barely acceptable to acceptable S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

13. Good (but not recommendable) Tape recorders (analogue, DCC) (Hi-)MD recorders Very good DAT-Recorder Solid State Recorder Good to Very Good S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

14. DAT-Recorders Fostex PD 4 MK II Sony TCD-D100 TASCAM DA-P1 S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

15. solid state recorders • But: • Power supply via Accu • Price S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

16. e.g. Marantz PMD 660 Battery powered Individual Channel metering Mono recording possible 44.1 & 48 kHz / 16bit Speakers + Line Out Professional XLR Input A good solution for the field? S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

17. Not bad, but … • It needs E-net connection for direct USB-copying to PC/MAC  card reader • Bad circuit insulation: phantom power current influences the recording Never run out of batteries shielded cables, self powered mics • Actual presets are invisible S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

18. smaller siblings S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

19. Saving Raw Data To your computer Via Card-Reader or Directly via USB-cable (Electricity needed!!!) Another solution: Direct Copying to a “mobile photo hard drive” S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

20. MD and Hi-MD • ATRAC opaque format • ATRACWAV : Don’t betray yourself • MD-WAVMD-PC: Beware losing your data • Still Open Software “needed” S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

21. Microphones • Frequency range • Frequency response • directionality • powering S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

22. Microphone types • built-in mics only in case of emergency!!! • bad quality • machine noise • omni directional • Dynamic mics • mic-mouth distance crucial • Self-powered electrets (condenser) mics • Rather than phantom powered condenser mics S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

23. Frequency range Frequency response • Directionality • Omnidirectional (cartoid charcteristic) • Directional (hyperbolic characteristic) S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

24. Microphone stands • On a tripod or stand? • On the table? • In your hand? • On the speaker? • Head mounted mic? S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

25. 21 / 02 / 06 S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

26. Mono Elicitation (One-to-one) 1 Speaker (+ close standing interviewer) Stereo More than 1 Speaker Moving Speakers Music Mono or Stereo??? S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

27. Mono Stereo Shure Beta 53 B AKG C100 S Sony ECM-MS957 S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

28. windshields S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

29. Don’t ignore… • Phantom power (48 Hz) • Electric circuit (55-60 Hz) • Cable (kinks and adapters) • Cable shielding (microphone cable, NOT monitor cable) • Connections (jacks, plugs etc.) S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

30. Field conditions

31. Dust Heat Humidity / Water Cold Hard shaking/sudden motion/vibration Thieves Yourself Insolate your devices! Watch the cables! Keep the equipment dry! Protect your devices!!! Watch or let watch! Take save backups with you!!! The 7 enemies of your equipment S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

32. Some Rules 1 (Time) • Have a time buffer  Expect that the recording (setup) takes twice as long as in the lab • Practice the record setup (microphone settings, cable ports/jacks, recorder settings) • Check “Recording Onset Time” (especially for Tape-Recorders of all types: MC, DAT, DCC) S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

33. Some Rules 2 (Equipment) • Get to know your equipment before you go to the field • You don’t want to play with settings in a real situation • Consider that the field session may be a ‘stressful’ situation • You need to focus on your subject (plus Monitoring, Metering, Prompting paradigms, Making notes, …) S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

34. Some Rules 3 (Supply) • Make sure that you never run out of Power (Batteries)! • Accumulators • Solar panel for recharging? • Make sure that you never run out of storage (Cassetes, Cards, etc.)! • Consider a ratio of 5:1 S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

35. Some Rules 4 (Field Situation) • Get aware of the recording environment • The more “natural” the more “distorted” – Lower sometimes your expectations • Nonetheless try to control the recording environment S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

36. Recording environment • Choose a possibly quiet location • Close doors and windows • Cover large reverberant surfaces • Ask for turning off lights, refrigerators, fans, air conditioning etc. • Remove anything that ticks, buzzes, bangs, rattles, squeaks, hisses, or otherwise makes itself heard S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

37. Speaker • Find the appropriate Microphone – Mouth distance (Headworn M. / Static M.) • Watch hands and feet • Ask for reiterations S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

38. Some Rules 5 (After Recording) • Control your data again – listen through your recordings • Make notes (on settings, solutions, etc.) • Don’t lower the quality requirements for digitization S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

39. References: • EMELD: http://emeld.org/school/toolroom/ • DOBES: http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES • Oral history: http://www.historicalvoices.org/oralhistory/ • http://bartus.org/akustyk/signal_aquisition.pdf • Radio feature literature S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig

40. Good luck with your recordings!!! S. Grawunder MPI EVA Leipzig