My FetHeads theme

[Olle Sjostrom]

But the tent might make unwanted noise... 
Get yourself a used blimp of any kind, surely there's a craigslist or the likes. I bet there's even a movie equipment renting facility somewhere in your region that might let you rent a blimp. 

[inspire]

I ordered Rycote 'zeppelin' from Thomann so that it will be OK 😘
So I can make a mix with shotgun and stereo microphone.

[inspire]

It arrived today, just in time. I have never had  such a tool and experience so that if anyone has tips or tutorials to use, I am grateful for sharing. Apparently cute size.

[rich]

when fitting the mic, make sure the front of it is no further forward than the black ring where the ends are fitted so that you have enough air space around the mic for the windshield to be effective.

take the fur off when transporting the mic. ive always stored my fur inside out, and have no issues with the hairs matting. and whilst i havent used my rycote stuff in over 5 years, it did have at least 10 years of use and is still in very good condition.

[inspire]

Thanks for the tip, I will remember it! 😃

[inspire]

I'll add one more photo from my home window; it's still a very cool thing! I've been very happy so far, and now I'm looking forward to the promised recording in Matsalu on May 15th and 16th.

I'll bring a tent just in case, just for the sake of trying. But otherwise, the plan is also to connect a new test with two FetHead chains and do my desired experiment with it from the top of a tall tripod, along with that wind protection.

[The Immoral Mr Teas]

1 hour ago, inspire said:

I'll bring a tent just in case, just for the sake of trying.

 

If you're taking the tent to try as an alternative wind protection to the rycote, just make you choose one made of sheer nylon stocking (as in tights) fabric, felt, or fake fur. If you get that far (ie in finding a tent made from such water absorbing materials), make sure it doesn't flap in the wind (so taughtness probably good...)

 

Seriously, nothing wrong with 'thinking outside the zeppelin' but if you go down the route of constructing a tent structure of wind absorbing/reducing/deflecting material (because I'm sure you won't find one off the shelf) which is also necessarily absolutely silent against wind please let us know how it works and post the project here.

 

Jez

[inspire]

I found an old photo from my tent from 2021. I don't even have that car anymore, now I have a new Mazda 3 🙂
I document all my activities! Additionally, I plan to experiment with chest microphones, which are in no way related to using the FetHead, but I also have something new to test there. Namely, using the DPA 6060-OC-U-B34 mounted on a stand with a new windscreen to record the surrounding environment.

(On the left Rode Lavalier II and on the right Fur Windscreen DPA AIR1 with DPA 6060-OC-U-B34)

[Werner Althaus]

21 hours ago, inspire said:

I'll add one more photo from my home window; it's still a very cool thing!...

 

Don't forget the windjammer, that fuzzy, dead cat looking thing. It has a very important function, reducing wind-noise further, especially noise caused by the zeppelin 's outer surface exposed to higher windspeed. Highly recommended.

[inspire]

I'll add some photos from yesterday's WSR MINICMIT testing. I'll add the audio files in the evening after I've reviewed them.
http://84.50.150.102/FetHead-recordings/WSR MINICMIT/13.mai.2024-WSR MINICMIT/

The FetHead picked up radio noise at the old town viewpoint, but otherwise worked fine. I also went to the edge of the airport because I wanted to catch an airplane flyover.

That's a very good recommendation, which I probably would have otherwise ignored:
"when fitting the mic, make sure the front of it is no further forward than the black ring where the ends are fitted so that you have enough air space around the mic for the windshield to be effective."

And I understand that the deadcat must always be on when recording outdoors, is that correct?

[Olle Sjostrom]

1 hour ago, inspire said:

And I understand that the deadcat must always be on when recording outdoors, is that correct?

Well it depends on the wind

[inspire]

I visited Matsalu on the permitted days, and everything went wonderfully! I'm still working on systematizing the files. However, today I agreed on a test with the parabola, and I also have permission to show these files publicly.

But I have one condition: they will be available for one week, after which I will delete them from my server. I'm presenting them simply because we discussed this in this thread.

Here is a small legend:
_3-4.wav == ORTF Stereo Microphone Schoeps MSTC 74
_5.wav == Schoeps MiniCMIT GR
_MIX == the mix of these two files.

240518_0218 18.05.2024 15:02 2.4m smaller parabola ORTF Stereo Microphone Schoeps MSTC 74 and Schoeps MiniCMIT GR 2.4m parabola is on the ground On this day, there was significant wind, although the weather was otherwise nice! Temperature 22 degrees.
240518_0219 18.05.2024 15:05 2.4m smaller parabola ORTF Stereo Microphone Schoeps MSTC 74 and Schoeps MiniCMIT GR 2.4m parabola is on the ground
240518_0220 18.05.2024 15:12 3.8m parabola ORTF Stereo Microphone Schoeps MSTC 74 and Schoeps MiniCMIT GR 3.8m parabola is higher up, where the wind is stronger
240518_0221 18.05.2024 15:14 3.8m parabola ORTF Stereo Microphone Schoeps MSTC 74 and Schoeps MiniCMIT GR 3.8m parabola is higher up, where the wind is stronger

I did not take a photo of the 3.8m parabola.

Index of /ajutine/Mikrofonid-ja-paraboolid-2,4m-3,8m

 

[DHB]

 

I don't understand what this is about. A dish needs the mic to be positioned at the dish's focus, not just from somewhere nearby, or pointed at the dish from somewhere near its edge. If the mic's not at the exact focus, that's like pointing a camera up at the sky without it focusing on anything.

 

What, exactly, were you trying to capture? All I hear is vague ambient background, and some very, very distant birds. The purpose of a dish is to choose a specific distant sound, and then to magnify that particular sound. Otherwise - again - it's like pointing a camera up at the sky without focusing on anything ..so what then is the purpose of the photo?

 

A dish focuses sound to a point, so putting a stereo mic, for instance, at that point will NOT give spaced stereo sound. If you put your head, and your own two ears, at the focus of a dish, you won't hear spaced stereo: both ears will hear pretty much the same audio, with a bit of 'spill' from outside the perimeter of the dish.

 

What are you trying to capture? This is like looking at blank, white, completely empty photos, which, we're told, are pictures of an aeroplane which long ago passed out of sight. Why use a dish which is pointed at nothing ? This is like driving a car with the driver's door open, and pushing on the road with your feet to make the vehicle move. I'm completely confused. Why are you doing this?

[inspire]

I wanted to take advantage of the fact that this experiment could be conducted right now. Please don't hold this test against me because I wanted to listen and also see what happens.
Here are the audio files from Matsalu:
http://84.50.150.102/Matsalus/
And here are the photos of the place where these recordings were made:
http://84.50.150.102/Matsalus/Photos/
I hope you enjoy listening! I selected based on what I personally liked, let's forget about the FetHeads for now.
Wind, wind, and more wind is still a very big problem. And FetHeads work well, but they don't bring distant objects any closer (for example, the photo with the sheep).

 

[DHB]

I don't understand what you're trying to test for, or to demonstrate here.

 

The photos are 12 megapixels, average file size around 5 megabytes. My laptop can't display 12 megapixels (whose can?), so I reduced the size of the photos - which overflow my screen anyway - to 25% of their original size, so the Sheep photo drops from 7.2MB to 2MB, and displays faster and doesn't overflow the screen, and then ran it through 'PhotoShrinkr' which leaves it with the same visual appearance, strips out the EXIF data, and compresses it down to 290KB, about 1/24th of its original file size. It now loads to my screen instantaneously. You don't need 12 megapixels to display on the average screen. Think how you want to deliver a photo, not just how you want to shoot it.

 

Similarly, think what sound you're trying to deliver. What's this sound for?  What are we - or you - intended to get from this sound? Does it actually deliver what you had in mind? If so, great. If not, why not? If things sound too distant, get closer. You say "..FetHeads work well, but they don't bring distant objects any closer". No, they just magnify sound ..all the sound. So if some sound is lost within the general ambience, and you want to get one particular sound CLOSER, then actually move closer, or use a shotgun, or a longer shotgun, or a portable dish ..those will ISOLATE any particular sound you want, and will make it stand out of the general background. The MSTC 74 isn't a shotgun mic: it won't "..bring distant objects any closer".

 

If that's what you want to do, to bring things closer instead of just recording general ambience, you need a different tool.

 

The MSTC 74 is an ORTF stereo mic, whose purpose is to make recordings sound like just what you would hear from the same position as the mic. That's why your audio sounds distant ..because your mic is distant from what you're recording.

 

You need the right tool for the job. Think first what you want your recording to sound like, before you even start to assemble the equipment, and then choose a tool which will do that job.

 

If you want a stereo recording of distant sounds which will sound like what you would hear from a  distance, the MSTC 74 will do that.

 

If you want to get a 'close-up' sound, but from a distance, nearer than you yourself would probably be standing, use a shotgun mic.

 

Put everything else out of your mind, except WHAT YOU WANT YOUR FINAL RECORDING TO SOUND LIKE, and then choose the instrument which will deliver that sound from where you will be doing the recording. You can't get an omni mic, say, to magically deliver a 'close-up' result if it's far from the source of your sound. You can't get a 'personal perspective' MSTC 74 to magically deliver a 'close-up' result if it, too, is far from the source of your sound. If you want to bring distant sound closer, use a mono, or stereo, shotgun, or a mid-side mic with a short-shotgun configuration (I'm thinking of, say, a Zoom-brand SSH-6 Mid-Side Stereo Shotgun (but that works only with Zoom recorders).

 

Think what you'll want to HEAR from your recording(s), then choose the one appropriate mic which will capture exactly that!