I noticed the pro mono reduces the echo quite a bit. This may or may not be desirable however it is definitely indicative of the strong selectivity of the instrument. Amazing.
Thanks so much for this, I almost made a mistake shelling out for an overpriced shotgun! I think I need me a pro mono/stereo. I would oove to hear a diff between the pro M/S and the SAAM.
Wow, the pro mono is so quiet, I would want to also record 'room tone' of the area to blend. Just the single bird in isolation would make for an unnatural production. Being able to blend in post is of course way better than trying to eliminate unwanted background sound. I would classify all of these as affordable, less than I was expecting. The shotgun more versatile for my purposes, but I would like the parabolic if I was more serious about recording wild like etc. Great presentation. - Cheers
@@wcsdiaries Oh, the mount was made from a 3/4x1/4 aluminum bar stock, with mods to fit all the mics. Tripod used here was an old aluminum tripod. Nothing too special. It just needed to hold all the mics pointed at the same target.
It sounds very much as if the recorder is set to automatic gain control. When the bird isn't singing, the noise goes up and up. Then as soon as the bird starts singing again, the noise suddenly drops dramatically. This is not good recording practice imo.
No. We never use automatic gain control in the recorder. All samples on here had numeric gain applied in post editing so that the peak of each sample was equal. No noise reduction was used. You may be noticing psychoacoustical noise masking which is the brain's way of masking apparent noise during periods of higher signal content.
so a shotgun/lobar mic is a mini parabolic mic with short comings and "holes" in what it focuses on. and other mics are just cardio mics with external parabola.. but all microphones are Transducers inside a certain acoustically shaped housing?
The Pro Mono has an integrated microphone included. The options would be Amplified, for direct line/headphone output and the Mono-Stereo that adds stereo microphones outside the parabolic reflector. The Pro Mono without options has 3.5mm and XLR outputs.
Either the Pro Mono or Pro Mono-Stereo in either the Amplified or unamplified version work very well for recording. If you absolutely need an on-camera microphone, the Pro Mini can work well, better than any shotgun microphone.
What I am interested in is its range capabilities. Can I record a conversation that's being held in low tones from 100 ft away? 200? How accurate is it? I personally don't care about quality. If there's two people talking on the sidewalk and I can record their conversation from 400 ft away I don't care if it sounds screwed up as long as I can hear it. Can a mic do that? Which mic? Ty. I'm trying to separate reality from TV regarding long distance recording . Again ty.
It depends on the general noise in the area. We have sound samples of voice pickup on the Media page on our website. You need the largest parabola to start to have gain in the voice frequencies. Here is what we say in our FAQ: We don't specify a single range as it is highly dependent on the volume of the subject, the surrounding noise, and the frequency of the subject. You can listen to our many audio samples with listed distances to get a better idea. Birds would have much higher gain and range compared to human subjects. For human subjects, since we get this question a lot, a good rule of thumb is: If you can hear that someone is talking and can't understand what they are saying, then a Wildtronics Pro Parabolic Microphone will allow you to clearly understand what they are saying at that distance. If you only see their lips moving and can't hear anything, that is too far away. This rule of thumb will work from quiet country settings to crowed rooms. Range can vary from hundreds of yards, in a quiet area, down to just 20 feet at a noisy event.
Our Pro Mini's 11 inch dish gain starts at 400Hz, the larger 22 inch dish gain starts at 200Hz. Both of them have a pretty even 6dB of gain boost per octave. Parabolic reflectors have increasing gain as the frequency increases. The 22 inch dish has 12dB of gain by 1KHz. You can boost the lower frequencies in post editing.
You can, with an adapter we sell for $4, use our Pro Mono or Amplified Pro Mono Parabolic Microphone with a smart phone. You are better off using a dedicated audio recorder. Smart phones have a much more limited input and features compared to a dedicated recorder. Some inexpensive recorders, such as a Tascam DR-05x can work quite well, especially with our Amplified models.
We offer Secondary Windscreens for our Pro Series Parabolic Microphones. They provide protection for up to 20MPH winds. It should be pointed out that since parabolic microphones are used to capture subjects from longer distances, you will want to record in lower winds so that wind generated noise from leaves and other objects don't interfere with the subject you are capturing. Also, anything over 20MPH and it will become difficult to hold a 22 inch dish.
