Looks well, in no distress. Eupneic


h-m-m
@h-m-m asked:

Do you have any advice for recording the boys? There are some nice-sounding boys outside where I live this week and the best mic I have is probably one attached to a six-year-old android cell phone

oh great question thank you. i'm not an expert by any means but i will tell you what comes to mind.

wind is the first thing that comes to mind. i'm sure phones vary, but mine have tended to pick up a lot of noise even with fairly gentle winds. so if you can record from somewhere that's naturally out of the wind, or at a time when the air is calm that is probably ideal. otherwise you might have to arrange something to protect your phone from the wind and i'm not sure best how to do that.

speaking of wind, this is probably less important but the lads around here i've noticed tend not to sing when it's windy. i suspect it is because the leaves of the trees make a lot of noise in the same frequency range as their songs, but that's just speculation.

the next thing i think to watch out for is disturbance to the microphone while recording. any impacts or vibration that come through whatever holds the microphone can be pretty loud and you may not have a way to monitor the recording, in which case you'll only find out later when you listen to it and that would be a drag. i have had fairly good results holding my phone in my hand to record, but it is surprisingly tiring, so best for shorter recordings.

distance is the last big thing i can think of. the lads are loud so you don't really neeeeed to get that close, but it really helps. being underneath the tree they're singing in is great. the spectrograms i've posted so far all come a microphone that sits on my desk a few feet from an open window, and the ones of lads in the tree nearest to the window are by far the clearest.

odds and ends now. do a test recording and give it a listen before getting settled in to record more! as for the lads themselves, i don't know that much about them. the ones around here like calm, warm sunny days, dislike wind, rain, and loud lawn equipment, and go to bed around sunset.

i hope that helps. if i think of anything more i'll post a follow up, and if you have more questions feel free to ask.

good luck with your lads! if possible, i'd love to hear them.