Recording Sounds

[Christian Aeschliman <ozwanderlust@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello folks

I just made some very interesting recordings of body sounds ... percussive
ones ... humming ... knuckles cracking, and all that stuff.  It was a lot of
trouble getting a quiet environment and dealing with all the background and
computer noise though.

But I have a Minidisc player that I'm going to use instead from now on.
What kind of microphones do you recommend for getting noises up close?  Can
I find a decent quality one for cheap (hopefully very cheap) here in the
USA?

Also ... what do others use to make field recordings and what-not besides
DATs and Minidiscs ... are there any hard disk devices out there that you
all have had experience with?

-Christian