Re: [microsound] Burying Microphones

[John Hudak <johnhudak@xxxxxxxxx>]

I did this quite a long time ago with contact microphones buried a tiny bit
below the surface of a grassy field in the summer afternoon sun.  There were
a lot of insect sounds, and the sound of the grass being blown by the wind.
This was such a long time ago, that I only had a Marantz cassette recorder
at the time.  I can only speculate how much better the digital sound would
be, as well as with better contact microphones (after soldering, I coat them
with Plasti Dip, a rubber coating used mostly for hand tools, found at
hardware stores).  I had a lot of problems with grounding (go figure), but
found the best solution was to use battery power instead of electric from a
battery eliminator.  The best thing to do is to just experiment...although
depending on where you are, most of the bugs are now going to sleep.

Best,
John

PS.  as always, if you had access to scientific recording devices, you could
probably get the sounds of worms, earth tremors, etc.  but these kinds of
devices are mostly hanging around university labs, and used for purposes
other than recording nature...of course, if you hang around university labs,
then you are set.  Geological labs are probably the best.

On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 8:39 AM, Mike Sweeton <mikesweeton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> Does anyone have any experience with burying microphones to record the
> sounds of earth moving?
>
> I'm a little unsure of how to go about this and I can't seem to find much
> information on it.
>
> Any help or ideas would be great!
>
> Mike
>



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