Fresh ears
First run with Line Audio CM4s in ORTF
Freshly arrived again in Cornwall, once the complexities of parking in Polruan negotiated (the joys of an honesty box ignoring tapping plastic or digital transactions), I dumped my bags and plugged in the Line Audio CM4 microphones acquired earlier this year.
To date, they’d only been used for recording instruments, but I’d acquired specifically as a low cost toolkit for ORTF recording. Alas, every step of assembling a field recording kit has had its own challenges, and I’d taken the circuitous route of making my own break out cables to enable to appropriate orientation of the mics using low profile XLR adapters.
Happily, in the first test proper, recording the incoming tides of the river as I looked across to Fowey worked simply. The Gravity stereo bar was as a fiddle, but eventually all seemed as it is required to be. I also used MOVO WS-G30 windjammers, which seemed to work reasonably well in the mild breeze on the balcony.
The recordings in wild seemed good - rich, and accurate. I also recorded a longer capture in the same place with vintage LOM Usi’s, in 30cm spaced AB as a comparison. The recordings have been normalised but left full length for now.
Wow Grant, what a treat this post is! Starting with the Line Audio CM4s recording I love the fact that you left in the talking into the mic for field note purposes. Which is usually the part that gets edited out by most people, but I feel it gives us the listener a sense of you. This is one of the reasons why I recommended the movie Cameraperson to you. This topic is also brought up in all the interviews in the book In The Field as well, "do you like to have yourself in the recording?" I myself do! Whether you can hear me or not I want to be there in the action in which case you might hear me breathing or mutter something every once in a while. Secondly I definitely prefer the sound of the Line Audio CM4s over the LOM's. The sound is fantastic, so clear with a realistic feel and delivers a better depth of field IMO.
The LOM recording is not to be written off by any means, it's also a really great recording although my ears do detect a hint of shelf noise (very slight, almost not worth mentioning) compared to the CM4s. The location you chose for both recordings is a winner. The rhythm of the lapping waves against the dock pillars, the low end hum of distant motors, sea birds and the occasional human sounds sprinkled in. A wonderful listening experience indeed.
Looking forward to the listening part of this post! Enjoy the rest of your trip.