Hi musicians! This is my first post on this forum. I''m a musician from Radom/Poland. I make modern electronic music. I wanted to ask you how do you record sounds outdoor. I guess that you use mini disk or mp3 recorder, but what kind of microphone do you connect to? Electred, dynamic? What kind of pattern is the best? Tell me what are your experiences with ''kits for outdoor recording''. Thanks for help! Reagards O.D.

That''s fine for static outside recording. But for situations where you''d be moving around, ''collecting'' sounds, then you can''t be tied down to power sockets or heavy equipment like mixing desks.

The most important piece of kit in an outside recording situation is a wind shield - without one the quality of your mic, preamp or recording medium is irrelevant because you aren''t going to make any useable recordings!

A stereo setup would be good for ambience, whereas mono is better for individual sounds. A ''middle and side'' setup using a shotgun mike and figure of eight mike gives you the best of both worlds; stereo with directionality.

My order of importance goes:

Microphone & Recording Device (absolutely necessary)
Wind shield (try recording outside without one)
Preamp (a luxury)

It really depends what you''re going for, what resources you have, etc. If you''re trying to get wind sounds, or nature sounds (birds chirping), then you can get away with relatively cheap mics.

Personally, I''ve had good experiences with PZM mics -- they''re cheap as hell, and imho sound great. As far as medium.... a mini-disc recorder will probably be the easiest, although, again, it''s going to depend on what you''re recording.

I''ve used a pair of PZMs with a Sony Professional Walkman and have gotten pretty good results.

-nico