Wind Screen for field recording

[Prime Mover]

I'm going to be doing quite a bit of outdoor field recording over the next few months, and I've had a little bit of trouble getting wind out of my recordings. The recorder my employer sent me came with a "Dead Cat" style wind screen, which does a fair enough job in cutting out external wind, but far from perfect. For one, it did pull out quite a bit of the low end of the natural sound, when I tested it out. It also wasn't able to cut out all the wind, even in medium-wind situations. I'm going to be recording a number of beaches, and though they're not specifically windy beaches, all beaches have a little more air movement than inland.

I'm considering some kind of device like a studio pop filter, but that surrounds the entire microphone... like a geodesic dome covered with nylon, something that puts the filter a distance away from the diaphragm. Searches for something like this come up empty, and I'm not sure how effective it would be, so I'm hesitant to put a lot of time and money into building one only to find that it does a poor job.

Any suggestions?

[Gravity Jim]

No suggestions, but as an aide to searching, location sound guys call that device a "Barney."

[mikehalloran]

No suggestions, but as an aide to searching, location sound guys call that device a "Barney."

Since when?

A Barney is what we used to use to cover a film camera so that you could barely hear the noise (never heard of one that could make it dead silent).

Movie Slang. a heavily padded cover for a camera, used to reduce the camera noise so that it will not be picked up by the sound-recording equipment.

Back to the OP: Eric, what kind of microphone are you using?

Microphone windjammers often look like they are covered in fur. The most effective ones cover the entire microphone since wind noise can enter through the back ports also.



Markertek has various Rycote units from about $40 and up. A cyclone shield can cost $600 or more.
http://audio-video-supply.markertek.com ... sitepref=1

http://rycote.com/

[Prime Mover]

This is just a Zoom H4n recorder that my employer sent me, using the built-in XY condenser pair. Sounds pretty good to my ears (obviously isn't perfect, but does the job).

http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-H4N-Digital- ... y+recorder

[HCMarkus]

This is just a Zoom H4n recorder that my employer sent me, using the built-in XY condenser pair. Sounds pretty good to my ears (obviously isn't perfect, but does the job).

http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-H4N-Digital- ... y+recorder

The fidelity is there, but the downside of very small diaphragm mics is poor signal to noise ratio when compared to larger diaphragm mics… can be an issue with ambient sound field recording.

That's just me blowing hot air… hear the popping sound in the mic? No filter yet invented seems to help.

I figure when you say "dead cat" you are referring to something like Mike posted. If you lose low end, you can probably bring it back with eq, hopefully without any tawdry booms.

[Prime Mover]

True. Not gonna get the quality and breadth of a LDC. And I'm not so much worried about lows as I am trying to get even more wind out of the diaphragm. The last recording I made, I simply set the recorder on the ground, propped up a little bit. My hope in the future is to put it on a stand near ear level, but the reality is that there is even more wind at that level. I was struggling to get a wind-free recording even at ground level, but i worry that it'll be hopeless in the air. Ground naturally filtered some wind a bit, but the dampened and changed the ambient sound too. I'm going to need some more robust wind filtering to be able to record at that height.

[mikehalloran]

Have you checked this out? The demos are fairly impressive but it does cut some the lows.

http://www.redheadwindscreens.com/

[Prime Mover]

That's pretty much identical to the one I have, actually. Mine is an Auray Windbuster (H4n version).

http://www.amazon.com/Auray-Custom-Wind ... windscreen

Maybe I just need to do some experiments for putting it on in different ways. I'm starting to get the feeling that I've got the best of what's commercially out there.

[mikehalloran]

That's pretty much identical to the one I have, actually. Mine is an Auray Windbuster (H4n version). ... I'm starting to get the feeling that I've got the best of what's commercially out there.

You may very well be right.