I don’t often do gear related reviews, but considering gear plays a big part in what I do, whether it’s cameras, lenses, binoculars, scopes, trail cameras or sound recording gear, I thought some might find it useful to learn about this gear, as in todays saturated market, it’s difficult to know where to start off and even harder to find something that’s good value for money with such a fast growing development line.
Camera’s for instance are constantly being improved, but not quite on the level as todays smart phones, so you can still pick up a bargain that should last you several years. I won’t go into cameras this time around, but I would like to talk about my sound recording gear, specifically my choice of microphones.
I have never been able to afford premium gear, so I’m always looking for best value for money produces, whether that’s new gear or used. The great thing about microphones is, they usually last a very long time and the whole formula to making a quality microphone, was mastered many years ago, so you can pick up second hand microphones that still to this day sound incredible. Recording wildlife presents many hurdles in the field, as like photography, it can be difficult to get close enough to your subject to get a strong enough signal. The way around this is to use longer, and often more expensive long shotgun microphones that give you more directionality and a narrower axis sensitivity, so you can isolate the sound you are pointing it at, whilst the long interference tube rejects sounds from behind and from the sides. For many years I used the affordable Sennheiser ME67, which I still use today for all of my Nocturnal recordings. It has superb noise - signal ratio, but it doesn’t sound as premium as Sennhieser’s MKH line, so I also own an MKH 416, which is a shorter microphone, so you would need to get much closer to your subject, but the sound is superb and has been the industry standard for many years, especially for dialog in film productions.
No matter how long the microphone though, you always wish you had more directionality and reach, and this is where the parabolic microphone comes in. Before I bit the bullet and bought my first parabolic, I listened online to every available recording I could find, I also read reviews and contacted each manufacturer so I could understand what makes a good parabolic dish setup.
The main manufacturers were Telinga, Dodotronic, Wildtronics and since then a few others like Soundshark and Klover. I’ve always believed that a company’s web presence says a lot about a company and whilst some of the other companies have more promotional videos online, the quality of those videos tell the story about what sort of quality you can expect from them. To cut a long story short, Telinga is where I invested my money, because the sound quality was very comparable to the some of the classic branded companies like Sennhieser and Schoeps and if sound quality mattered above all else, you could always buy their universal handle, which allowed you to use a microphone of your own choice. This is where I wanted to be down the line, using their great quality handle and flexible dish with my own microphone, but I settled for the Stereo Mk 2 which was a newer version of their famous Stereo Dat Mic. I could write a whole blog on recording stereo inside a parabola, but in short, it’s a much more natural experience, and helps you find your subjects faster in the field, even with your eyes closed. Here’s a recording of a Dunnock as an example of the sound of the Stereo Mk 2, but bear in mind I recorded this using a Zoom H6, which is a great value recorder, but doesn’t show off the microphones full potential.
I’ve since upgraded my recorder to Sound Devices Mixpre 6 ii and have also upgraded the Telinga Stereo Mk 2, to the version 3, which Telinga offered to all customers so long as they paid for the shipping. How many companies can you say have done something like that? Not only did the upgrade vastly improve the sound quality, it extended the microphones life whilst retaining most of the original materials. Take a listen to the Dunnock below and see if you hear the difference. The background sounds more open, but natural, and the mid-high sounds over-all less coloured. I am inspired by quality, so the better it sounds, the more likely I am going to use it, and this year, I’ve used this microphone more than ever.
Here’s a collection of recordings from this year alone from when I first started using it, till this very day.
The Stereo Mk 3 has improved wind handling performance, as well as an overall more dynamic range, which makes you really make use of that stereo as the background sounds are more natural. This is very difficult to achieve inside a dish where only the mid-high frequencies are being amplified, so off-axis sounds have the potential to sound more coloured, but with the Mk 3 they are very natural. This is the best quality you will get inside of a Parabolic dish for the money. The next setup here would be to use their Universal Dish and make use of small cardioid or omni microphones from Sennheiser or Schoeps. What I will say though, is that the microphones you’ll get from Telinga are designed to handle the toughest of weather conditions, and even though the sound quality will be improved jumping up to a Schoeps, it does come at the cost of wind and handling noise, all of which are superb on the Telinga mic. Schoeps realise this also, and have teamed up with Telinga and Rycote (famous company for wind protection solutions), to create a dish set that allows you to have the ultimate setup. I would love to own one one day, but even then, if I ever wanted stereo inside a Parabola, the Stereo Mk 3 is the way to go. Below is a variety of different types of recordings from the Stereo Mk 3, everything from Wild Boar, Tree’s and a variety of different tonality birds from various distances and in mostly challenging conditions, living here in South Wales, we are very humid, wet and windy, and often all three at the same time.
I have to end by saying also that Jon and Klas at Telinga have been nothing but supportive with every dealing I’ve had with them. I’ve provided them with feedback of their gear, and they have returned nothing but the best of customer service. Sound Devices have also been very helpful, as I had a bit of a bumpy ride with my first few units but all has been resolved and I’ve been using the gear for months now with nothing but flawless performance. I’ve owned the Telinga Pro X and V2 flexible dish now since 2015 and even though the dish has quite a few scratches from me pushing my way thru dense forest, it all continues to work perfectly. I’ve seen and felt the dish provided with the Dodotronics setup and it doesn’t come close to the quality of this V2 dish from Telinga: The flexibility and edging is far superior with no bubbles in the plastic itself and it’s actually larger, which means you have an advantage of capturing slightly lower frequencies with the dish. If build quality is less important to you though, the dodotronic setups do feature good mic capsules, some of which have been rumoured to be used by Telinga in the past also, and if you just want the use of a parabola as a tool, then some of the cheaper options might be more suited for your purposes. If you want the best quality though, you cannot go wrong with Telinga and the Stereo Mk 3 will always be in my bag.
https://www.telinga.com/products/pro-series/