Had to happen I guess.
It is a perfect spring day here and the H8 needed a run as did some of the mics.
I went down to the local dog park located by a river, a place we use for our dogs and we often comment on the number of birds we see and hear.
I actually sat over to the left around the bend a little.
I hopped out of the car to be greeted by five heavy duty weed whackers going full bore and a remote lawn mowing vehicle.
A little wander down the road and the sounds of light industrial mayem abated.
The kit I had was pretty representative of my overall offer.
The H8 in field mode.
The SSH-6 mid-side shotgun, which has become my standard answer to most things.
A Lewitt LCT 240 Pro, representing condensers and my favourite “room” mic.
The Se V7 representing dynamics, yet to be used seriously, so time to play.
My M40x cans.
First up I tried the LCT on a small light stand, no shock bracket and only a foam wind cover. No wind noise (no wind), but pretty much 100% handling feedback. Even the headphone cable rubbing on the stand leg came out all to perfectly. These are studio mics, so allowances have to be made, the shock mount sitting at home would be one of them!
I had to turn up the gain to 7-8 to get signal, which surprised me, but more on this in a moment.
The sound however, was sublime. I closed my eyes and let every little bird sound, distant traffic noise, dog walkers and a whole lot of other stuff I could not pin-point wash over me. Seriously relaxing stuff.
Next the SSH-6 which was again pushed up to about 7-8 before I heard anything (again see below), was good and clean and the mid-side control, although different again to either the F1 or H5 was interesting to play with (one has degrees, the other two use levels, but they don’t match each other).
Not as pure and delicate as the LCT, it was more resistant to handling noises and the fluffy cover completely blocked wind noise (that I had to fake by blowing on it). I know from other reviews that there is nothing to gained by using the H8 with this over the F1 or H5, so it is not my way forward. The H8 was bought for XLR cable mics, where it shines.
I thought to bring my original EM5 Mk1 and the 12-60 Panasonic kit lens. Not a bad pairing although the EM5 is starting to get forgetful, dropping the odd frame (just like the heavily used one I bought off a friend).
Lastly, I tried the V7. Much more focussed than the LCT, it was clean, but I had to max it out to 10 to hear anything so I wrote this type of mic off for field work. Shame as it was the best for handling and has decent side rejection.
Ok, time to fess-up.
The reason I was having to drive these pretty hard was totally my mistake. I plugged the phones into the line-out jack (I have been using the F1 a lot and it only has one line for phones and output), not the headphones out. The line output was set on less than 50%.
When I realised and switched, which was during the second run of the 240, I almost blow my head off!
Suddenly 4-5 gain was plenty. Even the V7 was decent enough, but still not a real field mic, maybe an interview mic?
Now the fun really began.
I could hear small wag-tails chirping 20 feet away like they were at arms length, heard some dog walkers coming thanks to their fur friend’s jingling collars, that turned out to be 50 feet away and behind the mic, then I picked up some ducks disturbed by those same people and dogs, who it turned out were 40 feet in the opposite direction.
Their busy conversation was more varied and interesting than I thought it would be.
Even small wag-tails flitting over head were not only discernable, but I could picture where they came from and where they went. I even got the drop on a mosquito, before it got danger close.
Sound comes in layers it seems. After the five minute rule had come into effect (about how long it takes skittish birds etc to ignore you and come back), I could pick out about ten bird sounds and over twenty other sounds from man made noise to water babbling somewhere near by.
The longer I sat, the deeper it went.
I must admit, I am a little hooked.