Question about quality of Rode NTG birds recording

[lwdotto]

I recently received the Rode NTG5 and the other day I was recording some birds. When I listened to the recording, I was surprised by how clearly the cars in the background can be heard. Please have a listen: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lcqhcic2gxp7t2h/RODE%20NTG5%20birds.WAV?dl=0

The road was about 200 meters away and I was standing with my back to it, so I didn't think the mic would pick it up that much. I tested the mic indoors with voices and the sound is very nice, but I was hoping to also use it outdoors to pick up nature sounds. The mic has very good reviews and it says on the Rode website that this mic can be used in a wide variety of situations, but so far I've been a bit disappointed by its performance.

Could there be a problem with the mic or is this normal and was I just expecting too much?

Thanks

[Kwackman]

The mic has very good reviews and it says on the Rode website that this mic can be used in a wide variety of situations, but so far I've been a bit disappointed by its performance.

Could there be a problem with the mic or is this normal and was I just expecting too much?

Thanks

The recording sounds fine to me.
There is low level traffic noise recorded because the mic could "hear" it, so it's doing its job perfectly.
You might be able to filter out the traffic with EQ?
Nice birdsong!

[Wonks]

Your brain is very good at filtering out background noise, but a mic/recording picks it up regardless. If you've added any compression, that will also make the quieter traffic noise louder.

To pick up a specific single bird, you could use a parabolic mic, which will get the bird sound a lot louder in comparison to the background noise, but it is very directional, so you need a very stationary bird. But for general bird noise, then you get what you get, and you ideally need to find somwhere further away from the traffic, or with a lot less of it.

The mic may be directional and pointing away from the road, but some traffic noise will get reflected back by trees and bushes.

A high pass filter can remove a lot of the low frequency traffic noise without affecting the birdsong, which will start at a comparatively high frequency compared to the road noise. So try a high pass filter at different frequencies and slope values until you get the best compromise between lack of traffic noise and naturalness of sound. The steeper the slope, the closer you can set the filter frequency to the lowest frequency of the birdsong without affecting it, but the less natural it will sound. There is no 'right' value, you just have to experiment and find what works best for each recording.

[Tim Gillett]

The birdsong seems to extend down to somewhere between 1 kHz and 1.5 kHz. Much of the traffic noise is below that so a HPF set to take effect somewhere between those limits would filter much of that traffic noise out.

[Arpangel]

The "pylon effect"
A photograph of a beautiful sunset, it’s so beautiful, you fail to notice the electricity pylon right across the foreground, it’s happened to me many times, with field recordings, unwanted noise that somehow gets ignored by my brain.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I recently received the Rode NTG5 and the other day I was recording some birds. When I listened to the recording, I was surprised by how clearly the cars in the background can be heard.

Okay. That surprise will be due to inexperience with the physics and capabilities of the mic, rather than anything else.

The road was about 200 meters away and I was standing with my back to it, so I didn't think the mic would pick it up that much.

See above! The NTG5 is what's known as a 'short shotgun' mic. It's only starts rejecting sounds from the rear above 1kHz, and even then the pickup pattern doesn't really get seriously 'pointy' until above 4kHz. This is quite normal for this kind of mic.

Also bear in mind if you were in woods, that a lot of sound bounces off the trees, so even with the road behind you, some of the road noise will be bouncing off trees and coming in to the front of the mic anyway.

The mic has very good reviews and it says on the Rode website that this mic can be used in a wide variety of situations, but so far I've been a bit disappointed by its performance.

If you want greater directivity you'll need to invest either in a much longer shotgun mic -- such as the Sennheiser MKH 70 (£1,600 plus another £500 for the windshield), or use a parabolic mic arrangement -- something like the Telinga Mk2, perhaps. Wildtronics would be another option.... but either would set you back close to another £1000 and you might need to add the cost of a new mic depending on your choice of model...

Could there be a problem with the mic or is this normal and was I just expecting too much?

The latter -- your expectations are out of line with the reality.

That said, you could potentially improve your recording further by applying some high-pass filtering to reduce the lower frequency road noises without affecting the bird song significantly. (The parabolic dishes largely do that acoustically due to their size too).

But I'd say your bird song recordings are pretty good and perfectly acceptable as they are already.

[Mike Stranks]

Yup! 'Noises off" are the bane of a location recordist's life.

Your NTG is fine and is working as it's supposed to. Its pickup pattern attenuates noises-off; it doesn't exclude them.

Before lockdown I was a regular visitor to the Slimbridge nature reserve. I gave up trying to record the birds in the end because of distant trains, boats, aircraft and people! I quickly discovered with a good recorder, good preamp and good mic the electronic signal to noise ratio may be superb, but there's a concomitant capture of noises off.

About 10 years ago I was able to rescue a recording of the dawn chorus by putting a hi-pass across the whole recording at about 300Hz... Might be worth trying...

[Tim Gillett]

...About 10 years ago I was able to rescue a recording of the dawn chorus by putting a hi-pass across the whole recording at about 300Hz... Might be worth trying...

Mike, I tried HPF on the OP's recording here. Since the birds have quite a high pitch here, the HPF can be much higher than 300 Hz and still not affect the birdsong.

[James Perrett]

And of course there's always noise reduction software if you can't re-record. Here's an attempt with the RX8 Spectral Denoise default settings.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vxIAXv ... sp=sharing

[Tomás Mulcahy]

...or use a parabolic mic arrangement -- something like the Telinga Mk2, perhaps. Wildtronics would be another option.... but either would set you back close to another £1000 and you might need to add the cost of a new mic depending on your choice of model...

Alternatively the Innercore is is an excellent and cost-effective parabolic, I'd recommend the optional wind shield it is extremely effective, and I daresay a much cleverer windshield than the Telinga:
https://parabolicmicrophone.co.uk/

I use it with a little Sony ECM-717 stereo mic. It's very directional! There is a natural LF rolloff due again to physics, but it is working in your favour this time!

The perspective is much more interesting than what you can get with a shotgun mic IMHO. It can sound like you're up in the trees with them. Here's a recording I made, the photo is taken from my position. Some processing applied:
https://parabolicmicrophone.co.uk/pages ... -in-stereo

BTW I am not affiliated with this vendor, just a happy customer!

[lwdotto]

Thanks everyone for the comments and helpful feedback! Glad to hear my mic/the recording sounds okay to you guys. I'm gonna try to get to know this mic better and hopefully in the process get better at doing field recordings!

[Filter Stories]

Shotgun microphones actually do pick up quite a lot of noise behind where you are pointing. The best way to reduce unwanted noise is to have the shotgun microphone perpendicular to that noise.

Here is a good video that explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM4Nt-MVovg

[tea for two]

Appreciated Filter Stories for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology utube link also if you didn't post I would have missed this from Tomás.

Alternatively the Innercore is an excellent and cost-effective parabolic, I'd recommend the optional wind shield it is extremely effective, and I daresay a much cleverer windshield than the Telinga:
https://parabolicmicrophone.co.uk/

Here's a recording I made, the photo is taken from my position. Some processing applied:
https://parabolicmicrophone.co.uk/pages ... -in-stereo

BTW I am not affiliated with this vendor, just a happy customer!

[N i g e l]

If you'r not working to a schedule, then one way to reduce traffic noise in recordings is to record when there is less traffic. I find 1st thing Sunday is good, bank holiday Sundays even better.

[Sam Spoons]

Probably less effective when out in the 'green spaces' which may be deserted on a weekday mid morning but full of noisy dog walkers on a Sunday

[N i g e l]

The tip was specifically for traffic noise, motor vehicle rather than pedistrian traffic. Obviously its not a one size fits all, adapt it to fit your needs.
To make the tip more universal it might be better to say: sometimes the source can be manipulated rather than changing the equipment.

[Sam Spoons]

Apart from sounding like a particularly zen Jamie Oliver that's nicely fielded

[Arpangel]

...or use a parabolic mic arrangement -- something like the Telinga Mk2, perhaps. Wildtronics would be another option.... but either would set you back close to another £1000 and you might need to add the cost of a new mic depending on your choice of model...

Alternatively the Innercore is is an excellent and cost-effective parabolic, I'd recommend the optional wind shield it is extremely effective, and I daresay a much cleverer windshield than the Telinga:
https://parabolicmicrophone.co.uk/

I use it with a little Sony ECM-717 stereo mic. It's very directional! There is a natural LF rolloff due again to physics, but it is working in your favour this time!

The perspective is much more interesting than what you can get with a shotgun mic IMHO. It can sound like you're up in the trees with them. Here's a recording I made, the photo is taken from my position. Some processing applied:
https://parabolicmicrophone.co.uk/pages ... -in-stereo

BTW I am not affiliated with this vendor, just a happy customer!

https://www.soundonsound.com/people/mike-skeet

[tea for two]

I recall reading Mike Skeet SoS article at the time when there was a thread for Mike's obituary on SoS foruume.

From the article "He was a strong advocate of both the Mid-Sides technique (which had largely been forgotten in the ’70s and ’80s), and dummy-head/binaural techniques, which he first started using for location recordings in the ’60s. "

Intrigued by dummy head kuntskopf recording. I've seen pictures of recording dummy heads, hadn't considered them until now.
Here's SoS article written by Chris Korff, paragraphs on dummy head recording.
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... -recording
From the article "You don’t need a dummy head to make binaural recordings: in‑ear microphones will also do the job .... Down sides include the fact that any noise you make during the recording will definitely be picked up (so no sneezing, yawning or tooth‑grinding during the performance!), and that your legs might get tired with all that standing around. You’ll also need to be very careful about moving your head during takes, because that motion will be captured in the recording. Perhaps most significantly, though, there’s a chance that your HRTF is sufficiently different from the listener’s that the glorious sense of three‑dimensional space you can hear on the recording simply won’t translate."

::

PS. Windshield for parabolic, this haute couture Nina Ricci hat is quite fetching.
https://www.ninaricci.com/en-uk/fashion ... gLVP_D_BwE
A snip at £800.

[tea for two]

After being intrigued by kunstkopf binaural recording, briefly searched for a relatively affordable setup.
SR3D binaural microphone kit : here's how they sound.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ8WPU-lv ... Nyb3Bob25l
From 2min17sec onwards.

For me the next stage is to purchase a SR3D binaural microphone kit, an ambiosonic Zoom H3-VR, recording nature sounds thereafter post them on ere user review foruume. Could take me a little while as I have to currently save up for them.

[N i g e l]

how crucial are the fake ears ?

[Sam Spoons]

I would guess the most important part if you want the full '3D experience'.

[tea for two]

The mics should really be placed close to the ear Drum position with accurate modelling of Pinna and Canal.

From this SR3D production vid, they only place the mics at the Canal entrance.
At 39min37sec.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wLGyZ18jt ... IzZA%3D%3D