Recording insects — what mic? Parabolic / shotgun?

The Lounge Other Gear
1

Hey!

Would love to be able to record the sounds that tiny animals (e.g. insects) make while eating etc.

For preamp I would go to SoundDevices and their MixPre mk2 with 32 bit audio.

For the mic I read that a parabolic mic would be best. I have never owned a shotgun mic so I don‘t even know if that could be enough for my needs.

Has anybody of you experience in this field?

Cheers!

2 Likes
2

Check some of the recordings lower down the page.

2 Likes
3

Maybe you could also try contact mics attached to certain kinds of surfaces for the insects to run around on.

2 Likes
4

You might want to check out this short making-of documentary for Amon Tobin’s album Foley Room. He records everything including insects on that record. And it’s phenomenal!

2 Likes
5

Yeah Amon Tobin is recording all kinds of insects and “micro sounds” and has been experimenting with foley stuff since Foley Room. I’m sure he’s using expensive hyper sensitive mics, though. Maybe check Equipboard.com?

On the topic of contact mics, I would like to start experimenting with this kind of stuff. Have always been intrigued by this but never really got into it. So the other day I was looking for a cheap piezo mic for my guitar, and I’m thinking buying a few contact mics. 1 for the guitar and another one to connect to the iphone / ipad.

On Thomann, I found 2 cheap ones. Has anyone got any experoence with these?
(For guitar: https://m.thomann.de/be/harley_benton_truetone_t_20.htm
(For everything else:
https://m.thomann.de/be/harley_benton_hbt.htm

These are only 15 euros a piece, so they probably wont capture too much low end etc…

2 Likes