We'll be recording audio in the southern hemisphere as soon as possible using high fidelity audio recording equipment. General questions:

1. Which field recorder should we use?
2. How should we power it?
3. Which general thing should we be aware of? Process and methodology...

Daan Hendriks
Website

"Howdy, I’m Daan. I’m a sound designer living and working in London. I’m currently employed as Lead Audio Designer at Mind Candy, where I look after all audio needs for Moshi Monsters and various unannounced titles. Before working at Mind Candy I was a freelancer working under the Audiomotif banner. On this website here you can find my very out-of-date porftolio, alongside music and DJ/live sets that I have produced for fun. I also sporadically document sound effects recording and design adventures."

Hey
The battery question is difficult. I've never set up a permanent rig like this, so my own battery solutions have only ever needed to last for about 12hours max.
The budget is also pretty low, of course I understand why that is the case, just that it's something to bear in mind as it will limit your options a lot. For that money you can just about get a cheap handheld recorder with built in mics. If you also need external mics (which I would suggest because of confined space considerations) then it adds up, and then we're not even talking a battery solution yet.

But here's what I would try:

1. I'd like to put a couple of cheap contact mics inside the hives so that the bees will create their honey 'on' and 'around' the mics. Contact mics are ok to get messy and sticky, and you can get them really cheap (even for as low as a few dollar if you make them yourself from piezo elements). The contact mics will provide an interesting perspective for internal beehive activity and don't need phantom power so won't be a big battery drain.

2. I personally would also try to hide two miniature microphones inside the hive for 'airborne' sound as opposed to the contact mics, which only pick up vibrations through material. There's a company called Microphone Madness that produces cheap but good quality miniature mics.

3. Now on to the difficult part... powering a recorder for days at time. My initial thought is that the best solution would be to use external mics with long cables, long enough to have the recorder somewhere near a power plug. That way you can record for as long as needed but I don't know if this is possible at all. You can also consider USB battery packs for extra oomph. I use a Tekkeon MPMP3450 with my Tascam DR680 recorder which powers the unit for 12hours, using two phantom powered mics at 96khz/24bit. If you'd be using mics that only need plug-in-power or maybe no powering at all then you'd spend much less battery life. Recording at lower resolutions (like 44.1/16bit cd quality) also saves battery life a lot. So I could likely record for at least 24 hours in that scenario. However the battery pack alone is about your entire budget...

3.1 As for recorders, it depends how many mics you decide to use, if you want stereo/mono. In my above examples, you could have one contact mic and one miniature mic, both picking up in mono for two different perspectives. You could also have 2 of each for both perspectives in stereo. That would mean you need a recorder with 4 inputs instead of two. I can't immediately answer which recorder would be best for you, but brands like Zoom, Olympus and Tascam make affordable handheld recorders.

So this is a general overview of my thoughts. I can get more specific once you have a bit more of an idea of what sort of route you want to take this, happy to help.

Cheers,
Daan

This is a summary of Daan's email above:

Hardware

• Contact Microphones - Google Search
• Microphone Madness - MM-BSM-6 "Micro" Binaural Stereo Microphones
• Tekkeon MPMP3450 - USB battery pack
• Zoom, Olympus and Tascam

General Points

• Our budget is pretty low for these field recording kits.
• Recording at lower resolutions (like 44.1/16bit cd quality) also saves battery life a lot.
• My initial thought is that the best solution would be to use external mics with long cables, long enough to have the recorder somewhere near a power plug.

TASCAM DR-05 Portable Digital Recorder - $99.99 & FREE Shipping
Specifications

Full Feature List

Handheld Portable Recorder
Built-in Stereo Condenser Omnidirectional Microphones with sensitivity up to 125dB SPL
Up to 96kHz/24-bit WAV (BWF) linear PCM recording
Stereo MP3 recording from 32-320 kbps bit rate
Peak Reduction function, optimized for music recording, automatically sets the gain of while recording
Limiter and low-cut filter to help prevent distortion
Automatic or manual level setting
Self timer recording starts recording 5 or 10 sec. after pressing the record button for waiting until you are ready
Auto and manual track increment
Variable speed playback (50%-150%) without changing the pitch
Loop and repeat playback
Level Align feature prevents uneven volume levels during playback
Playback EQ setting
Editing function (Divide and delete)
Up to 99 mark points on each file
Chromatic tuner
1/8" stereo mic/line input
USB 2.0 port for transfer to PC and external power
Up to 2-second pre recording buffer
Jump back function returns to previous point with one action (1-10, 20, 30 sec.)
1/8" headphone/line output
Built-in speaker
microSD (64MB – 2GB)/microSDHC (4GB – 32GB) card slot (2GB card included)
Powered by 2 AA batteries, AC adapter (optional: PS-P515U), or USB bus power
Tripod socket hole
Dimensions: 2 3/8" W x 5 9/16" H x 1" D
Weight: 4 1/16 oz

Sonic Studios: PORTABLE DECK POWERING SOLUTIONS

ALKALINE C & D external battery systems allow for maximized hours-to-days of field recorder powering for least pack size/weight.

These are currently the MOST POWERFUL, RELIABLE, and FASTEST REFRESHING external battery devices available in the world for remote location power!

Christopher Guillot
Studio Director
Cherry Sound llc & Audio Forensic Pros

I think that that (the Tascam) would be perfectly adequate. Just make sure that the levels are good, and that the recording device is set to omni directional if possible. If not, stereo would also work. And record at a high resolution. sample and bit rate. (24khz 48bit, or higher if wav. If Mp3, at least 320Kbps) It may be particularly important to record at a high res because Bees probably make sounds that are not within the normal realm of what we think of as human auditory perception. Perhaps the higher res will make it possible to pars that out a bit more from the recording.

Are you putting these devices in the hives? or near? just curious. Vital project.

Christopher Guillot
Studio Director
Cherry Sound llc & Audio Forensic Pros
303.910.5359
www.cherrysoundstudios.com
www.audioforensicpros.com

TASCAM BP-6AA External Battery Pack for Portable Digital Recorder
$34.49

The BP-6AA is an external battery pack for TASCAM handheld recorders. It mounts to the bottom of your handheld recorder using a tripod screw and powers the handheld recorder through the USB cable. Since the BP-6AA itself also has a tripod connector, it can be mounted to a desktop stand.
The BP-6AA battery pack increases DR-40’s already-impressive 17.5 hour battery life to over 50 hours of recording.
External battery pack with six AA batteries
ON / OFF switch
USB output connector (power only)
Powered by USB to adapter cable (included) or USB cable (included with recorder)
Battery pod slides out of tripod attachment
Mounts to the handheld equipment’s tripod connector
Compatible models: DR-40, DR-05, DR-07MKII, DR-100, DR-100MKII, DR-2d, DR-07, GT-R1, DR-08, DP-004, DP-008

So is it the TASCAM going to be used then?
The battery packs sound like the best idea for remote locations.
Is it possible for the contact mics to be small enough that you could have a small hole and insert the mic into, like the first one listed

And have an o-ring seat to seal the hole again?

We're going to start testing with the Tascams and battery packs. In the future, we'll be using microphones integrated with our sensor kits to search for specific audio signatures. Regarding the contact microphones, we'll have some research and testing to do to say for sure. An accelerometer mounted to the hive walls might achieve the same thing and has been done before here.