the nice folks at SANKEN have supplied one of their impressively spec'd CUW-180 mics - it arrived today & first impressions are....cor blimey !

This thing is small - only 160.6mm x 78.7mm & light as a hefty feather (224g). It arrived in a custom vinyl case, well padded & with a standard mic stand clip & a rycote suspension cip (see photo) + 5pin to 2 x 3pin xlr cable.

eager to have a listen, I placed the mic in to a standard Rycote wind jammer mount / handle & made a quick test recording indoors. I had the much cheaper Rode NT4 in the rycote first, so I took a listen, swapped it for the CUW-180 & listened again. The NT4 is clearly not a realistic competitor for the Sanken but i'm somewhat of a fan of that particular entry level stereo, single unit mic - it does a good all round job for the price. Having said that, plug in the Sanken &....blast off. The first thing that is obvious is the audible power - its louder, more defined & the sound (& indeed the build) is far more sophisticated, which is perhaps to be expected given that the CUW-180 costs at least £2000 more than the Rode.

There are two simple questions that will be of interest to those considering a new mic:
1. how does the Sanken sound
2. how does it compare to other mics of the same cost

1. i'll be taking the CUW-180 out & making lots of test recordings with it in the coming months & will post extracts so you can hear for yourselves.

2. this is where it gets a bit more complicated. For one thing there aren't a lot of stereo, single unit mics out there in this kind of bracket (high end). In fact there also aren't any others at all that allow you to rotate the capsules in the way the Sanken does. Therefore, the only way for me to assess this mic will be to compare it, where possible, to other mics in general - to give a basic idea of whether, should you have the budget, you'd be advised to consider this alongside some of the other well known high end mics.

Of course, i've only had this mic for a few hours but I have to say that already i'm impressed & looking forward to getting out into the field with it.

Two Microphones In One Body For X-Y Stereo Recording

・ A single microphone body with two cardioid condenser capsules that can be rotated freely up to 180 degrees

The CUW-180 combines two exceptionally engineered cardioid condenser microphones in one compact body. Each of the two capsules is independently adjustable through any angle up to 180°, with 15° detent, providing a versatile microphone for a variety of X-Y stereo and Surround recording applications. Thanks to precise diaphragm layout of two capsules, the perfect phase coherence between Ch1 and Ch2 is kept even in any angle of two capsules.

It is important to note that two microphone capsules in one body create an ideal stereo configuration because the actual physical design takes into account the effect of the microphone body itself, as opposed to two separate microphones which are not physically designed to work adjacent to one another. The CUW-180 provides ideal X-Y stereo recording of classical ensembles, guitars, brass, drum overheads, etc. The microphone is also well-suited for talk shows with two persons sitting face-to-face, providing fully independent level controls. Each signal is available through the standard AES configuration XLR-5M connector.

four questions # 33 - Bernie Krause

Bernie Krause is a searcher. I'm sure lots of folks reading this blog will know of his work with nature recording & indeed might also be aware of other aspects of his journey with sound, which include:

. A childhood studying classical violin & composition (from the age of 3)
. session musician on various sessions, from jazz to motown
. a stint replacing Pete Seeger in The Weavers
. study of electronic music at Mills Uni, with teachers such as Stockhausen & Oliveros
. playing an important role in the development of the synthesizer in popular music (for example on records
  by The Monkees, The Byrds, Stevie Wonder, George Harrison & The Doors)
. expanding the use of electronic music & special effects in soundtracks such as Apocalypse now, Love
  Story, Invasions of the body snatchers, The Munsters & tons more

Since the late 1960's his interest in natural soundscapes has resulted in 50 albums & some 4,000 + hours of recordings in his archives. He's also found time to write some of the most respected books on the subject.

His latest 'The great animal orchestra' has just been published to acclaim & was the BBC's book of the week. By the time you read the first few pages you soon understand why his books are held in such high regard - they communicate. Now, that might seem like an obvious requirement of any book on a subject such as sound but its far from a common occurrence.

What comes off the page is Bernie's need to listen, his enjoyment of that act & his ability to keep searching.

Having no doubt been asked more questions about his approach to field recording than most I still decided to ask him to take part in the 'four questions' series of interviews & he was happy to do so:


JrF: when & why did you become interested in field recording ?

BK: In 1968, when my late music partner, Paul Beaver, were asked by Warner Brothers to create a theme for our first WB album, In A Wild Sanctuary. The theme was ecology. It meant going into the field (the first time for me) to record ambient sound. Off I went to a small biological island north of San Francisco called Muir Woods (now a national park), a remnant old growth coastal redwood forest. When I switched on the recorder and heard the stereo space open up in that magical habitat, my life changed. It was an epiphany. I just wanted to stay there and never return to an enclosed space to record. The rest is history expressed in the book.

JrF: how do you use your field recordings in your own artistic output ?

BK: As components of the orchestration, itself, something never before done in music composition. In A Wild Sanctuary was thus a real breakthrough piece of music literature.

JrF: do you regard 'natural' sounds as a musical element (bearing in mind that the conventional definition of 'music' is rapidly becoming obsolete) or as sound ? is this definition important ? does it matter ?

BK: Definitions are important only insofar as they codify form in any medium. All of that is expressly articulated in the book (P. 109 -111 - The Great Animal Orchestra)

JrF: has the act of making field recording had an effect (positive or negative) on the way you listen to your everyday surroundings and how has it affected the way you listen to other music and sound (if at all) ?

BK: Yes. Certainly. Since I don't see very well, my whole world has always been informed by sound. Learning to hear the structures of biophonies has definitely helped me experience soundscapes with more definition and with more richness. That goes for music, too. Although, I tend to favor more contemporary music that comes closer to the way sound is expressed in the natural world (composers like Britten, Ives, Schafer, etc)

http://www.wildsanctuary.com/

a quiet position - form(at), flora & fauna

submission are being sought for the next edition of a quiet position, focusing on recordings (new or archive) made on tape based recorders - from portable cassette recorders to dictaphones to reel to reel machines....

of particular interest is the way in which the limits and condition of the equipment or indeed the resulting tapes, have added to the recordings....

please send details of the recordings you’d like to submit, along with wav. format transfers of the tapes if you have them to: tempjez@hotmail.com