When it comes to recording, money usually means quality. Higher priced gear tends to perform better in area suchas sound quality/timbre and low noise characteristics. This reigns true for not only the mobile recording interface used to record and store the sound, but also the microphone's quality and the user's technique.

At Samplibrary, we strive to use the best professional recording tools available on the market along with highly trained scientists of audio - our recording team!

Recorder

There are many types and brands of field recorder units used for capturing professional real world sounds in a mobile setting including but not limited to: Zoom, Sound Designs, Tascam etc. These top brands for preamp design, recorder noise characteristics and overall build quality far surpass other consumer and prosumer grade devices. Some Sound Designers prefer the sound of certain recorders but we have found the cleanest recording interface overall to be the Zoom F series Recorders. These inlude the F8n, F6, F4 and F3 units. We currently employ a Zoom F6.

Microphones

Using State of the art capturing technology from the source to the final product means starting the signal flow with a microphone.

There are many type of microphones used for different applications in field recording. You've likely heard of Shotgun Microphone or "Boom mics" but you may be less familiar with other types typically seen in a studio setting, but very useful as tools out in the open world.

Some classic dynamic mics (non powered sans phantom 48v) including the shure sm57 or a sennheiser e902 kickdrum mic make great high sound pressure level recordings for explosions and other extremely loud sources where condenser mics may easily distort.

At samplibrary we employ a rather vast collection of different sounding mics both dynamic microphones and condenser microphones to capture sounds in different ways.

These include:

- Large Diaphragm Condenser Mics (Slate Digital ML-1, Audio Technica AT 4040, Shure PG 42, Studio C1B, MXL v67g)

- Small diaphragm Condenser Mics (stereo Rode Nt-5, Slate ML-2 Modelling Mic)

- Large diaphragm dynamic Kick Drum mics (Shure Beta 52a, Sennheiser E902, AKG D112)

- Shotgun microphones (Rode NTG-2, Sennheiser MKE600)

- Small Diaphragm Dynamic mics (Shure sm-57, Shure Beta SM58,)

-Omni 360 mic (Behringer ecm8000)

Wind Protection

The main culprit in field recording for ruining a recording is WIND!

At Samplibrary we take quality very seriously since our sounds have already been used in films, released music on spotify, and on tiktok by social influencers.

Rode WS-6 is our main wind protection for shotgun mics, as well as WS2 foam for our stereo rig, and Rode WS8 minis on our single Cardioid mics