I'd appreciate advice about acoustic recorders for undertaking surveys for a range of taxa, particularly birds, frogs and microbats (i.e. audible and ultrasonic). The units will be left in situ for days/weeks and will need to withstand a range of environmental conditions (e.g. deserts and wet tropics). I've previously used Song Meters. Is anything better.....that's not considerably more expensive? If not, which Songmeter model would be best? Thanks in advance.
I'm also interested in this topic. Could I add an additional question? Are these devices sound activated? I ask because I'd like to use something like this to monitor coyote vocalization.
Hi, you can use the 4th generation Song Meter SM4 which is a compact, weatherproof, dual-channel acoustic recorder capable of capturing large amounts of data from wildlife such as birds, frogs and aquatic life.
Hope this link useful https://www.wildlifeacoustics.com/
Thanks for the advice Nevin and Salwan. It's extremely helpful.
We are also searching for such devices for sound recordings (birds, gunshots)!
We only did find SM4 (3,2).,
Does anybody know about any other brand producing comparable devices?
We need to know for our administration to show which ones to chose! (although we already decided to chose SM4)
Another hint: If you take more than 25 songmeters, the price will decrease by 10% ;-)
Declan, no, they are not sound activiated, they are programmable to come on/off at set times.
The SM4 and previous versions are all very good depending on your needs. FYI, Wildlife Acoustics just released new firmware for the SM4 that provides really advanced customizable scheduling of recordings. A key feature in my opinion.
Other options, look up FrogLogger. In addition, there have been a few recent publications detail DIY versions. I have not tried them so can neither recommend them or otherwise, but you should be aware of them. If you try this, a key is to go for high signal to noise ratio microphones. Stay tuned for specific recommendations (article in review). See...
Farina et al. 2014. Low cost audio recording for advancing soundscape ecology towards the conservation of sonic comlexity and biodiversity in natural and urban landscapes. Urban ecosystems 17(4): 923-944.
wa Maina, C. 2016. Cost effective acousitc monitoring of bird species. In Interspeech pp 2617-2620.
Whytock, R.C. and J. Christie. 2017. Solo: an open source, customizable and inexpensive audio recorder for bioacoustics research. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 8(3): 308-312.
-Steve
I believe the Wildlife Acoustics devices do have an option for being sound-activated (with varying thresholds). There are a variety of other devices for recording bats. For example, see here: http://www.batmanagement.com/Ordering/acoustic/acousticmain.html. However, I'm not aware of others that also record in the audible spectrum
The recent AudioMoth recorders (https://www.openacousticdevices.info/) is also an interesting option.
To my knowldege they are not sound activated, but they are extremely portable and affordable.
Thanks Daniel, Aaron, Steven, Nevin and Oliver. This is all wonderfully informative.
Dear Damian, something like has been discussed here, I hope it will be useful as well: https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_Sony_ICD-SX2000_and_Olympus_LS-14_are_good_choices_for_song_recording_in_bioacoustic_studies_about_birds?view=59f8a3c8ed99e165c315babb
Hi Olli,
I would also have a look at the avisoft webpage - they also offer ultrasound equipment for bats, but specalize in birds. I would have a look at this one:
https://www.avisoft.com/usg/usg116h.htm
Best,
Michael
Thank you all for your helpful advice, it's greatly appreciated!
The SM4s are extremely user-friendly. I recommend those, however I only have experience using them for bats.
http://www.lunilettronik.it/product/set-soundscape-explorer-terrestrial/
very happy
Hi.
I'm using at the moment a TASCAM DR-05 sound recoder (mainly for birds, but also for frogs), and later I improve the recordings with the program Audacity.
Best regards, and good luck in your research.
Hi all
I'm new to the subject but it seems that omnidirectional recorders (for soundscapes) only work at predefined times. Okay, but I'm wondering if you can suggest an omnidirectional bird recorder that can also be turned on / off in the field with instant recording in case of need (for example in the case of a field operator recording outside).
Do you have any suggestions for devices that work both ways ?
Thank you
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