#Russland deportiert ukrainische Kinder & vermittelt sie unter Zwang an Russ:innen. Sie sollen "umerzogen" werden.

Hintergründe zum Haftbefehl gegen #Putin liefert die Spurensuche von Arndt Ginzel. Jetzt bei #ZDfrontal auf Youtube. #Ukraine
https://youtu.be/7wLVamz69Ig

I posted on mastodon.social about my project to listen to birds outside with the windows closed when it's cold outside. My favorites are the white-crowned sparrows who visit in winter and have a very sweet wistful song. I also found robins, so common in Midwestern suburbs, come down from the mountains to eat the berries off bushes in winter. And, of course, I can keep an ear out for our local nuthatches.

I started with iPhone "remote microphone" apps that stream over AirPlay. They work, but, my iPhone is sitting outside getting cold. And they're all mono despite the stereo mics (actually iPhone has a multi-mic array, but, whatever, mono out from the apps so far.)

As a former Shure employee, I of course looked at Shure wireless microphone systems. The quality is high, but since they're aiming for professional use even their cheapest sytems are quite expensive (like, $500) and have professional-quality XLR balanced audio outputs which means I'd need a separate box (and XLR cables, sold separately) to feed the results into my laptop.

(Side note: The FocusRite Scarlett is very popular with people who work with audio. But that's another $150)

Instead, I picked up a RØDE Rode Wireless GO II, a demo unit from Sweetwater for $200. It consists of three tiny little boxes: two transmitters that can be merged for redundancy or treated separately as stereo, and a receiver. They all have USB-C for charging and interfacing with your computer.

Advantages of the RØDE:

1. Each remote has a built-in omnidirectional mic, so you're in business immediately.
2. 4GHz digital transmission with 128-bit encryption is quieter and more secure than raw analog streaming.
3. The receiver acts as wireless USB audio interface: uncompressed 48KHz, 24 bit audio into your laptop.
5. The receiver has a mini headphone jack, so you can immediately hear what's going on
6. Automatic configuration. You turn the things on, they sync, you're good to go.
7. Configuration software. Tether the little guys to your laptop and RØDE software gives you more options after updating the firmware.
8. Each remote can record up to 7 hours of audio locally. For a pro shoot, you'd pull that off and edit afterwards.
9. There's a lot of options for videographers, including a "safety channel" which you'll want if you know what it is and your job depends on it.

Yeah, no, the more affordable Shure gear does none of this. RØDE is worth checking if you're the one paying for the gear.

RØDE gear is actually made in Australia. So far I'm impressed with the build quality and sound, but documentation is sorely lacking. For example the remotes have an option in software to adjust the LUFS. What's LUFS? You should know that already, lol. The UI on the devices is, well, minimal, but you can eventually figure out the buttons.

I purchased Rogue Amoeba's AirFoil to re-broadcast the digital stereo input to the HomePods around my house. AirPlay does have some latency but the convenience is worth it for me. I use the EQ in AirFoil to knock out the low end suburban rumble and increase the gain, but, honestly, the RØDE gear does a great job of rejecting noise already.

The only oddness is the units sync as "channel one" and "channel two" with no guarantee which will be "left" or "right" so you need to check before deploying them as a pseudo-stereo microphone. I could be wrong! But wish you could explicitly flag which transmitter gets assigned to which channel.

So there you go, 3,606 characters about listening to birds.

#audio #fieldRecording #birds #RØDE #Shure

https://rode.com/en-us/user-guides/wireless-go-ii

Ich bin ja hier auf bildung.social, wo es viele Lehrpersonen gibt und das #FediLZ eine große Rolle spielt. Und ich fühl mich wohl.

Aber als Mensch, der vor allem #Erwachsenenbildung (#livingLearning), #Beratung (mit #TZI) und #Mediation macht, sehe ich da noch Luft nach oben bei der #Vernetzung. Gibts da noch andere Accounts auf diesen Feldern?

Wollen wir uns mal Hashtags suchen, die uns zusammenbringen?

Bitte retoot für Reichweite.