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This question might sound a little daft but I am a rank newcomer to the world of sound recording. And I have to ask this. I shall be quite grateful if someone could please answer my question and guide me a little here.

My questions is - from a recording quality point of view, is it better to record single bird calls in stereo or mono? I have an Edirol R09 and a Rode Videomic Pro. File size is not an issue with me but I want to know which offers a more true to life recording when I play it back.

Calcuttan wrote:
This question might sound a little daft but I am a rank newcomer to the world of sound recording. And I have to ask this. I shall be quite grateful if someone could please answer my question and guide me a little here.

My questions is - from a recording quality point of view, is it better to record single bird calls in stereo or mono? I have an Edirol R09 and a Rode Videomic Pro. File size is not an issue with me but I want to know which offers a more true to life recording when I play it back.

The Rode videomic pro is a mono shotgum-microphone. You can point it to the bird. It cuts out the environment better than the (stereo) edirol R09 that records everything.

The best thing to do is just try...

Thanks a lot for clearing this major misconception from my mind. I just rechecked the website that says this

"At the heart of the VideoMic Pro is a high resolution 1/2" condenser capsule that provides broadcast quality audio via a 3.5mm minijack connector (outputting the mono signal to both left and right channels)."

This means when I force it to do a "stereo" recording it is more of a compromise stereo than the real thing. Is that right? This is just for the sake of satiating my curiosity. In all my naivette I had interpreted it (due to the clever marketing jargon) as a stereo microphone

Thanks once again.

Recording mono or stereo - depends on what you need. Either you want to emphasize specific sound (and record mono or just directional) or you want to get this sound in its environmental context and/or space.

Calcuttan wrote:

"At the heart of the VideoMic Pro is a high resolution 1/2" condenser capsule that provides broadcast quality audio via a 3.5mm minijack connector (outputting the mono signal to both left and right channels)."

This means when I force it to do a "stereo" recording it is more of a compromise stereo than the real thing. Is that right? This is just for the sake of satiating my curiosity. In all my naivette I had interpreted it (due to the clever marketing jargon) as a stereo microphone

Thanks once again.

No it is not a compromise stereo it is mono. It means that in the mic there is one single capsule that just reord one signal. A stereo mis has two capsules like your recorder has, a left and a right mic.

The rode mic sends the 'only' signal to the left and the right channel of your recorder. So you hear one signal on both ears with your headphones on. When you have a stereo-mic you hear left a bit different from right. that makes it more spatial.

Somehow I missed to reply on time. Thanks for explaining the basic concept. It is perfectly clear to me as to what my microphone does. Now, can I ask a supplementary question for the sake of my understanding? Suppose I had an option to choose between a stereo and a mono mic which is better for bird songs? I am not talking about recording the ambience of a large area full of birds. I am talking about specific songs/calls of a particular bird.
Thanks a tonne for being such a help.
Calcuttan

I don't know everything you ask, but I think it's good to look here at the forum;

http://www.freesound.org/forum/production-techniques-music-gear-tips-and-tricks/5676/

http://www.freesound.org/forum/production-techniques-music-gear-tips-and-tricks/5800/

If all you are interested in is that single bird, and not it's placement in the surrounding ambience or any of the other background birds or other sounds, then go with a mono mic.

Thanks for your reply. I must add that isolating a single bird from a sound scape of various birds is well nigh impossible for me. What I do is if I see a single bird singing loudly I try to record its song or call.