Recording with a Nicon Coolpix

[TheGimp]

I'm going to a "Pig Pickin" tomorrow down in NC and was thinking of taking my 5F1 and Russian TrainWreck inspired amp. The only way of making a recording will be with a cheesy Nikon Coolpix that is prone to over-driving the audio. Is this worth taking and trying to make a recording? Or a waste of time

Pig Pickin - BBQ and fixins with lots of beer, mason jars of clear stuff preserving various fruit. Normally accompanied by 5 and 6 string instruments (banjo, guitar, occasional fiddle).

[Structo]

Yeah, probably won't be the best.
I have a Canon S3 which is a bigger camera but it doesn't do that great either.
These microphones just can't deal with loud noises.
Now if they had a jack for a external mic, that would be great!

[TheGimp]

I ended up deleting the recording it was so bad. Totally over driven mic input.

The only mic I've got that looks like it might be reasonable is a Shure SM11 that had the connector cut off.

I've also got a Shure FP12 Headphone Bridging Amp.

I'm wondering if they would work well enough together to give me something I could use for a mic and preamp to record from.

[selloutrr]

I've never seen a cool pix up close. can you plug an external microphone into it? if so do you get the same over driven signal? If so you could build a PAD with a selectable preset of attentuation. -10 / -25.

I'm sure the circuit board and camera are to small to get in and work on or you could wire a PAD directly into the build in mic.

[Cliff Schecht]

The cheap electret mics are what get overloaded so easily. The built in JFET preamp is never run off of more than a few Volts and will readily clip when pushed. The mic elements themselves are pretty sensitive and are good at picking up a whole room, but that's obviously not good for a loud show. I agree that some sort of attenuator would be nice and really easy to implement, even on silicon, because the required power is so negligible. Hopefully a camera designer somewhere is reading this.. We want PADS damnit!

My setup for recording just about any live show is a Sony Walkman D6C Pro and an Audio Technica Pro 24 stereo powered mic. I set it up right in the middle of the room wherever I am playing and it always has great fidelity. The only downside is of course I'm using tapes and have to transfer those to the computer, but the final mp3's always come out great. I'll try to post some if you guys are curious. I guess the newer solution is a solid state recorder, but I doubt the cheapo ones have the fidelity of the D6C recording on a good quality metal tape.

[daydreamer]

http://www.cranbournemusic.com.au/cstor ... 08948.html

The one place I don't think digital is making the world a harder place to be; recording equipment!

Seriously, I spent $750 in the early 90's for a second hand four track and now you can get stuff like these zooms for $150 bucks. The value is unbelievable.

A band I was in a while back always recorded jams with these things and it was quite respectable. You can even get a video version if you feel so inclined.