Question about Bird Preset on the Field Recording Setting of the Portacapture X6

[dragon49]

I purchased the unit to record bird calls and songs. I'll be using an external microphone with it. I'll be using the Field Recording setting of the recorder with auto-gain set to on, and the low-cut filter set to off.

I haven't been in the field yet but tested both no preset and the bird preset with a minute's worth of bird call audio coming out of my bookshelf speakers. The clip with the bird preset was consistently at a lower volume (not a ton) than then clip with no preset, so I assume the bird preset sets a lower auto-gain. Am I correct? Also, does the bird preset have any other characteristic or characteristics that using no preset has?

 

[tzdvl]

I have a DR-40, not a Portacapture, but I've used mine in the past to record bird calls. The DR-40 has many of the same settings.

Are you comparing using "auto-gain on" to "auto-gain off"? I think the difference is simply that the "on" setting is selecting an "appropriate" level (somewhere below maximum gain), and the "off" setting depends on your manually-set level.
How did you decide where to set the manual recording level for the comparison?

Also, when recording bird calls in the field, I would suggest setting the low-cut filter to "ON".
Unless you're recording owls, there should be nothing of importance in the lower frequencies, and you'll avoid problems with handling noise, background sounds (like cars), and wind.

 

[dragon49]

The auto-gain was set to "on" with both tests. In the field recording menu, there is a bird preset. I compared the same audio capture using both the bird preset and with no preset. The bird preset recording had a consistently lower volume than the one with no preset. The Bird preset has low cut (not sure what Hz it sets it at) set as default, but I had turned it off for the test.

Regarding the low cut filter, unless I have an Owl recording, almost all of the time, I use Audacity to cut the low frequencies. Generally, the default 1000 Hz High-Pass-Filter is the best setting. This does a great job of eliminating a lot or all of the background noise that you had mentioned. I thought it might be a more efficient and cleaner (better audio maybe?) system if I were to filter during the recording, however, the low cut filters for the X6 don't go low enough. The only options are - 40Hz, 80Hz, 120Hz, 220Hz

The background noise that I kill with Audacity always goes lower than 220 Hz.

I still do wonder, though, whether I'll get better audio if I use a 220 Hz low cut filter in the field and then use Audacity to cut the lower stuff. Any thoughts on this?