Re: recording railroad audio??
 

Thanks Steve! I get the picture, or the audio! After many more hours of research and watching you -tube reviews, I 've decided to get a pair of Sony MDR 7506 headphones form B&H. Even with freight and the Aussie dollar dropping , they are still $50.00 cheaper from the US..???. I have a lot of practicing to do before I head over the States..LOL As a one man band, I can't easily adjust levels and shoot at the same time, so I guess some test shots first, play back and pick a level somewhere in the middle while listening for clipping etc, that's where the phones come in I assume? I fi I keep going with gear, I'm gonna' need a truck..LOL

Thanks again for the advice.
Cheers Gregg

Re: recording railroad audio??
 

Careful, you might not hear clipping in the phones even if it's occurring. It all depends on where in the signal chain it's happening and where the headphone signal is tapped off the chain. An overloaded input might be audible while clipping at the A/D conversion stage due to setting the recording levels too high might not be. That's why they put meters on recorders.

Re: recording railroad audio??
 

On the other hand, if the clipping occurs at the input preamp, and the subsequent gain is set low enough, the meters won't show any indication that the audio is clipped.

Re: recording railroad audio??
 

"On the other hand, if the clipping occurs at the input preamp, and the subsequent gain is set low enough, the meters won't show any indication that the audio is clipped."
- Indeed, and this is a common occurrence with folks feeding line-level into a mic level input... and not monitoring (at all) or the device prior to the recorder.

This may be after the fact for Gregg M, but the Sony MDR-V6 (consumer version) is pretty much identical to the 7506 (in sound and design) at a lower cost.

Re: recording railroad audio??
 

There was some video of trains, mainly steam, in the US Northwest and I think British Columbia that aired on Public Television but I can't find it. The video was very nice but the audio was terrible. By terrible, I mean that whenever they had the steam locomotive in the video they'd tone down the locomotive sound and up the background music, or talk over the top. So in one way, maybe it's good that I can't find it or it might be disappointing.

Here are a couple other videos I did find and to some degree they aren't a whole lot better:

Video: All Aboard | Watch Idaho Public Television Specials Online | PBS Video "All Aboard" - about some trains in Idaho. Note ~ 8 minutes (forgot what was important there) and again at ~ 25:00 minutes (trestle).

Video: STEAMING HISTORY | Watch Northwest Profiles Online | PBS Video "Kettle Valley Railway" - This is a BC steam train video.

There is one train that runs across Vancouver Island that would be good to visit and also see what the West Coast is like there. Tofino would be an interesting place to visit if there is a chance.

There are a small number of live steam trains still around.

Re: recording railroad audio??
 

That's true Steve. I will set a level with the meters first, then use the headphones for monitoring . I hope to get a lot of practice in on trains down here before I head to the US! But I know that the locosin the States are a lot louder than ours..LOL

Gregg :-)

Re: recording railroad audio??
 

Thanks John, most commercial shows do a average to horrible job of train (loco) audio, especially to die-hard railfans like me! The best audio I've heard so far is on dedicated train DVDs' and on you-tube from railfans out there trying new things. As I've discovered by the great reply's on this forum, I have a lot of things to learn and try, especially since I'm not in a controlled environment, but it will be a lot of fun.I got my NX3 and Zoom H5 today, so a lot of reading to do!
Thanks for the info.
Cheers Gregg