How to monitor night sleep ? (Recording audio at night/during sleep)

has a whole bunch of devices which will do what you want.

For one example, the Tascam DR-05X records on microSDXC cards of up to

128 GB in size, in stereo (omnidirectional microphones are attached, and you can plug in external mics if you wish). Battery life is up to 17.5 hours.

There's a similar but somewhat less expensive model made by Zoom (shorter battery life, limited to SDHC cards of up to 32GB).

Since these write in standard formats such as .wav you can transfer the recording files to a PC and use GoldWave or Audacity or CoolEdit or whatever you like.

I haven't used either of these specific models, but looks as if either of these would probably be capable of recording every sound in your room, from the time you go to sleep until the moment you wake up screaming with an alien face-hugger attached to your nostrils.

Or, just use a recording app on a smartphone.

There are lots of devices to help track your sleep. A friend just gave me a Fitbit Charge 3 wrist sensor, which advertises saving details on when your sleep is disturbed, etc. That would you where to look in the sound file for clues. "Automatically record time spent in Light, Deep and REM sleep stages and see activity trends, health insights and personalized guidance..."

Also, we have a weather-clock that projects dim red digits onto the ceiling. If you are awakened, you can glance up and make a note of the time, before going back to sleep. But best advice is, ignore all that stuff, to improve your chances to get back to sleep.

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Very late in my father's life (like about age 90) he experienced some cognitive decline that caused him to believe there were people looking in his windows at night and moving around the apartment while he slept making a ruckus. a couple times I did just set up a camera and showed him "nothing there, Dad" which convinced him for a while but the feelings would always return eventually. Anosognosia I believe it's called.

Ok thanks for the suggestion, however the mic seems a little bit tiny ?

Where you perhaps thinking of aliens or burglars spotting it/seeing it and then perhaps avoiding it ?!

This is not really the case in my situation.

So the equipment can be pretty big if necessary.

Ofcourse compactness does mean I could use it elsewhere anyway... perhaps to spy on people.

Granted it's a little bit like spieing, perhaps even a lot.

But my primary concern is "audio quality".

I want the recorded audio quality to be of as high quality as possible.

And yes the omni directional is very nice/cool that's exactly what I want basically... being able to record from any direction or at least something like 180% or something...

I can understand if back side picks up less... 360% ofcourse would be ideal.

But I could try and reposition the 180% equipment next night to see if it records anything different.

So giving this new/extra information that size of recording equipment is of no true concern as long as it will fit in the room.

Will/would you now pick a different device ?

Bye, Skybuck.

The specs for the DR-5X show it handling the whole audible frequency range (20 - 20,000 Hz) with good frequency response. However, this is quoted for using the "external in" jack, not the built-in microphones... they don't say what the mic's own frequency response is.

I would guess that it's pretty good, since most electret microphone capsules are wide-range, but probably not as good as an expensive external microphone.

If you want a really large microphone or two (stand-mounted perhaps) you can use 'em, and connect them to the "EXT IN" jack.

No. It's just that these are the least-expensive sorts of devices that I think are capable of making recordings of the sort that you would need for your investigation.

I don't think there's a chance in 10,000 that you're going to detect anything that's truly unusual - aliens, burglars, paranormal cross-dimensional body snatchers, or so forth. Random building noises, footsteps, voices from next door or outside, the scurrying of pets or vermin - sure. Even a simple portable digital recorder would be good enough to record those and let you figure out what they are.

Spying on yourself (or your sleeping room) is safe enough... it's your space.

Spying on other people might be a criminal offense, or a civil tort, or might result in you being punched by the people involved. I don't advise it.

"As high quality as possible", without a budget being indicated, is what throws your question into the area of what some call "audiophoolery". There are certainly plenty of people who will be glad to sell you a set of two-meter microphone cables (conductors made of virgin silver, mined by Church-certified virgins and lovingly basted with pyramid-energized holy water) and claim that this somehow improves the quality of your recordings.

So, study professional microphones and find the sort that you want.

Omni is easy. Mics with a cardiod pattern would let you "aim" them for greatest sensitivity in a particular area.

The one sort you would _not_ want would be "noise canceling". These are intended for close-to-the-mouth speech recording, in noisy areas. They are deliberately designed to be as insensitive as possible to sounds arriving from a distance.

If you want big-and-bulky, what you'd probably want to do is buy a multi-channel audio mixer/recorder with several microphone inputs/preamps, and a set of several stand-mounted microphones.

shows a whole bunch of mixer/recorders of this sort - some portable, some intended for desk or rack mounting.

has microphones. The Neumann TLM 103 is probably wonderful, but they're $1100 each.

You can easily spend five or ten or twenty times as much, on a complex setup like this, as you'd spend on one of the little portable recorders. Frankly, for a research project of the sort you're considering, I think it would be a huge waste of money - you'd be unlikely to learn enough more to justify the expense. Even the little portables, with their built-in condenser mics, should be perfectly capable of capturing a high-fidelity recording of snores, traffic noise, the occasional flushing of a toilet elsewhere in the building, and the odd outburst of flatulence.

If you do throw together something involved, make sure you pay attention to proper RF shielding and grounding. It's easy for cables to pick up radio frequency transmissions from nearby radio and TV stations, cabs, police and fire radios, ham radio operators, etc. and these can result in "voices" on a recording. People have often confused these for e.g. "spirit voices", while there's actually nothing mystic about them at all... they're purely accidents of technology.

Ok what I have learned from you, Dave Platt, is that I might want to buy an "omni condensor microphone".

I see the price range is massive. You asked for price point, I do want to h ave something quality. I might re-use it for gaming later =D If I wanna g ive away my voice... or maybe even youtube commentary.

So a price of 200 euro seems somewhat reasonable. I am not sure if the mic could be re-used for youtube videos... maybe not... and maybe not for gamin g... probably not... that would be kinda shitty... not sure, what you think ?

Anyway my eye fell on this/these ones:

Maybe I should look for something more cheap.

However how does one connect such microphone to for example a computer ? Is it a simple 3.5mm jack that goes into a soundblaster or is this something different ?!

I could ofcourse also go for the original solution you showed... it would b e more portable and such... and this would also be a great adventage... the n I don't need to leave PC on and there is no risk of my PC being unattende d.

Or I would have to go to a hybrid solution.

However I would prefer a solution that:

1. Does not require my PC to be on.

1. Does not require batteries and can simply be attached to power socket in wall. (This will probably make it less portable).

The battery option seems kinda nice... I assume original solution uses it. However then it does require charging and such... and this might make it le ss applieable.

What if I want to record multiple days ? Or even weeks or months... ?!? Hmm m.

Not sure how much time/audio the original solution can store ? (It's very l ate now will have to re-check later).

1. Is omni directional

1. Total cost 200 euro's which I think is already a lot, cheaper would be n ice...

But it has to be able to record any kind of sound that could wake a person up basically, even if person is wearing ear-plugs.

So perhaps a cheaper solution is warranted, since I do sleep with ear plugs .

However... the weird thing is... the ear-plugs work like a "low pass filter ".

Some higher frequencies are not stopped by the ear-plugs so I can still hea r some higher frequencies sometimes... like human voices perhaps.

So it would still be interesting to have "high quality" audio.. meaning ent ire frequency range.. and also pretty good volume/amplitude(?) range.

Kinda sucks it has to be so expensive, but I guess you electronics people n eed to eat too ! LOL.

One guy gave me a mic once... it was just 2.5 bucks... so I guess my mind i s a little bit warped/twisted about mic prices :)

It could be snapped onto t-shirt... but the sound quality was pretty terrib le I guess.

I once also had a microphone with soundblaster... but I think it was also s hit... or it just me finding my own voice weird not sure... not sure where that microphone went... I don't think it fitted into soundblaster anymore.. . so it was useless.... maybe it needed a special plug or something can't r emember... never been a fan of these things.. they could be heavy too.

Hmmm.

1. Something on a stand might be nice... so it's not effected by earth/volt ages or strange intereferences.

I wish I could go some place locally to test this stuff out.

I don't know of such a place... hmmm...

Also thanks for the voices explanation... there is that tv-show on tv... gh osthunters... maybe that's what they are picking up... me wonders... :)

Bye, Skybuck.

Hmmm one thing just popped into my mind.

I could try and visit a music equipment store for gitars/synthesizers and such... perhaps they also have "recording equipment" in the form of microphones and such... not sure... but it's worth a shot ;)

Bye, Skybuck.

200e for a mic for this is absurd. 1e for a condenser mic insert is fine.

yup

risk? of what?

what's the problem with running it off a wallwart?

NT

yes, if you want to spend 100x more than you need to.

those are studio / performance microphones with XLR connectors, they possibly need "phantom power", but hey that Tascam recorder looks compatible if that's how you want to spend your money, Personally I'd stick a 16G SD card in a cheap personal recorder and see what that picks up first.

probably need some sort of pre-amplifier

most of the really cheap microphones are reasonably omidorectional

You can make a stand with a stick and some rubber bands this stuff doesn't need to be expensive.

There should be some place locally, you could try a large musical instrument shop, if they don't have that sort of stuff they'll know who does.

--
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I doubt it. Mostly crap these days from stores like that unless you spend a fortune. If I were in your position I'd get one of these:

The BBC to name but one used UHER microphones and tape recorders for their outside broadcast interviews, so you're not going to be disappointed. Being the BBC of course, most of the people they interviewed were Marxist c*nts, but you could hear the rubbish they spouted beautifully clearly.

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Completely pointless. Cheap electret/condenser mics work great for surveillance.

NT

You're talking about two different (acoustic) situations and problems there. A single microphone isn't likely to give you good results for both.

For recording ambient sound, you want one or more omni microphones. Quite honestly I think the little electret mics build into those portable digital recorders would work fine for that.

For voice use (either YouTube or gaming) you probably do *not* want an omni mic. The mic will pick up both your "direct" voice, and echoes from within the room, giving your voice an echo-y or "space-y" sound.

For better results with voice, you'll probably want a mic with a cardioid pattern (heart-shaped - "ignores" most sound coming from the back) or a close-to-the-mouth "noise canceling" mic such as you'll find on a good gaming headset (these are less sensitive to sound from more than a few inches away). Either of these will give you a clearer voice signal than an omni is likely to.

It's possible to buy professional mics with a switchable pattern (omni or cardioid) but my recollection is that they're quite expensive.

Start simply. Use a good portable digital recorder, run it for a few nights, and see if its built-in mics are giving you a good enough signal. If not, you can always spend more money later on better omni mics, cardiods, or others that you can plug into the recorder.

Indeed, but the OP said he might want to use it for Youtube vids at some stage as well, hence the suggestion.

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There already exist in the form of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) devices: EVP are sounds recorded on electronic devices that are interpreted as voices or messages from the dead.

There are examples of EVP recordings on YouTube: and many web sites:

I'm not sure what to recommend in the way of equipment. Some of this stuff is beyond my understanding and out of my league: Search for a "spirit or ghost box".

Of course, there are Android and IOS apps for EVP:

Good luck and happy ghost hunting.

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He doesn't need a ghost box but it might be the same phenomenon at play. Snippets of sound strung together being interpreted as a voice.

NT

Some of those EVP recordings demand an awful lot of 'creative interpretation' on the part of the listener. :)

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Cursitor Doom wrote in news:qm7tuh$mc6$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

EVP "Extra Voluntary Palpitations"

Ya did it to yerself! Ain't no dang 'spirits'.

Or "Extra Voluntary Pussifications"

Yer daddy taught you to be wussified about those non-existent 'spirits'.

Likely choice "A".

Ghost do tend to play a little, but most of the time, they just hang around and try to look intimidating.

He wanted:

Recording 10 to 14 hrs of near silence is easy enough. Playing it back, looking for something interesting is tedious, dull, boring, and a huge waste of time. Some kind of silence eliminator or sound detector might be useful to limit the recording to only genuine ghosts or whatever. Of course, if he snored for 10 to 14 hrs, such a device might not work. I could probably convince Audacity to provide such "silence elimination" feature.

I had the problem recording 2-way radio scanner audio. Most of it was dead air. So, I used Scanner Recorder, which eliminated most of the boring silence: Here's another which I haven't tried:

He also mentioned:

Oddly, he wrote "your sleep" and not "my sleep" which suggests a product made for other people, not for the OP. While he might not need a ghost box to record weird things the go thump in the night, it would certainly be a concern for potential buyers.

Incidentally, back in the days of 1/4" stereo tape recording, I was hearing similar strange voices from the dead on some tapes. These machines would record 2 tracks in one direction, and then an additional 2 tracks in the other direction, with all 4 track interleaved. The combination of "print through" and "bleed over" from the reverse tracks produced the mysterious sounds. Since the "bleed over" sounds were being playing in the reverse direction, they sound quite strange.

Another source ghostly voices is ham radio Field Day. That's 24 hrs of extracting call signs and grid squares from under an audio jumble of simultaneous static, interference, intermod, heterodynes, generator noise, and electrical buzz. After Field Day had ended, I was still hearing weak voices and call signs buried under every day noises for several days.

Of course, the voices might be real. It might be a conspiracy intended to drive the OP insane: "Are You Being Manipulated by Subliminal Messages?"

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Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558