1480 461555 E-mail: a.brown@audiomedia.com

Great minds do think alike. When I tested the
Olympus LS5 portable recorder, many moons ago,
I explained how I’d fashioned a hand grip for it out
of a mini camera tripod. This was to tackle the bugbear
that afflicts an awful lot of handheld devices: handling
noise. Virtually all the pocket-sized recorders I’ve tested in
the past few years have had problems with the very hand
that holds them, which defeats their
very purpose in being. But I’d found a
small tripod at the bottom of my desk
drawer and screwed it into the quarterinch
thread in the base of the Olympus.
It worked but it looked a bit... err.
Those geniuses at Rycote now offer a proper
solution. Their Portable Recorder
Suspension kit makes my offering look
decidedly amateurish. There’s the same
threaded mounting but it’s attached
to a floating base, using two sections of
curved plastic that act like springs. This is Rycote’s
patented Lyre design, which I’ve seen before in
some of its microphone windshield kits.
In the base of the mount is a swivelling section
with a male thread, onto which I screwed the
Extension Handle. This has a metal core and a
foam rubber outer; a bit like a handlebar grip.
Once in place it promises to drastically reduce
the amount of handling noise that gets through
to the recorder. By the way, you can replace the
handle with a boom pole or a supplied hotshoe
adaptor, which lets you fit your machine to a video
camera or DSLR. The latter is a growing area, with
more and more people shooting on DSLRs and
needing some way to capture quality audio at
the same time.
I was more interested in how it would perform
in the hand, so to speak. My trust mini-tripodgrip-thing
did manage to cut down on some
handling sound, but not all of it. Given the relative
complexity of the Rycote, I was hoping it would do
a much better job.
The first time I used it was to record the sounds
of a thunderstorm that rumbled over the farm
in which my studio is based. This is precisely
the kind of task that many pocket recorders get
used for: pick-up-and-go sessions where you
need to seize the initiative before whatever’s
making the noise packs up and moves off.
Standing by an open door, as the rain lashed down
and the wind rapped on my knuckles, I was glad
I’d also fitted the Windjammer, which I first picked
up when I reviewed the Olympus. After a few
minutes the rain slowed and stopped and I retired
to the studio. The recording was copied across
and played back and I have to say there was no
handling sound whatsoever. I had deliberately not
kept my hand stock-still, partly just to test it and
partly to capture rain landing in different puddles.
But none of my hand and body movements have
come through at all.
It’s a really neat bit of kit. Rycote claims the
plastic is virtually indestructible and, while I’ve
no intention of testing that, I can say that build
quality is first class. It reeks of a professional
product and I can see it being used by radio journalists
in a scrum, as well as sound effects monkeys like myself.
Combined with the Windjammer, it turns a handheld
machine like the Olympus into a much more serious and
confidence-inspiring package.
Now, who wants to buy an old mini-tripod? One (fairly)
careful owner... ∫
RYCOTE PORTABLE RECORDER
AUDIO KIT
Windshield & Suspension Solution
...................................
INFORMATION
£ GB£83.20 (exc.VAT)
A Rycote, Libby’s Drive, Slad Road, Stroud, Glos, GL5 1RN
T +44 (0) 1453 759338
W www.rycote.com
EXCELLENCE
IN THE FIELD
FM-1
Portable Mic Pre-Amp
for ENG Applications
A high quality mic preamp
with powerful microphone
gain limiter. Compact, rugged
and simple to use.
FM-4: 4 Channel Mixer with EQ
FM-3: 3 Channel Mixer
JERRY IBBOTSON can cast
aside his man-in-a-shed-made
tripod, for Rycote has come up
with a pro solution for keeping
handling noise to a minimum.
THE REVIEWER
JERRY IBBOTSON runs Media Mill,
a York-based audio production
company started in 2000 that
specialises in sound for video
games. Prior to this, Jerry was
a BBC journalist for ten years,
ending his spell with the Beeb as a
reporter and newsreader at Radio
One Newsbeat.
FM-4 : FM-3 : FM-1
Portable Location Mixers & Preamp
Robust, high specification, professionally engineered portable mixers,
(and new FM-1 mic preamp), specifically designed for location film &
TV production, electronic field production and ENG applications.
3-2-35 Musashino, Akishima, Tokyo, Japan 196-0021 Email: info_sales@fostex.jp www.fostex.com
AUDIO MEDIA JUNE 2011 25