Kölner Prinzengarde with Sony PCM M10
I have a new toy: A Sony PCM M10 portable recorder. First thing I did was go for a Kölsch beer with it, where I accidentally met the Kölner Prinzengarde.
For those not from Cologne: The Prinz (prince) is the temporary major of town during the carneval, and the Prinzengarde is his guard. It's like the Swiss Guard for the Pope, or so. They don't carry weapons, but they play traditional Cologne carneval music like a brass band.
I was in the Stüsser's Brauhaus pub showing my new Sony PCM M10 to my friends, when the Prinzengarde showed up. So I took the opportunity to test the M10 with a pretty loud brass band standing right next to our table.
I made three recordings. All were made with the M10 on our table and at 44.1 kHz with 24 bit. Edit: And the mic sensitivity was set to Low.
The first one has Low Cut Filter at 180 Hz switched to on and uses automatic level setting. During the session, the red clipping LED lit up many times, but still the recording is not that bad. Listen for yourself (Firefox >3.5 users are at an advantage):
The second recording still had the Low Cut Filter on, but now I used manual levels. I was a bit too shy so I had it set a bit low. This recording was normalized:
For the last recording I switched off the Low Cut Filter, and again use manual levels. This time, the band was leaving the pub. Their goodby march started far away from our table, then they passed our table and left through the door:
All in all I must say, for a quick recording without much preparation possible, I got pretty nice results.