Yet another DIY windscreen/deadcat/windmuff blog post on the web.

So, last week, I decided that my "Dream Job*" was to be a nature recorder like Chris Watson, and OMG! I have to a) buy a new field recorder b) buy some awesome headphones c) buy a windmuff d) buy some awesome microphones! e) buy lots of stuff!

Sadly, I have inflicted by this thing called "growing up" which appears to be a horrendous terrible affliction, which tells my brain to not randomly purchase stuff. Much.

It's quite obvious I'm not going to be a nature recordist, much less have the time to do much recording so I decided to just work with what I got, my Zoom H1. Legitimately, I have a good excuse for getting a new shiny recorder - the H1 _again_ developed the battery drain issue, which I've seen some forum posts mention something about faulty capacitors. The H1 I have is already exchanged for a good one, which was good, but it seems like the components may have failed yet again.

But... I really don't use the recorder much. A whistle recording here and there is all I've used it for, and buying a new one is really not a good use of resources, but we'll see ;-)

In any case, I've brought the H1 out twice for recording beach waves, and I thought it was really good when the wind is calm (last week), but it performs really badly on a windy day (two weeks ago at Glenelg). A windmuff is the first obvious solution, so I thought it'd be fun to diy a windmuff.

A quick hop down to the Spotlight along Rundle Malle and I picked up a 20cm strip of faux fur that's almost 2 meters wide for 12 bucks. A few needles, and an hour or so making a rough pattern and sewing it together... walah!

 The fur chosen had a backing that was really thin, there were other luxury faux furs at spotlight that looked really awesome, but were rather thick. This specimen felt slightly stretchy and I could almost glimpse the overhead lights shine through them.

In-house tests indicates that they really cut the whoosh down when blowing straight a the mics. The real test would be outside in proper windy conditions.

Oh, another reason to upgrade the H1 is that the tripod thread on the H1 is plastic >.>

Seriously, plastic?!

It doesn't even fit my tripod properly. Blargh. Anyways, if everything goes well, I'll be going to Port Adelaide tomorrow for the afternoon, then Semaphore beach to capture the beach waves at sunset.

*Last week, I decided, my dream job was to be a chiropractor. And just about oh, 5 hours ago, I was at a concert, and decided, my Dream Job was to be a violist. Waaaait a second I gave that up like half a year ago. Ah.