Field Recording
Recording gunshots requires specialized techniques & carefully calibrated equipment
Gunshots are not only louder than recorded sources of sound that we're used to hearing, but they are also directional. Multiple channels of simultaneous recording from specialized and calibrated microphones are often needed to capture important details. Capturing this sound source accurately for scientific study is a technical challenge that Beck Audio Forensics has perfected.
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Portable field recording kit specifically for gunshots
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Zoom F6 6-channel, 48 kHz sampling, floating point recorder
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PCB 377B02 medium sensitivity instrumentation microphone
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G.R.A.S. 40PL low sensitivity instrumentation microphone
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G.R.A.S 42AG Class 1 microphone calibrator
To handle the extreme sound pressure levels of gunshots, ultra-low sensitivity microphones are used to achieve high quality data collection. To capture all the acoustic information from a gunshot, while minimizing distortion, these microphones are designed to be omni-directional.
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Capturing the acoustic information accurately as digital audio requires a high-quality, multi-channel recorder, capable of recording floating point samples 48,000 times every second.
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To ensure the recorded data can be accurately scaled to units of sound pressure level, (SPL ref: 20 µPa) everything is calibrated using a Class 1 microphone calibrator.
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Additional equipment includes a chronograph for measuring muzzle velocity and a laser range finder for distance measurements.
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Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronograph
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Nikon Monarch 3000 stabilized laser range finder
Well-designed field experiments can provide proof and additional hard evidence of key events when it comes to audio recordings. Beck Audio Forensics can help you unravel the details in your case.
