Here’s the three-station setup for my one-year-old kid’s backyard party:

1. Zoom F3 and two pluggies on a Neewer T91 flexible tripod, about 50mm spacing with some aliexpress wind pro I bought a while ago for some sdcs (it’s reasonably transparent; it’s got an inner layer made out of the pond-filter material that a lot of newer pop filters use). This was the stereo pair in the middle of the action, with the main sitting area for adults to the right and the fenced area for the baby guests to the left. Good width. 

2. Two NT1As in an ORTF configuration on a boom stand with some less-than-ideal wind pro. I used foam shields underneath furry screens sold for a zoom h6, which fit quite well over the small grilles of the NT1As. These mics were a go-to in the 2010s for ambient nature recording but they get a lot of hate for their shrill frequency response. I love them because you can buy one used on eBay for less than the cost of a new SM57 and get a preposterously quiet mic. Cheap-ish wind protection, to my ears, tames the shrillness. These were placed on the back porch running into my main studio interface, probably 20 feet from most of the ~40 guests. A bit distant, but a good picture of the whole scene without the more aggressive width of the pair of pluggies. 

3. Original zoom H1 and instruction sheet for my relatives to record a birthday message that we can give to my daughter when she’s older. Fidelity wasn’t really the goal here. Originally I wanted to use a portable tape deck because I thought my baby boomer relatives would feel more comfortable, but the deck died and so I chose the simplest handheld I owned and tried to write fail-proof instructions. Resounding success. This was really important to me because it’s likely that by the time she’s 10 years old, at least a few of them may have died. In my experience, a person’s voice is one of the first things I forget when someone is gone, so I try to keep audio records now. Plus, who wouldn’t want an audio message from the past from a family member or friend? 

Mics I used to record my daughter’s first birthday party