It’s that time of the year again! The time of painfully agonising over what presents to get for the sound recordist in your life. This might also work for photographers, scientific researchers or any other professionals who need to spend hundreds or thousands of hours in the field doing very focused work.

Before you order all the stuff on this page, please keep in mind that mindlessly buying things isn’t what I’m trying to encourage. If this person in your life has everything they need, maybe you should think about an experience rather than things? If you do decide to buy objects, please don’t get the absolute cheapest as they will likely stop working or break, or otherwise be unreliable in the field. The aim here is to avoid wasting resources through repeat buying and get good quality once instead.

FYI some of the following are affiliate links, which means I might get a small kickback if you make a purchase. You’re welcome to buy me a coffee as well.

1. Affordable

• electrical tape - the humble tape has a myriad uses in the field, not least for taping lav mics to trees and other objects. It also helps deal with things that break, although I prefer duct tape for repairing things. I know there are many cheaper options, but every one I tried had problems. From not being sticky enough, to becoming brittle in the cold or floppy in the heat etc, they were not suitable for field work. The Super 33+ tape is the one I use at the moment and it has not let me down.

• food storage containers - I have dozens of these around the house and studio, and I don’t think I ever used them to store food. They’re perfect for lavalier or pencil microphones, if you pair them with silica gel packets.

• Windbubbles - I always run out of these because little rodents and birds like to steal and line their nest with them. Even so, they’re excellent if you work with lavaliers like the mikroUsi and Clippy mics.

• dry bags - one of my favourite things to buy, because ants, rodents, monkeys and other wildlife keep destroying them on expedition. They’re incredibly useful for storing equipment and protecting it from water, sand, dust etc. The ones I use the most are 10 liter variants, but occasionally I need bigger ones.

• AA batteries - although I’m slowly moving towards using USB-C power for all my kit, some devices like the Sony D100 still work only with AA batteries. Please don’t buy single-use batteries, they’re a disaster for the environment and not great for your wallet either. Rechargeables are great if they keep their capacity like Eneloops do. Pair them with a good quality charger though and keep them in plastic cases so they don’t short circuit when touching and catch on fire accidentally.

• coffee subscription: this is obviously not needed in the field, but it’s a great present for the discerning coffee aficionado. Make sure you find out if they prefer lighter or darker roasts, what their favourite way of brewing coffee is, which origin they like best etc. Pair it with this excellent book.

• a weirdly specific book - I’m an avid reader and I love a very focused piece of research. This might not be for everyone though, so a nice coffee table book will work instead.

2. A bit more serious

• data storage - This year I bought two of those 20TB hard drives and I’m afraid I’ll have to buy more soon. I can imagine how funny this will sound to someone 10 years from now, but for the moment that sort of capacity should be enough for sound recordists and photographers.

• portable data storage - on expedition I prefer to spend time in the field, even though good data management is integral to my work. It’s great if I can reduce the time spent in front of my laptop by using very fast drives like this portable SSD.

2023 UPDATE: Sandisk SSDs have been plagued by hardware issues and they can suddenly stop working with no way to recover data. I have several of these and haven’t had a problem but countless people are complaining. It’s safer to avoid Sandisk SSDs altogether and go for Samsung T7 instead. I’ve updated the link above so it directs to Samsung devices.

• SD cards - I can never have enough SD and microSD cards. I use a variety of brands, but I tend to favour Sony and Sandisk. Unfortunately some devices don’t play well with certain brands or models so you should try and find out what the recommended media are for each recorder/camera/device. This can quickly get out of hand for cameras that need very high speeds, with a couple of SD cards costing as much as an entry level camera.

• powerbanks - good rules of thumb for buying powerbanks are: stay under 26800 mAh because of airline regulations, always get USB-C ones, check how fast they can charge (45W or higher will work fine), don’t get cheap knockoffs - Anker, Ravpower are good reliable brands. Also, make sure you also get good chargers and cables, otherwise you won’t use them to their full potential.

• Zoom F3 recorder - a very small and capable recorder that I could always use more of in the field. Rather difficult to find these days but not impossible.

• Sony PCM D100 - my favourite handheld recorder and unfortunately notoriously difficult to find. It’s become a bit of a collector’s item unfortunately and quite expensive as a result. The Sony PCM D10 is cheaper and a bit easier to find but not as good.

3. Pretty extreme

• Schoeps ORTF 3D - maybe not the best way to record ambience (I prefer tree ears for its immersive qualities) but pretty good. Quite flexible and easy to move around with once set up.

• Sound Devices Scorpio - there are limited situations in which I would use the Scorpio, but it’s better than the Sony PCM A10 in most regards.

To conclude, it’s very easy to overthink these things and to overspend on presents. Ignore category #3 above and focus on small things that make a big difference. Happy holidays! And if you’re enjoying my blog posts and stories, feel free to support me by:

- becoming a patron: https://www.patreon.com/georgevlad
- buying my sound effects libraries: https://mindful-audio.com/sound-effects-libraries
- buying me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/georgevlad
- buying my soundscape albums: https://wildaesthesia.bandcamp.com