Hello,

I have to admit that I am definately more of a science person and really don't have much experience with audio. I am, however, trying to record vocalizations of mice which are emitted in the 20 to 120 kHz range.

I am trying to determine what kind of sound card/ DAQ board/ or processing card of any kind that I need to use in order to record these frequencies onto my laptop to later analyze them with other software. I would be extremely greatful for any suggestions and specific models that could be used.

I would also be very greatful for any suggestions on the actual equipment as well. I need to listen to the whole spectrum between 20-120kHz so I need some kind of ultrasonic microphone and whatever other equipment necessary to plug this into my computer.

Thank you for ANY help that can be provided!

~J

You will not hear anything

(edit- err, didn't you mean to "listen" by microphone? )

About 96kHz is the highest practical frequency that you can record using conventional audio digital recording equipment. Try E-MU as a source of a laptop sound card that supports a 192khz sample rate:

http://www.creative.com/products/product.a...9&product=13554

As for actually recording these mice, do you have a microphone that is suitable? You need a precision, low noise, high bandwidth measurement microphone. ACO Pacific makes such devices, as well as numerous other companies:

http://www.acopacific.com/micdetal.html

As for recording the mice, the wavelengths at those frequencies will be very short, being reflected/damped by even the mice bodies, as well as their surroundings. It would be ideal to place the subjects in a device[focus reflector such as a parabolic structure] specially designed to focus the sound source to a central point where the microphone is located. Or you could use multiple microphones placed at numerious points to compensate/offset this factor.

-Chris

If you're going to be putting much effort/money into this project, you may want to look at getting actual DAQ hardware instead of soundcards. NI and others sell plenty of acquisition boards (internal and external), as well as APIs to access them easily. I've used their hardware and software with ultrasonic microphones and had very good results. Using their tools, we were able automate data acquisition, filtering, calibration, etc so that researchers unfamiliar with our equipment could sit down and record complicated accoustic data with very little assistance.

Its not cheap however.

Jatjax, I assume (possibly wrongly) based on what you are trying to do that you are based at a University. If you are, it's likely the Electrical Engineering department there has some equipment (a fancy digital oscilliscope, for example) which would make recording 120Hz signals very easy. Perhaps you could borrow/steal/blackmail access to this equipment. Typically you are only likely to get about 8bits (~48dB SNR), but that might be enough. You would need to buy the microphone, but high speed high accuracy DAC equipment ought to be easy to obtain - unless you want high resolution (above 12bit).

Much of this equipment can output data files which can be read by many applications (Matlab, Simulink, IDL, or whatever else you use).

If you aren't doing your research at a University, then all bets are off.

http://www.ultrasoundgate.com/