In these infant stages of my quest to understand/record better sound, I find myself paying closer attention to "noise." I'm a carpenter so I spend a lot of time wearing ear protection. They work real well. I can run a deafening saw three feet from my head with no problems. The funny thing is though, while running that saw so close, and being shielded from that screaming saw blade ripping through wood and steal - I can hear my cell phone ring, and I can hear the neighbors dog barking.. That always throws me for a loop.

Tonight I cut some firewood with the same saw. Yes, 2x4s make decent logs. Head phones were at the job so I stuck rolled up tissues in my ears. After the cuts I knelt down to stack the "logs" in the fireplace, still with the tissues in my ears. While knelt on the floor some noise was blocked out by the tissues, but the plane flying overhead in the middle of the darkness? I swear it felt like I could hear the pilot adjust his cap. And the train so far off in the distance? So clear it felt like I was standing on the tracks. Yet my wife in the next room sounded all muffled.

Surely there is something to all this that I just don't get yet. That's a given. But why I'm bringing it up here is I'm curious if sound guys use "ear protection" to record better/more specific sounds? I've seen dead cats and wind socks, but my only understanding of them is that they protect from the wind buffeting. Do they do more than that? Are there other filters you guys use to cut out certain sounds? Or is it all in using different mics? Lord knows there are enough different types of mics...

What's a really good, user friendly book about recording sound? I've got more homework to do..

... But why I'm bringing it up here is I'm curious if sound guys use "ear protection" to record better/more specific sounds? I've seen dead cats and wind socks, but my only understanding of them is that they protect from the wind buffeting. Do they do more than that? Are there other filters you guys use to cut out certain sounds? Or is it all in using different mics? Lord knows there are enough different types of mics...

We use ear protection to protect our hearing. There is no substitute for a good set of ears.

I only use blimps to avoid wind noise. They also tend to knock out some of the high frequency performance of the mic. Some shotguns have a high frequency boost to help compensate for the loss.

As you know, having the right tools is critical in building the right sound.

It all starts with the mic. There is a wide range of performance and function.

Having solid mic preamps are a necessary tool.

The mixer should have some added features...accurate meters, good sounding limiters and the ability to dial out some of the low frequencies. If you are recording voice, it's a good idea to dial out the frequencies that are not in the vocal range. OF course, using your ears to reference the best sound.

On the back end of the signal flow...it would be ideal to capture the sound at 24 bit on a quality external recorder to avoid compression artifacts.

And then their is software...that allows you to EQ, filter, compress, and add dimension to the recording.