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Welcome to the OFR wiki!

What is OFR:

OFR is the Open field Recorder created buy Invisible Flock. It is a open hardware and software platform for remote long form bio-acoustic recording. It is created for sound artists, conservationists, scientist and anyone who wants or needs to record audio and environmental data for long periods of time in inhospitable environments. It is modular, hackable, meshable and useful in a wide series of situations and applications.

Why does it exit:

The OFR was created by Invisible Flock to solve a specific need we had to record large sections of a rain forest in Sumatra. We needed recorders that would function in the difficult conditions of the forest for long periods of time in order to monitor the biodiversity of the area and that we could sync together to create a multichannel sound installation. The OFR for us was an attempt to bridge a gap that was not currently being fulfilled by other products on the market allowing us to record stereo audio from high quality microphones that were synced via GPS. Whilst there are other excellent products that already exist for bio-acoustic monitoring, most notably the audio-moth, the solo, and the swift none provided us with the specifics we wanted for this project.

What's inside it:

Expand ability and flexibility were important for us in this design and was the ability for other users to build on it and hack the recorder into their own needs. Verion 1.1 is built on the Spresense platform by Sony which is programmable via the Arduino IDE.

Give me some specs:

Version 1.1 of the OFR:

• 2 to 4 channel audio
• 48khz to 198khz audio quality
• time and location sync via GPS to enable meshing of multiple recoders
• sensor logging to sync analogue sesor data points to audio files
• options for multiple budgets and microphone quality (ranging from cheap electrec mics to DPA 4060)
• phantom power
• theoretical running time of 7 days (dependent on specs used and batteries employed)

What are you offering on here:

We do not currently sell the OFR as this would be neither costs effective for us or you or practical for us as we are a small studio whose main output is not product manufacture. Instead we offer the full spec and design files for the OFR, including the CAD files for the box interior, the schematics for the shield, the codebase for creating and running your own version, a software interface for controlling and setting up your recorders and a willingness to engage and share knowledge with you in whatever project you embark on with the OFR. This is all provided free (as in both beer and speech) but would appreciate a mention or shoutout as we are hoping to build a community around the creative use of the OFR.

Where is it being used at moment:

The OFR has been deployed in Sumatra in 2019 and will return there in mid 2020 to help monitor and establish an elephant migration corridor. It is being used in the sate of Karnataka in India where it is similarly being used on farms where human elephant conflict is a recurring issue. Hopefully we can keep this list updated.

What are the future plans:

Future versions of the OFR will hopefully offer other platforms to run the OFR on as well as provide longer recording time and more i/o options.