This past weekend I finished working on my most ambitious sound effects library to date. From planning to delivery, this mammoth of a project took more than a year of on-and-off work. I will soon write a blog post about the field recording trip (there’s also a vlog in the works), but until then here’s some figures relative to the project itself:

1 - year from planning to delivery

1 - month spent in the Congo Basin rainforests

2 - ticks found and removed

3 - National Parks and many other remote locations visited

3 - times I’ve been stung by African bees

3 - recorders I used on the trip (633, M10, D100)

3 - Gorilla encounters, of which one charged at us

Abeke the Silverback Western Lowland Gorilla

3 - consecutive days without electricity at a time

4 - cars, one train, one ferry and one boat used

5 - cameras I used on the trip

6 - times we crossed the Equator

7 - turtles we saved from poachers

8 - river crossings on narrow logs (on foot)

13 - mics I brought (only used 5 of them: DMS, DPA 4061HD)

13 - awesome guides and rangers we hired for various durations

Hiking with gear in tow in the Congo rainforest

30 - Kilos (66lb) of gear I lugged on a 5-mile hike in the forest

36 - batteries of various sizes and makes used on the trip

60 - size of the library in GB

73 - species identified in the library (many more mysteries)

80 - recordings available in both Stereo and Surround

1400 - GB total media haul including recordings, photos and videos

1800 - ~ miles on the road

8000 - bees encountered in the rainforest

Bees swarming on Stijn in the Congo rainforest

More important than any figure, the process and the trip itself was an unforgettable experience that’s going to be hard to beat. It resulted in hundreds of hours of recordings that I painstakingly went through so I could select the most important bits. Less than 0.5% of the total content made into into the library, but that’s the absolute best.

You can fund out more and purchase the library here. Feel free to spread the word about it. I’m off to the Americas for now and I’ll be back in a month or so with new stories and recordings.

Field recording tools of the trade

At the lower end of the price spectrum, field recording equipment will yield relatively similar results. A few dB of self noise won’t make a huge difference if the recordist hasn’t mastered the other tools of the trade, the ones that can’t be bought. Let’s examine some lesser known but rather more important tools that are sure to improve your field recording practice.

Introduction to Freestyle field recording

Freestyle field recording is a flexible approach to recording nature and wildlife sounds outside of the studio or any controlled environment, developed by George Vlad. While traditional methods are prescriptive and rigid, Freestyle field recording encourages deliberate experimentation and a very organic workflow.

Listening session at the House of Lords in Westminster

I recently received an invitation to play some of my soundscapes and to tell stories about conservation. While there’s nothing unusual about that, the setting was definitely novel for me.

A collection of Owl sounds

Owls are awesome and worth learning about. What better place to start than a curated selection of owl recordings, captured by your favourite wildlife sound recordist!

The 2025 Soundscape Fund

How can field recording make a difference for conservation and environmental causes? I get this question a lot, and one of the answers is here. Once a year I team up with Thomas Rex Beverly and Andy Martin to raise money for environmental NGOs.