Field recording trip to Islay in Scotland

May 29, 2018

I just returned from a very pleasant week on the island of Islay in Scotland, organized by the Wildlife Sound Recording Society. I have previously attended many WSRS meetings (blog posts here, here and here) and I knew I wouldn't be disappointed .

Quick dispatch from New York city

March 31, 2018

For the past two weeks I've been traveling through the US, attending conferences, working with game development studios and doing occasional field recording.

Recording birds in open fields

June 8, 2016

I've recently taken an interest in recording open air spaces such as hills, meadows or fields. This proved to be a bit more difficult than recording woodland or quarries for a number of reasons:

man-made (or sheep-made) noise can easily pollute these places
there's far less wildlife than in woodland or forest
there's little to no reverberation so the sounds are perceived as softer
wind is a much bigger issue than in woodland

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.