2018 update: there’s a new freebie library available. Get it here!

2016 is almost over and it's been a pretty good year for field recording. On the first day of the year I was in Romania recording ice, snow, dead silent forest ambiences, gears and a whole lot of other stuff. Some of these sounds made it into two sound effects libraries which were pretty well received.

Later in the year I attended a couple of field recording workshops with Chris Watson, I recorded a WW2 training airplane with the help of Rob Brown and Joe Cavers, and I got a Double MS rig which I then used for recording ambiences in South Africa. I'm still going through the recordings I made there and I will compile them into at least two libraries in the near future.

I've also done many smaller recording sessions which resulted in a multitude of very varied sound recordings, from water dripping in various places to beaches and from various vehicles to hits and impacts. They come in very handy in my daily work as a sound designer but they're also quite an eclectic mix that can't be organized in libraries. Therefore I thought I'd share some of these as a freebie set to thank everyone who has ever purchased a library from me.

Happy Holidays and may the next year be even better than 2016!

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.