Recording of woodland and water on a still day

We've had an unusually still couple of days this weekend. Yesterday it was quite moist so I just went out for a walk, but today the forecast was clear and frosty so I woke up at 5am and went out recording.

I parked my car on the side of a single lane country road close to Threipmuir Reservoir and proceeded to laying 100 metres of cable as usual. After half an hour of shuffling in the dark the cable was set, the mics were connected and I could go back to the car and listen back to the environment while sipping on hot tea.

At first everything seemed still and I the only thing I could hear was the preamps noise. Just a few minutes (and gain adjustments) afterwards I started to hear patterns and to make out distinct bird calls, albeit quite softly under a blanket of noise. It was like a suspended "room tone" moment with just a few noisy creatures refusing to comply.

Unfortunately the moment didn't last for long as planes soon started to depart from Edinburgh Airport close by. Here's a short snippet that I recorded while it was still nice and quiet:

Recording wind part 1 - in the woods

It's winter, so there isn't much to record in Scotland apart from wind and rain. We've had plenty of stormy weather since mid-November and I recorded it from several completely different perspectives. In Part 1 of this series I'm going to talk about recording wind in woodlands and forests.

There are several advantages to recording this kind of weather in the woods. First of all, the gusts aren't nearly as potent as they would be in open areas, therefore basic wind protection will do a decent job. Secondly, the sound of wind blowing through trees and vegetation are loud enough to drown out distant traffic or other man-made noise. On top of that you can generally get pretty close to interesting sound sources.

As with everything, there are disadvantages to recording wind in the forest as well. Some persistent wind gusts can sneak up on the forest floor, so setting the correct levels becomes a bit more difficult. Trees can break down or be uprooted by heavy winds, so I have to be very careful where I choose to stand and record. I often have to walk for miles through 60mph winds before I can find interesting sounds that I can record. Sometimes in order to get close to an interesting sound source I have to jump over ditches and navigate through twigs, branches and muddy terrain.

At any rate, today the weather was particularly windy but not that wet so I took a few hours off and went out recording. I only took my small kit (PCM D100, small mic stands, GoPro and binoculars, all in my backpack) since navigating in the woods with my recording bag and the MKH 8040s on a mic stand would have rendered me less mobile.

I was looking for trees that creaked or groaned menacingly which would provide an interesting twist to the wind-through-trees noise. As expected the wind was pretty strong but I had to walk for a few miles before I found a good spot to record in. There were plenty of creaking trees about, but some of them were in exposed places which would have definitely ruined my recordings. Others were almost horizontal or looked like they were close to collapsing so I stood well clear of them. I finally found a couple of good sounding places and recorded excellent tree creaks accompanied by pretty strong wind gusts. Here's a short excerpt that you can download and use in your projects for free:

A recording of 60 mph wind blowing through woodland. Interesting creaking wood sounds. By downloading the file you agree to Mindful Audio's commercial library terms: mindful-audio.com/eula

Recording ravens

I've had a small fixation with recording ravens for years. They aren't the rarest of species but they're quite difficult to spot in Eastern Scotland where I live. They also fly quite high so unless they're directly above their calls sound muffled and are buried in noise. I've encountered ravens on several occasions, but it was never possible to get a relatively clean recording. I either didn't have my recorder ready, there were people around making a huge racket or it was raining.

Today I was out in the Pentlands enjoying a relatively still day when I spotted two ravens coming towards me, doing all kinds of crazy aerobatics and calling each other. Wind speed was about 5 mph, there was a rare lull in the usual plane noise and no joggers or dog walkers were around. On top of that I already had my recorder at the ready having tried to record swans flying overhead. Without thinking I pressed record and froze in place while they passed by me completely oblivious to the human pointing a fluffy device at them.

At any rate, this isn't the cleanest or most useful of recordings so I'll have to go back and refine my process. Until then here's the actual recording for your listening pleasure:

A couple of ravens performing aerobatics and calling. Recorded with Sony PCM D100 in the Pentland Hills around Edinburgh.

Wildlife Sound Recording Society meeting in Norfolk

Last month I was down in Norfolk attending a Wildlife Sound Recording Society meeting. In December 2014 I had attended a Wildeye course nearby so I knew the Norfolk coast was a particularly interesting area for wildlife recording. Therefore as soon as I found out about the meeting I signed up and started preparing.

I initially planned on driving from Edinburgh all the way to Norfolk but in the end I chose to fly as I didn't want to get there too tired. This however meant that I couldn't take my Sound Devices recorder or my Sennheiser and DPA mics with me as I didn't want them to break or get misplaced during airport baggage transfer. (This reminds me I need to look into insurance for gear and traveling abroad with it.) In the end I only took my laptop and my trusty PCM D100 which ended up being OK as we didn't do that much recording.

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Always love seeing birdwatching records in areas I'm visiting

I landed at Norwich Airport at noon on Friday and from there I drove to Burnham Deepdale where the meeting was held. On my way I managed to visit the Pensthorpe Natural Park and several beaches and marshes from Salthouse to Hunstanton. On my way back I also visited Titchwell RSPB reserve but sadly I didn't get to record anything because of the wind or crowds of birdwatchers. It was a welcome change to the usual Scottish landscape I see every day however.

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Preparing to go out

I arrived at the youth hostel Friday evening and got acquainted with everyone. It was great to see people I had met on the Wildeye courses, to put faces to names I knew from the WSRS forums and to make new acquaintances as well. The attendees were either naturalists/conservationists that had became interested in sound recording, or audio professionals with an interest in wildlife and nature such as myself. All in all it was an excellent mix of backgrounds and interests which ended up sparking countless interesting discussions.

On Saturday morning we all went out without our recording equipment and had an extensive chat about "fieldcraft". Simon Elliott generously shared a host of tips and techniques relevant to close-up bird recording, which was particularly interesting for me as I'm trying to move from simply recording habitats to recording species and individuals. Some of the notes I made:

• identifying and miking song posts (this is where the tiny DPA 4060s excel)
• species such as Blue Tit won't mind even if you move their nest around; at the other end of the spectrum a Magpie will desert its nest as soon as you get a little too close to it
• focusing on local recording spots and knowing them well
• Rycote mini fluffies for the DPA 4060s scare most birds away; this is probably why I had so little luck recording birds up close with these mics
• microphone and cable weatherproofing techniques
• tips on how not to disturb wildlife while recording it, along with a few words on the ethics of field work

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Not much recording but plenty of interesting conversations

Saturday afternoon we went out again, this time with recording equipment including a wide selection of parabolic reflectors. Unfortunately it was quite windy so we didn't manage to make any successful recordings of the habitats or species. Some of the attendees experimented with recording keys jingling around various stereo microphone setups. We played back these recordings at the hostel that evening, discussing issues such as stereo width or "hole in the middle" effects. Even if the weather wasn't that good the technical discussions and practical bits were quite enjoyable.

On Sunday morning we discussed a variety of subjects, from file storage and backup to audio editing software. Nick Davison of Gower photography shared many tips and suggestions on file management, backup, data redundancy etc. which work more or less the same in Photography and Field recording. Simon Elliott went through the process of creating an audio documentary which I found extremely interesting as it included other tips on extreme close-up recordings (specifically of Little Grebes if I remember correctly).

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Mmmm mud! I bet it would make great squishy gloopy sounds. If only I had my chest waders with me.

Other bits that I picked up at various times over the weekend (sadly I don't remember who brought these up or answered our questions):

• long cables: best cable to use in the field (and away from interference) is starquad terminated to 5 pin XLR coupled with double 3 pin XLR Y-leads; I have since ordered and received a 100m SQB cable from Canford, can't wait to get it out in the field
• storage media: Sandisk and Lexar are more or less what everyone uses, including myself
• never underestimate the usefulness of dynamic mics: they can be left out for weeks (or months?) if properly shielded from weather
• the tiny DPA mics (of which I have 4, 2x 4060 and 2x 4061) can be tied to song posts, tree branches and all kinds of difficult to reach places; as long as it isn't too windy and the Rycote fluffies aren't used birds usually don't mind them
• using dummy mics so that birds get used to being around them, and subsequently replacing them with the real thing
• and many more... Believe me, there was so much information flying in all directions and compressed in such a short time that I'm still mentally going through it and remembering interesting bits.

The whole trip was truly enjoyable and I look forward to attending the next one, probably in February if my schedule allows it. If you want to attend the meetings or get involved with the WSRS you can check out their website for details.

Woodland Atmosphere retrospective Part 1

My first commercial sound effects library Woodland Atmosphere has been out for almost a month, and so far the feedback is quite encouraging. Shortly after release I wrote a Q&A for A Sound Effect, but I feel there's a lot more I can share about recording and mastering the library.

First of all it was never my intention to put together and release Woodland Atmosphere. I had several excellent nature libraries (the Quiet Planet series comes to mind), and this took care of my requirements for nature ambiences for a while. The situation changed as soon as I had to recreate a typical UK woodland ambience however. Everything sounded exotic and out of place, so the only way to fix this was to go out and record my own ambiences.

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It's much easier to spot birds in early spring as they can't hide in the brush as easily

Fortunately I live in Edinburgh, so I have to drive for less than an hour before I can reach quiet areas of dense woodland that are teeming with wildlife. On top of that I'm familiar with the surroundings as we're out hiking quite often so I didn't have to waste time scouting locations.

The first time I went out to record the dawn chorus was in February this year, when the birds had barely started to sing. I was not going into this blind, as I had attended this Wildeye course in which Chris Watson and Jez Riley French covered the basics excellently, and other recordists and ornithologists shared invaluable insight and experiences with me. I had also read several books and countless blog posts on nature recording so I thought I'd be somewhat prepared for what lay ahead.

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Dirt roads = less traffic

I was soon going to find out that no amount of discussion can replace first-hand experience. My first mistake was going out at 3 am, as I had noticed the birds in the trees beside my bedroom started to sing as early as 4 am. My plan was to go out even earlier so that I could record the full dawn chorus. Imagine my surprise when I got there on time and I could only hear the wind and a very distant owl hooting. I had to wait until about half past 5 before the first birds started to make themselves heard.

All this seemed peculiar enough, but I was enjoying the experience of being there too much to give it more thought. Only when I got home I remembered a discussion I had with other recordists from whom I learned about the influence of artificial lighting over birdsong. Birds in well lit areas such as cities will start singing much earlier than their rural cousins who see longer and darker nights. At any rate, from then on I would check the exact time of sunrise and time my recording trips so that I'd be on site half an hour earlier.

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Laying cables

Once I got to the site, a nice and dense woodland area far away from traffic and settlements, I would park the car and start laying cables. This was an excellent opportunity for me to make mistake #2, i.e. not checking if the XLR connector I had in hand was male or female. This is usually not a problem with short cables, but I was laying down 50 metres of cable in dense and muddy brush. The flies, spiders and other insects made things worse, not to mention I was scaring away the birds. Fortunately it only happened a couple of times before I learned my lesson.

When the microphones were in place and connected to the recorder in the car I went out and placed my Sony PCM D100 about 500m further, with the input levels set at about 50%. This got me a different perspective on what I was recording, and occasionally a close-up of a few crows or Robins. I once made the mistake of setting the levels too hot (about 70%), and a pesky wren came too close and ruined an otherwise perfect recording. Setting them too low didn't work either, but once I'd done it a few times I learned to roughly predict how loud the dawn chorus would get based on location, weather conditions, time of the year or simply by listening.

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Spot the recorder

Speaking of weather, the BBC Weather app was an excellent companion before and on recording trips. On top of providing accurate weather info (at least for the following day), it also displays daily sunrise/sunset time and wind speed and direction. If I didn't want to specifically record wind I wouldn't even bother going out if the wind was over 5 mph. Even if the Rycote fluffies that I use can easily block 10 to 15 mph wind, the sound of it blowing through leaves and the wood creaks would make the recordings unusable.

Another element that made more than 80% of my recordings unusable was also far less easy to control, predict or avoid. I'm talking of course about the ubiquitous sheep, but I'll leave this along with equipment and mastering details for Part 2. Until then enjoy this bit I dug up from the archives, recorded in March with the DPA 4060s into the Sound Devices 633. Follow the Soundcloud link if you want to download and use it royalty-free:

Field recording on rainy days

I've been slacking off for a few weeks, only working on urgent projects and enjoying the short Scottish summer. Today I didn't have any tasks for the morning so I decided I'd go out and record material for my next library. According to my weather app sunny spells were going to alternate with showers, so I went out hoping for good weather.

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As soon as I drove off the wind picked up and it started to rain. When I reached Harperrig reservoir I realized the wind and the rain would make it impossible to record anything, so I just sat in my car sipping on coffee and listening to the weather. Although only a 30 mph breeze, the wind was powerful enough to rock the car at times and the occasional rain sounded like a huge centipede crawling on the roof of the car. (I have to remember to go back come winter when the gale force winds of 70 mph or more are in season.)

I have countless rain and wind sounds in my library, but most are recorded outside. Last winter I tried recording a storm from indoors and got great results so I decided to not waste the opportunity and record this as well. After trying different ways of placing my PCM D100 I ended up leaving it on the passenger's seat facing the window. This got me a great deal of wind gusts and rain drops hitting the window, which I'm sure will be handy in recreating a storm as perceived from indoors.

I recorded three 10 minute takes of wind rumble and rain drops. I also tried leaving the car windows slightly open but the rain drops falling on the interior plastic didn't sound that interesting so I gave it up.

Back home I was surprised to see the recordings were clean and didn't sound that boxy. I put together a 5 minute demo that I'm giving away for free via my soundcloud account. The first half is just wind blowing while the second half also contains water drops hitting the car at various speeds and intensities. The file can be listened to and downloaded from Soundcloud:

Mindful Audio is live

Hi there. I'm George Vlad and I work in game audio. I'm incredibly passionate about what I do, to the extent that work and spare time blend and amalgamate with each other on a regular basis. One example is the enjoyment that I derive from spending time in the great outdoors, hiking, trekking or simply laying on the grass and listening to the subtle sounds around me. This provides excellent opportunities to record sounds that I require in my day-to-day work.

A logical progression from recording countless gigabytes' worth of audio is putting together libraries that can be shared with fellow sound professionals. This year alone I've been on more than 20 recording trips just covering the dawn chorus, which yielded about 70 GB worth of recordings. I have also recorded extensive footsteps and Foley, paper sounds, small cogs and gears and many others that can very well be organized into libraries.

European robin, used with kind permission from Briton Parker.

The actual planning took more time than the execution, mainly due to my fixation with having everything done perfectly (not that different from what is discussed in this Designing Sound article). I spent countless hours trying to create a concept and to translate it into words. I also had the pleasure of collaborating with talented artists when working on the company logo and library covers, but I still felt like I wasn't making any progress. However, once the graphics were done and I was recording dawn choruses twice or even three times a week, a sort of momentum started to build up. I'm certain that reading Paul Virostek's books and blog posts helped speed things up, as have countless discussions with friends and fellow sound professionals.

At any rate, here we are. Mindful Audio is live, and the first library is due to be published in a few days. I'll follow up in a week's time with the detailed story of how the Woodland Atmosphere library came to be. Here's to a hundred more libraries.