As previously mentioned I've been in South Africa for the past 3 weeks recording wildlife as part of the Sonic Mmabolela workshop. I will go into more detail about this in the coming weeks and months as I go through the hundreds of gigabytes of recordings, videos and photos. Until then I want to share a thunderstorm I recorded earlier this evening while I went out to dinner. I was just stepping out when I noticed a lot of lightning in the distance so I set up my D100 on the windowsill just in case the storm would get closer.
Read MoreHidden gem - Great Tit solo recording
Quick post to share a beautiful Great Tit (Parus Major) solo. I'm working on a project that requires me to dig deep into my field recording archives and I keep finding all kinds of gems. Since I haven't shared a recording in a while (and I'll soon be away for a month or so without access to internet) I figured I'd take a minute to upload this. Enjoy!
Wildlife Sound Recording Society Autumn Meeting 2016
The past weekend I attended a very enjoyable WSRS Autumn meeting in Norfolk. Having attended last year's Autumn meeting, I was excited at the prospect of getting away from the busy soundscape of South East England (where I've been living since September). As a special treat this year we were joined by the Society's President, wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson.
Read MoreHydrophone recordings of aquatic life
Hydrophones are too often overlooked as tools for field recording or sound design, even more so than contact microphones. I guess the reason for his is that (1) they're so unpredictable and (2) no one wants to realistically portray underwater sound. Hollywood and by extension the media in general will happily throw a lowpass filter on noise and add some bubbling sounds and that's about the extent of underwater ambience that we'll get.
Read MoreRavens mobbing Buzzard
Yesterday I went on my daily walk in the Pentland Hills just outside Edinburgh. It was quite windy as it has been around here for the past month or so, making it impossible for me to go out and record anymore dawn choruses.
Read MoreRecording birds in open fields
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
Wildeye field recording trip to Northumberland
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of joining Chris Watson, Jez Riley French and several others on an enjoyable field recording trip/workshop in College Valley, Northumberland. This was my 3rd Wildeye course actually so I knew exactly how to prepare and what to expect.
The workshop location was Mounthooley Bunkhouse, same as last year. For those unfamiliar, this is deep in the College Valley, far away from traffic or industrial noise and surrounded by hills, pastures and wooded patches. College Burn flows close by and can make recording ambiences rather difficult since it's quite noisy however.
Read MoreRecording waves crashing on the beach
I'm still working on the Northumberland trip blog post, but the weather is too fine to stay indoors for long so it will be a while until it's done.
Today I went on a short trip to Dunbar and brought my full recording rig (including hydrophones) with me instead of only taking the handheld. This proved to be a smart move as there was hardly anyone around apart from a small group of surfers braving the cold water.
There were few birds including Gannet, Eider Duck and Herring Gull but they were minding their business and their calls were inaudible. The only trouble was created by Skylarks singing close to the shoreline but when I heard them I just moved away for a few hundred yards and their calls became inaudible.
In all I managed to record about 2 hours of audio over more than half a day. I recorded different distance perspectives, and on several of the takes I also buried a hydrophone in the sand and recorded this on the 3rd channel of the 633. Here's a short bit I recorded on a minuscule tidal island until a rogue wave almost flooded my recording bag: