From the same trip as the fire pit recording, but taken the next morning while we made and ate breakfast. I've been having trouble recording wind in the past and this morning was no exception...but at least the wind was 20+ mph so I was in for a challenge regardless. Still, I'm impressed with how well the rig did despite the conditions. I did learn a valuable lesson though that I need to tie up the cables! There are a number of times throughout the recording with the clinking of cables. Ah well.

This is a pretty long recording and the wind was quite violent so I wouldn't call this a relaxing recording haha. There are birds on occasion which sound quite pretty. It's amazing to me that they were still flying around during this wind! Ten minutes in is where the wind really picks up, but the craziest time is at about 40 minutes. You can hear the sand flying across the ground and the wind hitting the boulders. It was enough wind to pretty much collapse of tent.

Microphones: Clippy EM272
Stereo Rig: Winged Array per http://www.trackseventeen.com/mic_rigs.html
Recording: MixPre 3 II (40dB Gain @ 96 kps 32-bit float)

Sandstorm at the Trona Pinnacles

After hiking up an off-roading trail, Lucia and I made it to the upper sardine lake for sunrise. The lake was mirror like and surrounded by glowing mountains. It was a serene morning with a lovely dawn chorus by the birds. It was so quiet you can even hear fish jump a few times.

For this track I took more time to edit this, still I think I created an honest representation of the soundscape. I removed some of the microphone noise and paid more attention to my EQ due to the stereo rig. In addition I was able to splice a longer recording (about an hour) into this shorter one to remove noises that Lucia and I generated. I thought about removing the plane portion, but I found it interesting how the birds seemed to get more active at those times.

Definitely best enjoyed with headphones :)

Microphones: Clippy EM272
Stereo Rig: Winged Array per www.trackseventeen.com/mic_rigs.html
Recording: MixPre 3 II (40dB Gain @ 96 kps 32-bit float)

2021.10.09 Sardine Lake Dawn Chorus

This audio recording was taken during the late-afternoon evening hours in Los Glaciares National Park on Christmas Eve in the forest near Rio Fitzy Roy. The recording setup was attached at the base of a tree and left for several hours so the wildlife would return to normal behaviors; although admittedly they didn't seem to mind my company while I was setting up! While I didn't witness the birds present in the recording I believe I can identify some Patagonian Sierra Finch (actually a type of tanager), Black-Chinned Siskin, and maybe some Austral Negrito.

2021 Christmas Eve Laguna Torre Trail Evening Field Recording

Had an opportunity to record a local orchestra and use my own home build microphone. Normally I use this microphone for ambient recordings in nature and this is the first time I've used it indoors! Other than normalizing the volume of the recording this is straight from the recorder.

Recorder: MixPre 3II 32-bit 96ksps
Microphone: Stereo "SASS" Dual EM272 per Channel

Béla Bartók - Romanian Folk Dances (RAW/Uneditted)

Several months ago Lucia and I took the trip of a lifetime to Antarctica. After learning some new processing tools and a crazy start to 2022, I'm finally going through my recordings!

This recording was done with two hydrophones draped off either side of our zodiac boat in the middle of a "bergy bits" ice field in Fournier Bay.   The guide was kind enough to shut off the motor for about ten minutes so I could do a sound recording using my hydrophones. 

I certainly didn't realize this before the trip, but the water in Antarctica is full of fun sounds. The glaciers are constantly making noise such as bubbling, crashing, and cracking! There are some ice bits crashing into each other (maybe calving) and I think even an echo in the water from said crash earlier in the recording. I didn't notice any animal sounds other than a friendly zodiac coming by to say hello. You can hear the  motor from the boat approaching and changing speeds.

Here are some technical details about the recording:
- Recording Date: 2021.12.16
- Location: Fournier Bay, Antarctica
- Audio Interface: Sound Devices MixPre3-II
- Rate, Depth: 192kHz, 32-bit float
- Gain: 65bB
- Hydrophones: Aquarian H2a-XLR (9-meters long)

Processing done with iZotope RX 9 (de-click and spectral repair) and Reaper (normalizing and fade-in/out).

Sounds of an Ice Field Underwater in Fournier Bay

On New Year's Eve after an already exhilarating morning tracking Pumas, our guide took us to a beautiful riverbend inside a small forest to find the largest King Fisher in the Americas. Not only did we find two of the birds, I was able to get a lovely sound recording of the forest, the river, and the birds singing nearby.

Some technical details about the recording:
- Recording Date: 2021.12.31
- Location: Serano River, Torres Del Paine, Chile
- Audio Interface: Sound Devices MixPre3-II
- Rate, Depth: 96kHz, 32-bit float
- Gain: 65bB
- Microphone: Stereo "SASS" Dual EM272 per Channel 

Processing done with:
- iZotope RX Pro's spectral repair to attenuate loud bird calls
- iZotope Ozone Pro's equalizer to remove wind rumble
- Reaper for normalizing and fade-in/out

Torres Del Paine Serano Riverbend

Back in June Lucia and I went on a road trip on CA-1 to explore the coast and the redwoods. Once we made our way up to Crescent City we found a state park hidden away but full of beautiful redwoods and ferns. Walking through the forest with such a high canopy felt like walking inside a giant nature cathedral.

I setup an overnight recording beneath the trees with hopes of capturing the dawn chorus. First listening to the recording, the night was quiet with hardly any sounds but then the first bird chirps around sun rise...several minutes go by and its friends wake up to join its song. 

This is a long recording, but I love how you can hear different species of birds waking up at different points during the morning.

Some technical details about the recording:
- Recording Date: 2022.6.19
- Location: Mills Creek State Park, CA
- Audio Interface: Sound Devices MixPre3-II
- Rate, Depth: 96kHz, 32-bit float
- Gain: 65bB
- Microphone: Stereo "SASS" Dual EM272 per Channel

Processing done with:
- iZotope Ozone Pro's equalizer to remove wind rumble
- Reaper for normalizing and fade-in/out

Dawn Chorus among the Redwoods

Last year I started to make a mid-side mic, but it wasn't until recently that I finally finished the project!

Taking inspiration from the multi-clippy microphone setups to improve SNR I decided to take a similar approach for a mid-side setup. The mid channel consists of two parallel EM264 cardioid microphones while the side consists of two parallel EM283 figure eight microphones. The microphones are attached to a 3D printed part to hold them inside a donor BM800 microphone body along with a Schoeps style balanced preamp I made. 

Not a particular exciting recording, but the purpose was to test the stereo imaging of the microphone. The recording was taken out side near a road where you can hear some birds chirping away as well as some trucks and cars driving.

Some tech specs:
- Audio Interface: Sound Devices MixPre3-II
- Depth Rate: 96kHz, 32-bit float
- Gain: 60bB
- Mid Channel: Parallel EM264 Cardioid
- Side Channel: Parallel EM283 Figure Eight
- Mid-Side Decoding: GoodHertz MidSide 3 (Natural Width Mode)

Mid-Side Microphone Test

This past February Lucia and I travelled to the winter wonderland of Banff Canada for our babymoon. One particular sound I was excited to record during our trip was the ice cracking over the frozen lakes. Several nights earlier (Valentines day actually) our friends @elizabethgadd and @kristopherandres let us know we had a chance to see the aurora and the skies did not disappoint!!! We'd never seen them before and it was amazing. Either way part of this experience was walking across ice which initially was quite freaky because on occasion you can hear the ice cracking and groaning (which obviously I wanted to record haha). Thankfully the ice was 3+ ft thick so we were perfectly safe, but the sounds still caused our hearts to skip a few beats!

I didn't have my sound recording equipment the night we saw the aurora, but we all went back to the lake a few nights later to setup my hydrophones for an overnight recording. I used two hydrophones spaced about 20ft apart clamped to the ice use ice climbing screws. I was expecting occasional cracks and groans, but when I put on my headphones my jaw dropped. The ice sounded like a trippy sci-fi world which was more exciting than I had imagined. Hope you enjoy :)

Some technical details about the recording:
- Recording Date: 2023.02.17
- Location: Lake Minnewanka, Canada
- Audio Interface: Sound Devices MixPre3-II
- Rate, Depth: 192 ksps, 32-bit float
- Hydrophone: Two Aquarian H2a-XLR

Processing done with:
- iZotope RX to attenuate and remove the louder crack
- GoodHertz Midside 3 to "convert" to stereo. While this was a stereo recording, the two channels didn't report like a normal AB. One was significantly louder than the other. I suspect this was due to clamping pressure from the ice screws and that they weren't attached to the same crack in the ice. Playing around with the recording, interpreting the data as a mid-side recording increased the spaciousness and "trippyness" factor :)
- iZotope Ozone equalizer to emphasize the high end
- iZotope Ozone vintage compressor to tame additional transients
- Reaper for normalizing and fade-in/out

Night Sounds of the Lake Minnewanka Ice

A few weeks ago Lucia and I made our first trip since having our baby. We made the trip in preparation for another trip to figure out how to travel. The trip needed to be multi-day and high in elevation to help baby be better prepared for his first airplane trip. We decided on Yosemite Valley. With a newborn hardly two months old would we be able to explore or create like we normally would? It was a different pace than our typical trips to be sure, but still awesome!

Something we don't often experience where we live is thunderstorms and finally for the first time I had an opportunity to record one! I used my SASS/Olson-ish microphone which uses four EM272 capsules. The EM272 doesn't have the largest SPL handling so I wasn't sure if the thunder would overload them or not. I was pleasantly surprised that in combination with the MixPre 3II 32-bit recording none of the thunder clipped! I put the microphone under a fallen tree in hopes the rain wouldn't hit it.

Processing this recording was a challenge. Thunder is LOUD. Many of the strikes were 40-60dB louder than the rest of the environment! Since I like to listen to my recordings while working I wanted to process the recording so I wouldn't need to change the volume constantly for fear of bleeding ears. I used a variety of techniques from removing the thunder with splicing and then overlaying the thunder with reduced volume. When the rain (and hail) was more intense I found this didn't work well so I instead relied on more targeted spectral editing. For both techniques I utilized iZotope's Ozone Maximizer to help keep the impact of the thunder while still reducing the volume to a listenable range.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll try reprocessing this at some point, but for now I'm proud of my first attempt. Hope you enjoy!

Some technical details about the recording:
- Recording Date: 2023.06.10
- Location: Foresta, CA (in Yosemite Valley)
- Audio Interface: Sound Devices MixPre3-II
- Rate, Depth: 96kHz, 32-bit float
- Gain: 65bB
- Microphone: Stereo "SASS" Dual EM272 per Channel

Afternoon Thunderstorm across Yosemite Valley

Recorded earlier this year while Lucia and I went out to capture the sunrise at Sharkfin Cove. Recorded using the MiPre 3 II in 32-bit float mode with two Clippy EM272 lavalier microphones about a foot apart on a coat hanger stuck into the sand. Normalized the audio and applied some EQ. Any recommended adjustments for processing would be appreciated! Enjoy the sound of some waves in a cave :)

Blair Conner

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