Field notes on this project will be added, here, a little later.

Exploring mid-side for my nature field recordings

Location: Szod -borderland - Hungary
Device: ZOOM H4n - built in stereo mics on 120*
Bitrate: 24bit
Resolution: 44.1khz

Birds&bells

Recorder: ZOOM F4  with spaced JrF contact mics

Ice sounds

Listening with headphones recommended! Recorded in 4-channel surround sound from within the circle and the loft above. Video: https://youtu.be/aLPOiKQsl40
~
Everything speaks. Everything is language, consciousness, shapes, conveyance, encoded reason. We are conductors of perception and play in reality, physical orchestrators of communications channeling, bridging worlds which meet through our cognizance. Improviser = composer = improviser = composer… Our practice is exploration, duration, hold, threshold, space, choice, interaction, non interaction, dynamics, energy, body. Amounts of things. Touch. There is no turning back from the experiences and exposures which evolve the love and flow and articulation of our being and awareness. We continually curate the galleries of our mind, this dream we each are in the universe. A seance of world premiere meetings. Such is meditation too. It is beyond words, and yet we know it. How far can we go? We honor life, this opportunity of existence and healing we’re given. We use it and sing it through. Our life is cosmic synchronicity made manifest.

Video

14-speaker live nature music sound collage meditation

A binaural recording of gusts of wind and rain as heard inside a tent in at the foot of a mountain. You can hear the rustling of tree branches and leaves blowing around you, as raindrops and other debris fall on top of the tent.

Recorded with a pair of DPA4060 microphones into a Zoom F3.

Wind And Rain - Binaural Recording

Location: FaureciaAutomotiveLtd.-Banbury/UK Final Assembly Backrest
Date/Time: 25-05-2011 0:10 am
Devices: ZOOM H4n,Audio-Technica ATR25 stereo microphone
Bitrate: 24bit
Resolution: 44.1khz


The sound of a production line

2x Panavia Tornado ECR Jets - takeoff climb
- 6 Stormo Italian Air Force 

Original recorded in 32 bit 96khz audio-stereo
Photo: Carl Perkins

Full sets: aerobluesounds.bandcamp.com/

Original location recordings from the world of aviation.
High quality recordings with minimal background distractions.

Panavia Tornado Jets - Italian Air Force

Saab JAS 39C Gripen Jet- takeoff
Czech Air Force

Original recorded in 32 bit 96khz audio-stereo
Photo: Carl Perkins

Full sets: aerobluesounds.bandcamp.com/

Original location recordings from the world of aviation.
High quality recordings with minimal background distractions.

JAS 39C Gripen Jet- Czech AF

The Indian Pacific is an Australian passenger rail service that operates between Sydney, on the Pacific Ocean, and Perth, on the Indian Ocean, with Adelaide, on the Southern Ocean, as a midway station: a journey of 4,352 kilometres (2,704 miles) and four to five days. This recording was made at night, at around 23:30, in the countryside, one to two hours out of Adelaide: here, the Indian Pacific is en route to Perth. Traversing a long stretch of straight track, the train was travelling at a fairly brisk pace.

The recordings were made with microphones that I've been using for years: a pair of MKH 8020 omni microphones in AB 63 cm (i.e., parallel to each other and spaced 63 cm apart) and a pair of MKH 8040 cardioid microphones in ORTF (i.e., divergent at a 110° angle and 17 cm apart), all mounted on the same mic support bar, at a distance of 9 steps (approx. 5.5 - 6 m) from the railway tracks, simultaneously recorded the passing of the train into a MixPre-6 II. The preamp gain for the 8020s was 35 dB, and for the 8040s it was 40 dB. Even so, the signal level of the 8040s was far below that of the 8020s. Not surprising, given the omni polar pattern of the 8020s, and their greater sensitivity.

The comparative sensitivity of these microphones is as follows (according to the manufacturer's specifications): MKH 8020s -30 dBV/Pa, MKH 8040s -34 dBV/Pa. Although fairly close, the very different polar patterns (omni vs cardioid) of the two microphones make this small difference in sensitivity quite significant. ['Sensitivity' refers to the amount of output that a microphone provides for a given input. Microphone sensitivity is typically measured with a 1 kHz sine wave at a 94 dB sound pressure level (SPL), or 1 pascal (Pa) pressure. Thus, a -30 dBV/Pa output is a more 'sensitive' (and 'louder') response than a -34 dBV/Pa output.]

No processing has been used on the samples presented, other than the following simple adjustments: both samples were normalised to -1.00 dB, and then precisely the same gain envelope adjustments were made to both samples to rebalance the overall temporal gain levels after normalisation. The original files are 96 kHz/32-bit float; the resampled version presented here is 44.1 kHz/16 bit.

The most evident and most significant point of difference between the two recordings, from the recordist's perspective, is that between the stereo imaging/spatial staging of the same event as recorded from the same position. Of course, it would be quite meaningless to suggest that one image is 'more true' or 'more faithful' than the other. There are also some more subtle differences in the timbral detail and texture of the two recordings, due to the subtly different frequency response contours and polar patterns of the two types of microphone. It would be very interesting to make further comparisons with reference to a parallel binaural recording rig.

Track image: Comparative spectrograms of both clips at 96/32. Drone aerial photograph of Indian Pacific from https://www.journeybeyondrail.com.au/indian-pacific/.

2025.01.30 Indian Pacific Transcontinental Train: MKH 8020s and 8040s Parallel Samples.

audio portrait

note: The photograph is of the Northwest corner of 103rd and Lexington, half a block away from Mario’s window, and on the opposite side of the street. I initially considered collecting a few portraits on 103rd on both sides of Lex. 

Mario was at his window on 103rd between Lex and 3rd on the downtown side of the street and he was greeting everyone on their way to work (and the 103rd Street station at the corner). 

I was already familiar with the block from interviewing a shop owner named Sylla who has a space on the other side of the street, almost directly across from Mario’s window. The first time I met Sylla he was talking with his longtime friend who is an addict. As soon as Andre left, Sylla filled me in on his friend’s backstory and the drug problems on the block. 

open fire hydrant nearby

Dr Milton Helpern: https://www.wnyc.org/story/city-record-dr-milton-helpern/

Mario at the window

A wide and deep, gently rhythmically hypnotic, mallee heathland dawn, from an evening to morning recording made with a mid-side rig utilising an omnidirectional mid microphone. (Relaxed listening with good quality headphones with flat frequency response, especially open-backed, at a moderate volume, is ideal. But what you hear, and how you hear it, depends, most of all, on what you're listening for, and  how you're listening. This is not a 'pop' recording (and no apologies for that).)

Recorded respectfully on the land of the Ngargad (Ngarket) people.

Track photo: taken at the recording location, in Ngarkat Conservation Park, on the second morning of recording.

2025.09.13 Ngarkat Dawn. Early Spring.

Sitting on a blanket on moist grass in a clearing between two forests.
The pine forest is behind, the eucalypt forest is in front.
Left is east, right is west.
The sounds from in front blend with those from behind, both to the left and to the right.
The variable breeze pervades throughout.
The sky above is ever so gradually lightening, and all around, beings are awakening.
Like forever, the natural mystery of Mind is happening.

(From an ongoing series of recent exploratory field recordings with a mid-side rig, this one with cardioid mid microphone. This track is an excerpt from a longer recording.)

@Bandcamp

2025.11.02 A Dawn between Two Forests. Spring.

Although my ideal is to make and share nature recordings free of anthropogenic machine noise, I'm not averse to sitting through first light and dawn in natural places that I know very well will be noise-polluted - simply because I want to hear (and record) dawn choruses in such places, even if I will never, or rarely, share such recordings publicly. At different places, and at different times, dawn choruses are always quite different. Despite intrusive and discordant noise, I still want to experience and to hear what the birds and other animals will say (express, manifest) in such places, and how that will sound in each such physically different space. I feel that I owe them the respect and the effort to set up my recording gear, settle down, and listen and record through the darkness into first light and dawn. I don't wish to avoid, ignore or spurn them just because they have no choice but to exist and to  live their lives in the midst of abrasive human noise. To the contrary, I feel it's deeply important to experience, acknowledge, and respect their lives, their lifeworld, the reality of their way of being, precisely because they are not fortunate enough to live freely and naturally, there where they are and must be. Before I leave, after sunrise, I always thank them, and apologise to them for what the species to which I belong has inflicted upon them (and upon itself), and pray for their future protection and well-being.

This, then, is one of those rare occasions when I have decided to post an excerpt from just such an attended dawn recording, mainly because I find it fascinating and informative, and amusing. To my mind, it provides yet more evidence that Blackbirds (which aren't native to Australia, but released here by English settlers) and native birds don't really get on very well. The conflict or competition is not physical or violent, but expressed through 'voice' and creativity. In this instance, the Blackbirds seem to be ousted and chased away by some extremely vocal and virtuosic Grey Shrike-thrushes. (I should point out that I don't think of what birds do with their 'voices' as 'song' or 'music'. I think that such a notion is merely a somewhat fanciful human interpretation and imposition.)

Another, lesser, reason for posting the excerpt is because it is another exploratory mid-side recording (with a super-cardioid mid mic), made in parallel with an ORTF recording (with a pair of cardioids), which hasn't been posted, here.

2025.11.12 Dawn at Cudlee Creek. Spring. (Excerpt. Mid-Side.)

ORTF: 8040s (preamp gain 65 dB).
Mid-Side: 8050 and 8030 (preamp gain 65 dB; both channels at 0 dB in M-S decode).

Parallel raw clips to illustrate the difference in recorded levels between the ORTF rig (first clip) and the M-S rig (second clip), both recorded on the same recorder and both with 65 dB preamp gain. (Note how the Boobook Owl pauses its calls during the loudest and nearest part of the jet's passage.)

In all of the subsequent parallel clips, the ORTF recordings have been given +5 dB gain, which brings them very close to the same loudness level as the decoded M-S clips. Both rigs are similarly self-noisy under higher gain settings: neither is ideally suited to extremely quiet nocturnal ambience recording. (According to the manufacturer's specs, all three types of microphone have a self-noise equivalent of 13 dB (A-weighted).)

ORTF and Mid-Side (Parallel Recordings). 1. Boobook and Jet.

2025.11.12 Dawn at Cudlee Creek. Spring. (Excerpt. ORTF.)

Bandcamp

End of Days

Ongoing experiments, tests, and comparisons involving field recording gear and rigs, made for my personal practical experience and use. In case they might also be helpful or useful for other field recordists, I will be posting them here.

2025.11.12 Dawn at Cudlee Creek. Spring. (Excerpt. ORTF.)

Field Recording: Experiments and Comparisons

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