My friends with the "Muse and Method" creative challenge have issued another prompt. This time the topic is "March".

This track was built with two samples from my personal collection of field recordings. The 4-beat rhythm loop is the percussion section of the Shawnee Mission North High School marching band, recorded at the Overland Park Fall Festival in 2011. The horn sound is an air horn on an antique steam tractor, recorded at the Northwest Michigan Engine and Thresher Show, Buckley, Michigan way back in 1989 and played back through a keyboard sampler.

The Marty Street Hi-Steppin' Boogie

In a lightless aqueduct passing below the city. A semi-binaural rig and a pair of Geofons recording in parallel. The recording has not been edited, and the sounds have not been modified in any way. No EQ, no effects.

This is an excerpt from the full-length recording available at https://hearingbeings.bandcamp.com/track/underground-listening-meditation.

@Bandcamp

2024.03.02 Underground Listening Meditation (Excerpt). Summer.

No processing, no effects. Just mixing between parallel simultaneous raw recordings.

A car passes over the overhead bridge. The freight train passes over the farther bridge. We hear the freight train first through the air, and then purely through the resonating steel skeleton of the nearer bridge.

2024.03.01 Listening through the Bridge.

No processing, no effects. Just mixing between parallel simultaneous raw recordings.

2024.03.01 Entering the Bridge.

Sounds from the rainforest at Mount Pleasant (-27.127956, 152.745030) Queensland, Australia, beside the North Pine River on the 15th of March 2024.

Sounds include the flowing North Pine River, insects including cicadas, birds including the Eastern Whipbird (Psophodes olivaceus) and the wind in the trees.

Sound recording by G R Legge. Recorded at 32 bit float, 96kHz (converted to 24 bit) with a Zoom F3 and Audio Technica BP-4025 stereo microphone. 

Photography by G R Legge. (www.onstreetphoto.com)

Mt Pleasant/North Pine River Rainforest (field recording)

I have been trying to record the lynx mating call "WAUW" many times but they are always too far off in the distance. Although this lynx is some distance away the quiet of the night made the recording OK. If you listen carefully and with headphones you will hear an Eagle Owl calling incessantly in the background. Nice combination!
Uppsala. March 19, 2024. 

Clippy EM272 + Zoom F3

Lynx and Eagle Owl

BioPortraits (@bio_portraits )+ Sonido Postal: 
Coro del Atardecer en el Río Las Brusquitas, Buenos Aires - Argentina.

"Grabación de campo realizada en un atardecer del miércoles 13 de marzo de 2024, cuando el sol se ocultaba hacia el horizonte en el Río Las Brusquitas, Localidad de Chapadmalal, Buenos Aires - Argentina.  Dicha grabación esta formada por la mezcla de capturas realizadas en diferentes momentos. La sinfonía de la naturaleza se desplegaba con magnificencia mientras el coro del atardecer inundaba el aire, al inicio de la luna creciente y días antes del equinoccio de otoño. 
Se pudo apreciar cada matiz sonoro, desde el suave murmullo del agua del río hasta el canto de las aves. 
En este rincón de Buenos Aires, la coexistencia de especies es un testimonio vivo de la interconexión entre todos los seres vivos. Aquí, los sonidos biofónicos de la fauna silvestre se entrelazan con los sonidos geofónicos del río, el viento que le da movimiento a toda la flora del territorio creando una armonía única y sublime.
La ecología sonora no solo es un campo de investigación en rápida expansión, sino también una herramienta invaluable para comprender y preservar los ecosistemas. Estos sonidos nos ofrecen una ventana hacia la salud de nuestro entorno natural, revelando patrones de comportamiento, migración y reproducción de las especies que lo habitan. En un mundo cada vez más dominado por el ruido antrofónico, es crucial recordar la importancia de proteger y conservar los sonidos de la naturaleza. Escuchar y apreciar la belleza de estos ecosistemas nos conecta con nuestro entorno de una manera profunda y significativa, recordándonos nuestra responsabilidad compartida de cuidar y respetar la vida en todas sus formas."

— Grabación de campo realizada en un atardecer de Marzo en el Río Las Brusquitas, Localidad de Chapadmalal,  Buenos Aires - Argentina.
—Fotografía: Damián Alférez (Sonido Postal)
— Equipos: Grabadora portátil Zoom Q4
— Fecha: 13-03-2022 
— Hora: entre las 19:00 y 20:00 hs (GMT-3)

Coro del Atardecer en el Río Las Brusquitas

Raining Frogs And Dogs 240408

Wonderful morning in a wetland along Lake Mälaren where I tested having four Clippy EM272 microphones as in the photo. Managed to catch both parkland and wetland birds equally well.
Wik castle, Uppsala. May 1, 2024.

Zoom F6 + 4xClippy EM272.

Quad Clippy microphones

Some frogs in a pound - Worblaufen / Bern
Audio Technica AT8022 stereo mic on Tascam DR-100mk3
48kHz / 24bit - low cut in post

2024 - 05 - 01 Worblaufen - Frogs

The recordings of Microchiropteran Bats by Hearing Beings (see below) made me wonder what is the maximum ultrasonic frequency that can be reproduced in Soundcloud. Soundcloud suggests best quality is reached by uploading file format 48/16. As a consequence upper frequency should be 24 kHz (Nyquist) which is not much for original bat recordings. 

But why not give it a try? I made a recording at 384 kHz sampling rate of an artificial chirp going down from 95 to 15 kHz in 1 second (see spectrogram attached). The original recording is in the first second of this track. I attached a 10 x slowed down replay for being able to hear the chirp. There is some aliasing and distortion in the recording, but nothing problematic. The track was uploaded to Soundcloud as 192 kHz/16 bit WAV. Then, I downloaded it and checked the result: Frequency goes up all the way to 95 kHz....whoopy!!! No limits so far!

You may download this file (192/16) for own purposes.

Microchiropteran bats by Hearing Beings: https://soundcloud.com/hearingbeings/sets/the-beauty-of-the-wingbeats-of-microbats-volume-1

Pettersson M500-384, Audacity. File uploaded as 192/16 WAV.

Ultrasound - 2020/07/26 - Soundcloud Max Frequency

Gerwin Meijer

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