Remarkable how low the mics' noise floor is. Few field recorders on SC achieve this. What did you use?

This makes me feel smth I can't describe .. Something special indeed..

[PL]
Trzecie piętro w pensjonacie jest podwyższone o poddasze, aż po samą kalenicę. Od strony wewnętrznej zamurowane jest okrągłe okienko, które wcześniej chyba służyło do wietrzenia przestrzeni pod samym dachem. Od strony zewnętrznej została wnęka, w której co roku gniazdują pustułki. Pokój na poddaszu często wypełniają wydawane przez nie dźwięki - jedyne, co je oddziela to cienka ścianka. Pustułki krążą w najbliższej okolicy, przysiadają na drzewach, polują i rywalizują o terytorium.
Nagranie powstało podczas kilkugodzinnej sesji, a prezentowany fragment przypada na największą aktywność pustułek.
Zdjęcie zrobione przy innej okazji, kiedy pustułka przysiadła na parapecie okna poniżej wnęki, gdzie zakładają gniazdo.


[EN]
The third floor in the guesthouse includes a raised attic, all the way up to the roof ridge. From the inside, a round window is walled up, which was probably used to ventilate the space under the roof. From the outside, there is a recess in which kestrels nest every year. The room in the attic is often filled with the sounds they make - the only thing that separates them is a thin wall. Kestrels fly around in the vicinity, perch on trees, hunt and compete for territory.
The recording was made during a few-hour session, and the presented fragment is when the kestrels were the most active.
Photo was taken on another occasion, when the kestrel perched on the window sill below the niche where they make a nest.


2023/05/18; 19:45 - 20:05
Zoom F4, AT BP4025

Pustułki przez ścianę / Kestrels through the wall

Cryogenic Lullaby (Song 3)

I recorded this early November in 2023. Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari is on the New Zealand, North Island. It´s a warm spring day with sounds of the birds but also farm animals and the occasional vehicle.

Sanctuary Mountain - Day and Evening

Got out of bed at 3.50am.  On the road at 4.46am, arrived at Ballyfad wood at 5.01am, it was then about a nine minute walk to the recording location.  Set up the three recorders, first the Tascam X8 with the Rode Nt4 stereo mic with the Cardioid capsules (52db gain).  Next the Tascam Dr100 Mk2 with the Warm Audio 84's (50db gain), strangely I get problems with these mics if I use them with the MixPre3, but they seem to work beautifully with the Tascam).  Finally I set up the MixPre3 with the MKH8020's, I had not been using these mics for quite awhile as I thought they had gone faulty, but it seems to not be the case.  The weather had been awful for so long, very wet and windy and though the drift of air was not from the best direction I still went for recording even though I could hear a small bit of swish from traffic coming from the motorway.  It was as more about experimenting and checking out the equipment as getting the best recordings, though that would be a bonus.  It was a cool morning, about 5C, near calm, dry and clear.  Left for home at 7.14am, arrived back at 7.31am.   Out of the seven recordings saved from the three long recordings from the three recorders, I like the Warm Audio results the best, they sound so thick and analogue, the levels on screen are very noticeably bigger and thicker than the other recordings, these two are uploaded here.  Recording  4134.

Dawn Chorus (4) 18th of April 2024 - 6.06am - Ballyfad Wood (Warm Audio 84's)

Lots of fallen trees in my home forest after the winter storms but this old pine (yes, photo shows a Norway spruce) never fell to the ground. It is lodged against another pine creating this creaking sound. Nåsten, April 19, 2024.

Zoom F3 + Mikro Usi Pro

Creaking pines

A few green frogs recorded in the village of Saint-Silvain-sous-Toulx (Creuse, France) around a watering place near a vegetable garden. In the distance, to the left, other, much more numerous frogs, subjects of another recording.
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Quelques grenouilles vertes (grenouilles communes) dans le village de Saint-Silvain-sous-Toulx (Creuse, France) autour d'un point d'eau près du potager de la maraichère. Au loin, à gauche, d’autres grenouilles bien plus nombreuses sujets d’un autre enregistrement.
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46,26195° N, 2,18256° E
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(Zoom F3, Sennheiser MKH8040, ORTF)

240413 · 9:00 pm · Grenouilles Vertes · Green Frogs (Creuse, France)

A little further on than the previous recording, a hidden pond with many more frogs.
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Un peu plus loin que le précédent enregistrement, un étang caché avec bien plus de grenouilles.
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Saint-Silvain-sous-Toulx (Creuse, France) 46,26339° N, 2,18290° E
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(Zoom F3, MKH8040, ORTF)

240413 · 10:00 pm ·  Grenouilles Vertes · Green Frogs (Creuse, France)

This recording takes us on a journey, from Südtiroler Platz to Karlsplatz on the line U1 of Vienna's U-Bahn. 

Recorded 11.04.2024
Zoom F3 + 2 x DPA 4060s

U-Bahn Journey - Vienna, Austria

The gentle sounds of wind blowing through the tree canopy and across the forest floor. (beech, pine)

Wind Soundscape - Pine and Mixed Woodland

Large Toadlets/Great Brown Brood Frogs (Pseudophryne major) In a gully feeding into Auburn River, Auburn River National Park. Zoom F1, PUI 5024 mics in a tree-ears rig.

Large Toadlet, Auburn River National Park

Headphones are highly recommended. The most appropriate and natural listening levels would be somewhere between 45% to 55% of your sound equipment's volume levels. The quiet beginning gradually grows louder, and then slightly reduces again to a 'status quo'. The recording, as presented here, runs from approximately 05:30 to 07:25: from just before first light to after sunrise.

The first and second dawns of 2021 were very windy, here. But the third dawn was quite calm. I was able to make this uninterrupted recording at one of my favourite local listening places. It's a place I love to go walking; and, just as much, love to sit, to listen, and to look. A place for peace, inspiration, and healing. And, of course, also to record.

The recording begins very quietly, but very gradually increases in volume. I've omitted the first part of the recording, which is even quieter, although it contains a few interesting obscure episodes; and one very vocal nearby koala. I felt that most listeners would be impatient with nine or ten minutes of mainly 'silence', before the birds begin to sing.

Given the quietness of this beginning, there is some general background 'white noise'. In part, this noise is just natural environmental sound; no space with an atmosphere is ever 'absolutely silent'. But it also probably includes some self-noise of the microphones, given that the preamp gain levels were relatively high. Although 'denoising' does mitigate such noise, I find that I am very rarely ever comfortable with the results of 'denoising', even when gently applied.

In all listening, there is always also, necessarily, the presence of the listener. There is no such thing as an act of 'listening' without a 'listener'. There is no such thing as 'sound' without a 'hearer of sound'. Yes, there is something that we may describe as 'purely physical vibration', which can exist, in some sense, quite independently of any particular being that is capable of 'hearing' such 'purely physical vibration' as 'sound'. But, very strictly speaking, such 'purely physical vibration' is absolutely not 'sound', as such, because 'sound', very strictly speaking, is a special kind of perceptual experience, a perceptual phenomenon, that can only be perceived and experienced by a perceiver, an experiencer, who is perceptually and experientially conscious, in an appropriate form and way.

John Cage once sat in a very sophisticated soundproofed anechoic chamber, attempting 'to hear pure silence'. He realised that there can be no such thing as 'hearing pure silence' because, even in 'pure silence', the listener will hear the sound of his or her own listening organism and listening organs. The presence of the listener cannot but be heard by the listener. The presence of the listener means that 'pure silence' is, in principle, impossible.

For me, this applies also to the presence of the microphones and the sound recorder. Like the organic listener, these also produce their own internal physical electromagnetic vibrations, which they cannot but also record, since recording such vibrations is precisely what they have been designed to do. Some are quieter than others; but, in principle, none can ever be 'absolutely silent'. To my mind, microphones and sound recorders are, to recollect Marshall McLuhan, 'extensions of our nervous systems'; and, like our nervous systems, they contribute 'noise' to every act of 'listening' and 'hearing'. Of course, it's preferable that the difference between inevitable intrinsic 'self-noise' and significant 'signal' is high, rather than low. But the fact of the matter remains, that, by fundamental principle, 'noise' and 'signal' cannot be absolutely separated. Analogically, to recall Wittgenstein, there is no such thing as 'a rod without length'. That's a logical contradiction, and a physical contradiction. The same applies here.

2021.01.03 A Quiet Dawn. Summer.

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Exploring hearing, the hearable, and the hearer, as an event, a mode, and a dimension of Βeing (τὸ εἶναι).

2021.01.03 A Quiet Dawn. Summer.

Hearing Beings

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