Testing my new EM272 stereo pair (Thanks @acousticnature!) at San Francisquito Creek on Sunday night. My recording location was on the LAX flight path and there were nonstop planes overhead in the evening, so this is a splice of two shorter segments, and there's also a very heavy low cut applied. 

Mostly just trying to figure out my setup. For this recording, the mics are strapped to a little dryer ball made to look like a bee. Mic Bee is very cute and convenient to carry, but I'm sure I'll make some improvements soon.

EM272 test - Quiet Evening At San Francisquito Creek

The Transverse Range separates California’s Central Valley from the Los Angeles basin. Every day, trucks pour over the Grapevine along I-5. 

But there are other routes into the mountains, sheltered from the noise of the freeway. One of these climbs the side of the canyon high above San Francisquito Creek. Hiking near the creek, one often comes across the crumbled remnants of a lower road.

This recording was taken along a section of dirt roads in Angeles National Forest. Maps label the area as Ruby Canyon. A quarter mile from the paved road, a little stream feeds into the creek. I found a sandbar and recorded this segment in a pause between the torrent of flights to and from the LAX and Burbank airports. There was a harsh wind in the canyon, but the stream is in a narrow side canyon sheltered from the strongest gusts.

Sony PCM-D100 with a pair of EM272 capsules - testing a budget version of the yoga block SASS array configuration (thanks to @acousticnature for a fantastic instructional post; I cut a lot of corners on materials and the design as written likely sounds much better, but I shall make improvements over time). Accidentally turned on the 20dB mic attenuation and high pass on the recorder; amplification and some additional low-end EQ applied in post.

Windy stream in Ruby Canyon

In the box canyon behind my house is a small toyon grove. During last night's rain I strapped a pair of microphones to one of the toyon branches. Most of the rain hits the upper leaves of the toyon, but a few drops make it through to the branches, impacting the hardwood and creating a sound a little like a muted wood block hit.

Recorded on a Primo EM272 stereo pair and Sony PCM-D100. I deleted the few droplets that actually hit the microphones, which is why it's not labeled as a field recording. Otherwise there is a ~120Hz low cut and slight EQ below 600Hz, which I find makes the Primos' sound closer to what I actually hear.

Rain in the Toyon - ASMR / Relaxation

This track contains buzzing flies.

In the mountains in Los Angeles County, I came across a congregation of hoverflies "singing" in a cement drainage below the dirt fire road. The hoverflies would land on the cement or nearby rocks and vibrate their wings to produce the primary sound heard in the recording. This track is a shorter sample of a 15 minute recording session and is edited with a low cut and brief fade in/out. There is a different, unedited sample on iNaturalist at: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/109713007

The low electrical buzzing you hear is from power lines above the road. You can also hear a bird who came to investigate.

Singing Hoverflies

A short clip from an evening recording at San Francisquito Creek. Unfortunately I underestimated how close the frogs might be to the recording setup, and only short sections were usable - there was one frog that clipped my mics. But I think these birds sound cute and I wanted to share them.

Short clip - Foraging birds, evening at the creek

This time of year, there are a lot of people camping out on weekends, so I decided to try recording on a week night. I went up to my recording location and managed to catch a short recording between planes. I also made a second recording but it was destroyed by a memory card error. I guess it may be time to retire this SD card... I'm glad that didn't happen while recording something more unusual that I'd be upset to have lost!

Warning: These are some loud frogs! In person I found myself wishing I brought earplugs...

Gentle low cut, plus a bit of negative gain below 250Hz on a short (~ 5 second) section in the middle where some plane noise was just audible.

Loud frogs at San Francisquito Creek

The cliff swallows are nesting just above my bedroom window and I have been hearing their creaky little song every morning recently. It doesn't seem to bother them that my cat sits on my bedside table and stares at them from 2 feet away.

Here they are at about 5:40 in the morning, before the traffic has picked up. I still had to apply heavy EQ on the low end to reduce the noise from the freeways to a reasonable level. Doing so without cutting out the owls was a challenge. My unaided ear can't even hear the freeways from my house...

Primo EM272 stereo pair with duct tape modifiers shaped vaguely like deer ears, to increase the stereo separation and provide a little bit of shelter from the elements. Sony PCM-D100. Recorded with the help of Mic Bee, the felted dryer ball bee that sits on a gorillapod and holds my mics for me. (Bee ears!)

Cliff Swallow and Owls outside my window - Semirural LA County

Sunrise from my window in a semi-rural area of Los Angeles county. The cliff swallows living above the window are making small muttering noises. The local roosters and Eurasian collared doves are also very active in this track. You may occasionally hear a horse or cow. Distant traffic is audible, mostly from the nearby freeways, which are major California truck routes.

Heavy EQ on the low end to reduce the traffic noise, which the mics amplify far beyond what I can hear with my unaided ears. What you can hear is quite distant and not even audible to me, but the mics pick it up clearly.

Primo EM272 stereo pair with duct tape modifiers shaped vaguely like deer ears, to increase the stereo separation and provide a little bit of shelter from the elements. Sony PCM-D100. Recorded with the help of Mic Bee, the felted dryer ball bee that sits on a gorillapod and holds my mics for me. (Bee ears!)

Cliff Swallow, roosters, collared doves, traffic - Semirural LA County

PLEASE NOTE: This track begins very quietly, but later in the recording, a small bird approaches the mic quite closely and eventually becomes much louder than anything else in the track. Please use care when setting the volume, especially on headphones.

I debated whether or not to post this track for a long time, because it uses noise reduction, and the common consensus seems to be that it's not possible to use noise reduction algorithms on natural sounds without ruining them. I'm not so experienced a recordist that I could be certain the track would hold up to expert scrutiny. On the other hand, I may not have much recording experience, but I've been an avid enjoyer of nature recordings for over 30 years, and if I enjoy this one, others may also enjoy it. In the end, assuming honesty in presentation, I think that's what matters.

This track was recorded on the ridge above Abbot Canyon in Carrizo Plain at sunset on March 19. The sky was mostly clear but a storm was approaching (it hit around 10 PM). It begins with the birds that began to sing as the sun set, and ends with the first songs of the coyotes. The coyotes continued singing after this track ends but unfortunately there were multiple plane flyovers at that time.

This was an extremely quiet recording environment. My equipment was a Sony PCM-D100 field recorder and a quad SASS-style array of Primo EM272 capsules. This equipment has a little bit too much self noise for the listening environment. In post, I compared the recording with a twilight recording in a high desert environment that I liked better and that was made on much better equipment than I can afford(probably Sennheiser MKH 8020s and a Sound Devices 700 series preamp). I found that my recording had only about 4dB more noise on the high end, mostly above 2KHz and growing worse higher in the range. That 4dB was enough to ruin the recording for me. I therefore applied noise reduction in Izotope Rx, using the frequency weighting ability found in the spectral noise reduction module to weight the noise reduction to higher frequencies and reduce damage to the areas with the most signal. The noise reduction peaked at 4dB, with most frequencies getting much less than 4dB of reduction. I hoped that by minimizing the noise reduction this way, I could achieve an acceptable recording without noticeable artifacts.

While I would prefer to "get it right on site," I find the results acceptable, especially given the alternative of spending several thousand dollars more on equipment - which, as an inexperienced amateur, I don't feel would be a good life choice. I therefore present the results here for your (hopeful) enjoyment. I hope it can be seen as an attempt to get as much as possible out of available equipement, not as any kind of attempt at deceiving the listener - I believe that the results are as good a representation of what I heard on site as I can manage with the resources available. Still, as the track has been digitally altered, it should not be used for scientific analysis. It is intended purely for enjoyment.

Carrizo Plain March 2022

Carrizo Plain - Abbot Canyon Sunset -- 4dB Noise Reduction

Shortly before dawn, a raven lands near the microphone. Mind the loud vocalization at 24 seconds.

Distant planes and cars can be heard throughout. Traffic noise was mitigated with a low cut and mild low end EQ throughout, and additional EQ below 400Hz towards the end of the track to quiet down a distractingly loud plane... I didn't want to cut off the flyaway.

SASS array style configuration of Primo EM272 capsules and Sony PCM-D100.

Raven Visit (Audible cars and planes)

Woke up one morning this spring to a hard rainstorm. During a break at work after the rain had died down a bit, I went out and strapped mics to the mulberry tree. This track consists of four short sections of a longer recording; crossfades are at 1:25. 5:08, and 8:55.

Primo EM272 stereo pair - tree ears on the mulberry tree in my yard. Low cut, EQ, a lot of selective negative gain below 200Hz to reduce car and plane noise.

End Of a backyard rainstorm - 4 crossfaded sections

Recorded in Olympic National park along the Quinault river, on a rainy weekday with few other park visitors.

Here, the river curves away to the south and the road is lined with dark forest on both sides. Drips fall from the moss-covered canopy into the sword ferns surrounding my microphones. A variety of small birds forage above, while somewhere in the forest, an unseen performer repeats a deep, echoing call.

I had never heard a sooty grouse before, and listened, enchanted, wondering what sort of creature might make such a sound.

 Editing included a very careful low cut! You may well imagine how nervous I was applying it, given how deep the grouse’s voice is.

Note - to my embarrassment, I found I didn’t take ANY photos at the location of the recording, so the track photo is from a couple miles away and a few hours earlier.

Sooty Grouse along the Quinault River

A pair of barred owls recorded by the riverside around 5:30 AM on a clear night just before the full moon. Earsight mics in a small wedge shaped array.

Riverside barred owl duet

Frogs (possibly gray tree frogs) singing on a June evening in Greenbriar County, WV in 2010. Dogs and cows are also audible. This recording was taken on an iPhone 3G and is in mono.

Frogs, Jun Eve In WV (mono iPhone clip)

Amateur field recordings. Mostly from around the vicinity of Lake Hughes, California. Earlier recordings (from before my iRiver died) are taken with a pair of Church Audio mics with cheap homebrew windscreens (made from a tea ball and some wool); later recordings are mono, taken with my iPhone. Still looking for a good stereo recording solution for iPhone.

Some of these recordings (and probably some others I didn't upload here yet) are also on my Freesound account (sithjawa):

http://www.freesound.org/usersViewSingle.php?id=8844

Rain and frogs 2

Frogs and rain recorded out the window of a rented cottage in Lake Hughes in 2009. The raingutter is audible. Church Audio amplified stereo pair worn on-head, recorded on an iRiver. The iRiver, intended as a music player, was a surprisingly good digital audio recorder when equipped with an external mic. 

Some of these recordings (and probably some others I didn't upload here yet) are also on my Freesound account (sithjawa):

http://www.freesound.org/usersViewSingle.php?id=8844

Rain and frogs 3

Frogs and rain recorded out the window of a rented cottage in Lake Hughes in 2009. The raingutter is audible. The high wind gives this recording a harsher sound than the "rain and frogs" recordings taken at the same location. Church Audio amplified stereo pair worn on-head, recorded on an iRiver. The iRiver, intended as a music player, was a surprisingly good digital audio recorder when equipped with an external mic.

Some of these recordings (and probably some others I didn't upload here yet) are also on my Freesound account (sithjawa):

http://www.freesound.org/usersViewSingle.php?id=8844

Rain, Wind, Frogs, Occasional Windchime

A small creek in the San Gabriel mountains, recorded in March 2009. Church Audio amplified stereo pair worn on-head, recorded on an iRiver. The iRiver, intended as a music player, was a surprisingly good digital audio recorder when equipped with an external mic.

Some of these recordings (and probably some others I didn't upload here yet) are also on my Freesound account (sithjawa):

http://www.freesound.org/usersViewSingle.php?id=8844

Stones in brook loop (March 2009)

2009. An overcast December evening at Elizabeth Lake, around 5:00 PM. The sun is beginning to sink below the hills. A stiff breeze blows from the east, chilling my fingers. Ducks can be heard feeding and vocalizing on the lake. A plane flies overhead- loudest at the beginning of the recording, it grows quieter throughout. 

Don't turn the sound up too high in this recording. The plane and water sounds should be quite faint. Otherwise the ducks will blow your ears off! This is a quiet recording, mostly - the lake winding down on a cold day. The lake is in front of me, and wind is blowing from the left (east).
 
Recorded on Church Audio paired omni mics/preamp set, with an iRiver H320 at 128kbps. Amplified in Audacity.

I miss the iRiver. I can't get this quality of audio recording today with a handheld recorder. It wasn't even intended as a recording device - it was an mp3 player that happened to have a line in!

Elizabeth Lake - Ducks and a Plane (Dec 2009)

Just a dabbler in field recording. I enjoy any excuse to go out and sit quietly in natural surroundings. All the better if it produces a record that can be enjoyed again and again.

Before Sept 2022 - Southern California
After Sept 2022 - western Washington

oakandsage

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