One of my bee hives has a frame with microphones permanently installed.  It is too cold at this time of year to lift the roof of a hive to visually inspect the bees ....but I always have a good listen to then on a day between Christmas and New Year. I made an recording this year for over an hour.  The microphones are a piezo contact mic embeded in their beeswax comb (which acts as a large diaphram) and a DPA4060 lavalier mic on the same frame in a brass mesh cage to protect it and prevent the bees from gumming it up with wax and propolis.  The microphones are orhtagonal to each other and are mixed in a 'mid-side' configuration - giving a nice 'stereo' soundscape.  This Christmas I got a Meng-Qi Wingie 2 audio resonator as a present.  Its a dual channel resonator which can 'chime' to certain frequencies if a sound of the right frequency is input.  I proceced  the recording through both channels of the resonator.  One channel was set to 'polyphonic' and I found a nice Minor Pentatonic triad - which made the bees sound like a choir harmonising toghether.  The other channel I set to 'strings' which makes a nice plucking/ringing sound when excited at the right resonant frequency by a loud bee and 'pings'.  The Wingie 'enhanced' version is faded in and out during the middle section of the recording.  I think I'm going to have fun with the Wingie - applying it to some of my (vast) library of field sound recordings.

Resonating Bees

The first proper outdoor test of my new homemade 'Gladys' hydrophone.  Some common frogs in a neighbours garden pond.  Thanks Katie!  Pleased with how they sound.  Nice flat response.

Frogs Gladys Hydrophone

Spring Equinox March 2025.  Whistlewood Common, Melbourne, Debyshire. Olympus LS-P5 recorder.  On the side of a small pond full of frog spawn.  Close to main road and East Midlands airport.

Whistlewood Equinox mix. Frogs and spring bird calls.

Dawn Chorus from about 3:30am to 7am on Easter Sunday morning 2025.  Recorded from the woodland on one of the islands in the 23 acre lake at Waterbeach. Good mix of birds and development of the chorus - from early stirrings in the heronry, robins, wrens, woodland species and finally building into a crescendo including noisy geese and corvids.  Bank holiday weekends are often good for recording dawn choruses as there's often very little human (traffic) noise early in the mornings.  Thanks to Urban & Civic for permission to canoe over to the island at dusk to leave my recording equipment, returning in the morninging to collect it again. Also, special thanks to Network Rail for cancelling all the trains this weekend (!) adding to the beautiful peaceful morning.  Binaural recording with 'Pammy' my dummy head with a pair of MKH8020 mics - recorded 24/48KHz to a SD MixPre-6.

Dawn Chorus Waterbeach Lake Easter 2025

Dusk at the Heronry - Waterbeach Lake. Easter 2025.  The unique sound of herons 'quacking'.  I understand this to be the 'begging call' of young herons at the nest.  Some distance away - I didn't want to get too close and disturb these birds.  I was setting up an overnight recording rig to capture the following morning's dawn chorus.  "Pammy' the binaural dummy head with a pair of MKH8020 mics to a SD MixPre-6. 24/48kHz.

Dusk at the Heronry

A sound collection of ambience recordings made at international airports and during commercial flights.  
More info at http://www.shapingwaves.com/downloads/air-travel/


AIR TRAVEL - Airport Ambience Korea Incheon Main Hall

AIR TRAVEL - Airport Ambience Spain Lanzarote Main Hall Center

05:00 AM, South Tyrol.

http://www.shapingwaves.com

South Tyrol - Mountain / Forest  - Dawn Chorus

The full collection contains 10 to 15 Sentences per Robot.
http://www.shapingwaves.com/downloads/robot-voices

Robot Voices - Robot #1  to Robot #25 - Short Examples

Insect sound library of buzzing, humming and swarming sounds featuring bees, flies, mosquitoes and other winged insects.

From massive swarms in different densities and activity levels to individual passby sounds and landings, this insect sound library covers pretty much all variants of insect wing buzz sounds.
http://bit.ly/sw-insects-swarms

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Shapingwaves creates themed, royalty free downloadable sound collections. These include unique ambiences, foley and object recordings, as well as designed sound effects. We cater to sound designers looking for new sound materials to expand their sonic palette, and to animators, filmmakers and game or application developers in need of professional sound effects and atmospheres for their projects. Our collections are recorded and designed in 96 kHz WAV format, carefully edited and enriched with detailed embedded metadata (soundminer, Audiofinder, compatible) and delivered using fast and reliable Amazon S3 servers.

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