Out to the lake this Sunday morning.

Perfect recording conditions: calm, cloudy, minus 2 degrees (everyone else will stay in bed).

Crawl successfully to the edge of the water under cover of darkness before dawn.

Set up the mics, ready to go…

Oh dear!

No headphones!

Is it possible to be embarrassed when you’re all alone?

Never mind. Just check that all the knobs are correctly set and the appropriate LEDs are flashing, and hey presto! Some nice  Teal and  Whooper_swan calls salvaged from the ruins of forgetfulness.

Osprey

You may remember the Blog on Lynx recordings made in Macedonia by Reynard (see posting of 13th Sept 2011). These have been reprocessed by another recordist, but still using WaveLab as the editing software, using two different approaches as described below.

The original recording was made in MS, but the sound seemed ill-focused. It was processed with the following steps.

1. It was separated back into MS then recombined with less Side mic, to produce a more tightly focused version, with regard to the Lynx calls.
2. The result was processed with a Sony Audio restoration plug-in (SoundForge 9) to remove the top end hiss.
3. EQ to further reduce hiss above 10kHz, and also LF below 100Hz.
4. The interval lengths between Lynx calls were reduced by selecting the individual calls and crossfading them together.
5. Resample and dither to 16 bit 44kHz
6. Create an Audio Montage ( i.e. a mix) with the edited file together with background tracks of forest sounds and wind tracks (Just a bit of forest and a bit more wind).
7. Boost the Lynx calls (only) by 3dB using ‘level envelope’ (A bigger boost produced obvious pumping)
8. Render down to a final file
9. Code as mp3.

Listen to the processed recording here: Lynx-1

The result is less obviously a mix than Lynx + forest, but probably not as good as Lynx + wind (see blog post of 13th Sept 2011 for comparison recordings). However, looking at the audio spectrum for the final mix, you’d be very hard put to pick up any edit points.

A second approach gave a different result:
As before (see above) the width of the sound stage was reduced and the file length was shortened.

Listen to the processed recording here: Lynx-2.

A Sony Noise reduction plug-in, in 2 stages was used to process the recording. This captured a noise profile from a background part of the track and then the background was subtracted from the file as a whole. If you listen to the result we hope you agree that it is pretty effective. The point about this approach is that the final recording has had no spectral editing and no mixing with any other file (wind, forest etc) to try and mask the background noise.

Listen to the processed recording here:Lynx-3.

Although from a bioacousrtic standpoint, the shortening of the inter-call periods is not good practice, this was done for the purpose of illustrating sound processing techniques. What do you think to the quality of the processed recordings, especially when compared to the original field recording?

The sort of terrain in the vicinity of where the Lynx were found, high in the mountains, close to forest. However, they chose to call from the shelter of a boulder field above a mountain river.

We were fortunate enough to be recording wildlife sounds In The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in May this year. By chance we came across a pair of Lynx (Lynx lynx) apparently mating. This was unusual in two respects, (i) the animals are very rare (and rarely seen) and (ii) they apparently mate in the winter months – not in the spring. Interestingly the Lynx is the national symbol of The Republic of Macedonia. We managed to make recordings of the pair over a period of about an hour. However, they were quite distant, hidden in a boulder field under which roared a mountain river  in full spate.

So getting a good signal from their calls was almost impossible. With the help of some sound-editing software and the input of a fair amount of time, the calls were extracted from the noisy background. Whilst the calls are still compromised by the loss of transients, they sound much better following the elimination of the water roar and the addition of a more ‘gentle’ background.  Here are two recordings, a cut from the field recording and a processed recording. What do you think?

Lynx-unprocessed Lynx with forest

Reynard and Prolix

Here’s a novelty…

 I was recording this morning at Hauxley, Northumberland (warm and sunny, nice whimbrel, knot and roseate terns – shame about the F-15s) when I noticed that the beach around me was making a significant contribution to the soundscape. 

At first I thought that the bubbling noise was coming from lugworm burrows, but then I realised that I’d never heard lugworm burrows make a noise, and that the sound was coming from just a small area of beach.

Closer inspection revealed that the sand had covered a mass of fermenting kelp, that was producing a constant stream of foul-smelling gas bubbles through the sand.

So I dug a hole for my DolphinEar Pro hydrophone, and this is the result:

 Fermenting seaweed

Isn’t Nature wonderful!

Osprey

I am not one for experimenting that often with new bits of kit. I would much rather use one recording rig which I know inside out so that I can be confident of its performance. Much of my recording relies on using a reflector as I often don’t have the opportunity to get to know one patch of land well and record there often. In other words my fieldcraft opportunities are limited and I rarely use long-leads to mic up a particular spot.

My reflector rig is a cumbersome device, especially as I always use it on a tripod to minimise handling noise. For some time I have been looking for an inexpensive, lightweight, compact  set of kit which I can carry either in addition to my reflector rig or simply use when I am out walking. I wanted a rig that would allow me to capture soundscapes or that I could leave e.g. hidden in a bush under the song-post of a bird. Thanks to a fellow recordist who is much more nifty than me at electronics and soldering, I now have some lightweight compact recording gear that allows me to record in new ways. The rig consists of two electret omni mics connected via a combined plug-in-power/mic preamplifier to a HiMD recorder. I already had the HiMD recorder, but by investing less than £100 in the mics and powering unit I have been able to make some open mic ambient recordings. Have a listen to these spaced omni recordings of waves on a lake shore and, on a different day, a Nightingale singing in a very stiff breeze.

 waves on lake shore

Nightingale in strong breeze

I think the mics and windshield held up very well to what must have been at least force 4 and possibly force 5 gusty winds. I can’t hear much in the way of wind rumble. I’m very pleased with this rig and will be using it as often as I can. Without the help of fellow recordists within WSRS it is unlikely that I would have found out about these particular mics, learnt that they compare pretty well with  much more expensive RF condenser mics,  or been able to find someone with the expertise to test them out and make a powering unit for me. WSRS is a community of very helpful recordists and I’m glad I am part of the society.

Reynard

Sometimes work and pleasure come together. In my case, both involve sound.

Last week I logged on to the European Society of Radiology website to check some ultrasound medical conference info, and was thrilled to be greeted by an intro splashscreen featuring birdsong.

Sadly, I immediately recognised a Song Sparrow in the habitat recording. Here was a proud professional European organisation advertising itself with a generic North American soundtrack (well, how would they know?!)

Naturally, I e-mailed the site to complain, and offered one of my own recordings from the UK, which I am pleased to say they were thrilled to accept.

So now if you go to www.myESR.org you can hear a Northumbrian dawn chorus in its rightful place (I also put in a Roe deer bark as a signature call; our annual conference is in Vienna, and Austrians do like a bit of “Reh” for dinner…)

Osprey