Since doing my first field recording trip, and conducting research into my own dissertation which is also about field recordings. The working title is currently, Retuning Into the Earth: Can the Positive Effects of Listening to Field Recordings Lead to Environmental Change? I’ve been curious about field recording practice and the technical elements around it. How can I critically look into the technical elements involved in natural history recordings? I wish to record the sounds of nature, so I read this book.
It’s a rather old book from 1977, I found it really interesting to contrast modern-day techniques and equipment and how they perceived wildlife recording in that current timeframe. The book discusses signal-to-noise ratio and the need to get close to subjects, as how electronics and the preamp can bring noise and hiss. The book discusses noise as any unwanted sounds while recording, such as noise pollution. It speaks about the modern technology is part of this noise pollution in our environment, the combustion motor engine more than a mile away can produce low drone rumbles in recordings. This is a negative thing amongst our soundscape but it does come with benefits, for example, battery-powered recorders that allow us to go out and record in the field.
It also discusses the dawn chorus, when animals are most active and birds more than often. The capture of birds in the early hours of the morning and the interesting recordings that can take place. As well as techniques to use this, place microphones around trees and keep yourself hidden. It lightly touches on ideas on bioacoustics and the relationship that sound and biology have together. It also discusses the different ranges that animals produce, some different than others and also the techniques to hear these sounds back, on tape changing tape speeds can bring high-frequency sounds to audible levels for the human hearing range.
The parabolic reflector dish is explained and discussed in this book heavily. In fact, an entire chapter is dedicated towards this tool. The parabolic dish works by reflecting sound waves to a central location within the dish, with a microphone facing towards the centre of the dish. The parabolic dish comes in different sizes and the different sizes can affect the frequency response and gain of the reflected sound waves. The use of the parabolic reflector is it amplifies directional sounds without the need to be close to the subject. The only downside is that it is incredibly directional and requires pointing it in the correct direction.
The book lightly touches towards the end on the idea of processing sounds and the editing that goes behind submitting your sounds and documentation for competitions and documentaries. It was discussed editing, EQ and filtering to bring the sound of the animal towards an authentic experience. Editing out ambience towards the end of a recording and cutting it into the beginning and the practices involved with displaying natural history sounds. It interested me because I didn’t realise the fakeness behind the production of natural history programs. That the idea they present isn’t realistic but glorifies the sounds into what they can sound like. This reinforces the idea that perhaps in this context field recordings aren’t an accurate representation of authentic environments. But a way to capture and categorise the recordings, with little care for the reasons why.
I want to get out the parabolic microphone I believe we have in the kit room and test it out for sure, along with recording natural history sounds. I’m not sure why but I have this love of being out in nature listening and recording. Perhaps I should look into this, I find my interests when followed and researched on give me deep understanding of myself and thoughts behind my decisions/experiences.