Flatey in Breiðafjörður 2012. Part II

 

This is another ambience recording from the island Flatey in Breiðafjörður, a straight continue of part one.
Women, children as well as the elderly all gather for a boat is docking. Two men, with the day’s catch, step ashore.
When the catch has been divided, the whole throng returns to the village in a cacophony of conversations and drift homewards.
Somewhat nearer, in front of the microphone are a few Red-necked Phalaropes as well as Mallard ducks with ducklings. Other distinguishing birds like the loud Arctic tern and Whimbrel, as well as many other species of bird, can be heard.

Download mp3 file (192kbps / 34,6Mb)

Recorder: Sound devices 744T
Mic: Audio Technica BP4025
Pics: Canon 30D (See more pictures)

Arctic tern in Önundarfjörður 2012

During Icelandic independence day, 17. of June 2012, I was in Önundarfjörður fjord in the Westfjords, the north west peninsula of Iceland. This fjord lies deep between steep mountains with high cliffs. After midnight I entered an Arctic tern colony to record their sounds. The recording conditions was as good as it gets. The weather was calm, dry but cloudy, and the temperature was about 7 °C. Almost no traffic was in the fjord so most of the background noise was only coming from falling water in the mountains and sea waves at the shore.
This Arctic tern colony is big and has been there for decades, even centuries. This bird is very territorial and aggressive protecting the colony and many other bird more passive species feel safe to nest among the Arctic tern. So this recording includes sounds from many other bird spaces such as Whimbrel, Black-headed Gull, Black-tailed Godwit, Common Redshank, Oystercatcher, and Golden Plover… and many more
The recording contains also human and sheep voices from a nearby farm. Swans, Red-throat Diver, and common Eider at the shore side and a some sound from a Gull colony high in the cliffs all around the fjord.
During the recording the Arctic Terns attack many times the furry microphones. Sometimes you may hear their excrement fall to the ground around the microphones, but at this time they never hit or peck the Blimps.
The duration of the recording was almost 80 minutes. Following recording contains the last 36 minutes so my disturbing visit is not much audible. This is just a nice ordinary summer night in the north west of Iceland.

Download mp3 file (192kbps / 50,7Mb)

Recorder: Sound devices 744t
Mics: Rode NT1a
Pics: Canon D30

“Senur” first chapter.

In 10th of February 2013 I recorded a concert with Amateur symphony orchestra.
The program contained a wonderful melody “Senur” composed in four chapters by Sigurður Sævarsson. It was composed for string orchestra and obo. Both the orchestra and the soloist, Guðrún Másdóttir, played it flawless. Hereby is the first chapter of Senur without any post work.
I was pretty happy with the recording result, even though the concert hall (a church) sounded terrible for recording. It has a very harsh sound and difficult peaks in some resonance frequencies.
Over the orchestra I used a Jeclin disk with a double pair of mics, parallel MKH8020 and MKH20 in 45°+45° (as shown on the picture).
Close to the soloist there was a pair of MKH8040 and far behind in the hall was a pair of SE4400 with spaced Omni (70cm).
Past months I have got a few emails where people ask me for a sound sample with my Jecklin disk. So here are two samples, both almost the same, but one is recorded with MKH20 in 45°+45° and the other one with parallel MKH8020.

_____________________________________________

Recording with Sennheiser MKH20
Download mp3 file. (256kbps / 9Mb)

Recording with Sennheiser MKH8020
Download mp3 file. (256kbps / 9Mb)

Recorder: Sound Devices 788
Mics: Sennheiser MKH20, MKH8020, MKH8040 and SE4400
Picture of the Jecklin disk

Flatey í Breiðafirði 2012. part 1

 

Flatey is the biggest island in Breiðafjörður bay in the west of Iceland, but nevertheless a small island. It is a wonderful place. Rich, widely spiced bird life and no car traffic. Most houses are old and most of them are nicely rebuilt. No one lives there all year around but in spring, summer and autumn lot of people stays there. Sometimes the place is overcrowded with tourists but there is both a campsite and a hotel.
I spent few hours in Flatey in June 2012 with my family. We just walked around in this relaxing surroundings. The east part of the island was closed because of bird’s hatch and eyas. But the life in the “village” was also interesting.
Strong gust from vest made recording difficult but I found a quiet place beside a wall not far away from the “main street”. In front of me was a small marsh and it was overcrowded with all kinds of birds; snipe, gull, golden plover, white wagtail, oystercatcher, arctic tern, ducks and so on, but closest to the microphone is a red necked phalarope. In distance Kittiwake and other birds are audible.
I was very lucky this time, there were few tourists on the island so the recording contains relaxing conversations between neighbors in this wonderful ambience. In the beginning a child is drumming a box, but it last only for 5 minutes. After that it is possible to listen what people and birds have to say.


Download mp3 file (192kbps / 37,2Mb)
See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net

Recorder: Sound devices 744T
Mic: Audio Technica BP4025
Pics: Canon 30D (See more pictures)

Blackbird, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin

 

In the beginning of February, Sonic Terrain blog introduce a funny and interesting BBC4 program. This program is inspired by the musician and Eco-philosopher David Rothenberg’s book “Why birds sing”. This documentary explores the intriguing, charming, complex and often conflicting theories on why birds sing like they do and why humans are so attracted to the sound.
After watching the program on Youtube in six pieces, I searched my recordings if some of them contained a birdsong I could be almost sure of that the bird was singing for pleasure, rather than making a territory call.
Lo and behold, I found one.
It was recorded in the evening 9th of June 2012 in my garden. This is a recording that I normally delete or do not publish because it is categorized as a “test file”.
I was testing Parabolic dish with Shure MX391/O capsules with strangely defective Sound Professionals PIP-Phantom power adapter.
But the recording does not only contains “hiss, snap and bad sound” it also contains a lovely birdsong.
Rock band was playing somewhere in the neighborhood. Suddenly a Common Blackbird with a nest in a nearby garden arrived and started to sing. First gently as he was shy but suddenly just before the band started to play Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin the bird began to sing very loud a fabulous song, something I have never heard it sing before, but this bird has been around my house for some years now.
This is far from being a quality recording, but it is worth to listen.
Now the question is, what was this bird thinking when it sang this fabulous song? I am, sure it was just doing it for fun.

Download mp3 file (192kbps / 38,3Mb)
See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net
 
Recorder: Sound Devices 744T
Mics: Shure MX391 fit into 54cm parabolic disk, connected to SP-XLRM-MINI-2-PHANTOM
Pics. Nokia N82

Flags in the wind

Sometimes when I am going to record a specific sound I bring home something totally different.
That happened 4th of July 2012. It was a very nice weather, calm and dry, so I made a decision to cycle with my gear to the shore at Seltjarnarnes to record bird sounds and ambiance.
But shortly after I left home the wind started to blow and it got stronger with cold northern breeze . When I arrived to Seltjarnarnes the wind was too much for almost any wildlife recordings. So as usual with most cycle trips like this, I decided to go back.
But before the wind blow me back home again I found a shelter on wooden platform beside a golf clubhouse. And there was an interesting sound. Two golf course flags with poles were flapping and hammering two picnic tables. Their flaps were like an “audio indicator” for the wind waves.
Arctic Tern, Oystercatcher and other bird spices in combination with heavy sea waves at the shore made this all as a great concert.
I stayed there about one hour while I recorded and listened to the concert, watching a thick smoke coming from burning garage in Kopavogur district, seven kilometers away.
Following is twenty minutes of this session.

Download mp3 file (192kbps / 32,6Mb)
See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net

Recorder: Sound devices 744T
Mics: RodeNT1a (NOS 90°/30cm)
Pics: Nokia N82

Birds at Seltjarnarnes shore 25th of May 2000

It is not possible every day to record nature sounds in as nice weather condition that was early morning at Seltjarnarnes in 25th of May 2000. Weather was calm and dry. Birds as Black backed Gull, Eurasian Oystercatcher, Common Snipe, Golden Plover and Arctic Tern were everywhere along the shore side, busy with their daily life. Close by, a group of female Common Eider was teaching very young ducklings how to search food.
Just after few minutes, I finished to set up the microphones, the Eiders came so close to the rig it was possible to listen their conversation in smallest details for almost two hours.
The quality of this recording still surprises me. It is one of the latest recording I made with Sony TC-D5M cassette deck with a pair of ME 20 microphones. The key of the quality was the microphone cables. Instead of ordinary mic cables I used CAT6 data cables. It makes extraordinary difference for the high frequency signal. All small details in the recording were cleaner and much brighter.
This recording is part of my second CD release, published in limited edition later the year 2000

Download mp3 file (192kbps / 46Mb)
See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net

More Audio from this recording at Xeno-Canto and AudioBoo
Recorder: Sony TC-D5M (TDK MA-90mín).
Mic. Sennheiser K3U / ME20 (40cm/100° apart. Hi-Pass filter on level 1).
Pix: Canon 30D (pictures taken 2010).