The following is a compilation of e-mails posted to "Bird Chat", an e-mail=
group run by the Univ. of Arizona for the general birding chatter, over the=
last week. I thought that we might all read the comments of the users,
maybe be able to serve our public a bit better.
Doug
Your comments are well noted, but I would just like to praise Cornell for
their recent California CD of Bird Songs. They have long cuts, local
dialects, individual tracks and the announcer is a sweet female voice that
fades away. You almost have to turn it up to get the ID.
I think this is just brilliant.
Robert W. Hewitt
Director, LBJ Enterprises www.birdjobs.com
1707 E Street #5, Eureka, CA 95501
think these suggestions for improving bird
recordings are excellent. I suspect one reason more
recordists don't do this (at least for making CDs) is
that placing bird and announcement on separate tracks
would limit the number of species per disc. Since CDs
are limited to 99 tracks, this means a maximum of 49
species of birds per disc. Of course, I would be all
for using that space to include longer samples of the
vocalizations.
Geoff Keller's Bird Songs of California CD mentioned
by another poster is a good step in the right
direction; it has some of the longest sound samples I
have heard on any bird song guide. Very, very good
stuff.
Some bird song CDs produced overseas, like many of
Jean C. Roche's guides to European and North African
birds, have no announcements on the CD at all, just
one species on each track. If you're not familiar
with the birds, of course, this means you have to
refer to the CD insert to know which bird you are
hearing at any given time. But this arrangement would
come in handy for making tapes, minidiscs, etc. for
field reference.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
James F. Remsen, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of Physical and Biological Sciences
New York City College of Technology
The City University of New York
In a message dated 4/13/2004 10:26:10 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
writes:
I offer the following - hopefully constructive - criticism to
those who produce/publish bird song recordings.
I would like to add another suggestion that thankfully most recordists adhe=
re
to, but I found the same frustration in the Coffey tapes, and that is to
ensure that the volume of the ID announcement is the same as the vocalizati=
on;
it's terribly frustrating to have to crank up the volume to hear the guy
and then
get blasted out by the bird!
On a positive note, Ben has some terrific recordings on those old tapes; to=
o
bad they're out of print, or that they haven't been reproduced in another
format (besides the "Voices of the New World Etc."); someone out there
oughta do
for Mexico and Central America what John Moore has done for Ecuador! Any
takers??? :-)
Mary Beth Stowe
San Diego, CA
Hi all,
As someone who is in the throes of editing and producing a CD on bird songs
(an update to our Bird Songs of Northwestern CA tape) I've often wondered
why producers of these records, tapes and CDs put the name of the bird
before the song. It seems to me that putting the name AFTER the sound clip
accomplishes a number of things. First, the sound clip can be used as a qui=
z
for yourself. Secondly, When you play the sound clip, you start with the
bird song, so that you are not annoyed by the voice (and you can then stop
the recording before the voice starts) and thirdly, this trains your mind t=
o
anticipate the name of the singer the same way that the first few notes of
the next song on your favorite album come to mind when a song ends.
We've done that with our tape and have yet to hear any complaints about the
format (except to hurry up and get it out on CD!).
Ron LeValley, Senior Biologist
Hi, Ron (and all)!
In a message dated 4/14/2004 8:24:40 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
writes:
I've often wondered
why producers of these records, tapes and CDs put the name of the bird
before the song.
I have a couple of tapes of South Pacific bird songs where the recordist
identified the bird after the song, and while I agree wholeheartedly that
having
the ID after the song may help your brain recall it easier (just like your
music example--you hear the song in the wild, it stimulates your memory,
and then
your hear the species name after you "play" the recording in your mind), I
found it a little frustrating only because I wanted to know what I was
listening
to as I was listening to it; by hearing the ID first, I have the bird in mi=
nd,
and then I can associate the vocalization with the species better. This is
the same reason I prefer recordings with a spoken ID before the cut, althou=
gh I
understand perfectly the reasons many choose to leave the ID out altogether
(the Chilean CD I have reminds me that the spoken ID does absolutely no goo=
d if
you don't understand the language!)
Oh, and before anyone suggests, "Well, just read along with the booklet!", =
I
often study vocalizations while I'm doing something else (like driving, or
working on the computer), so I don't have the luxury of following along!
Just my two cents... Take care, and good listening!
Mary Beth Stowe
Ron and Chatters,
I'm going to throw another monkey wrench into the works. IMO, CDs are
obsolete. As Joel Weintraub has already posted here, the future of bird
song recordings is either .wav or .mp3 files on an MP3 player like an Apple
i-Pod or an Archos Jukebox. The benefits are ALL in favor of these devices
over CDs, other than having to have a computer.
* There is no need for multiple disks. All the songs in the world will fit
on a 30GB hard disk.
* Since the song name is displayed on the screen, there is no need to
include the name on the recording.
* Without a track limitation, there is no need to have multiple species on
the same track.
* The files can be sorted in any way the individual prefers
* Regional play lists can be created to make searching quicker
* On the Archos Jukebox, you can record a bird's song in the field and play
it back right away or keep it for later analysis.
* Bird songs can be sold online for either individual or group download
The other thing I would ask of recordists is that they filter out the
background noise as much as possible. CoolEdit is a great program for this.
It takes a bit of time to filter songs, but the results are well worth it.
PS. Ron: I'll be at the Optics4Birding booth at Godwit Days. Stop in and
say hello.
Australian recordist David Stewart comes to mind as
another recordist who places the names of the birds
after the vocalizations on his CDs, or leaves the name
off altogether. I can sort of understand why this is
done for the European CDs, since versions exist with
liner notes in different languages, and they probably
don't want to re-record the announcements for each
version.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Cornell's
Library of Natural Sounds would someday be entirely
accessible over the internet, with pay-per-download
bird songs. But the LNS web site doesn't appear to
have been updated in ages, so I have no idea how
that's progressing.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
James F. Remsen, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of Physical and Biological Sciences
New York City College of Technology
I'm a hundred percent for that format. I've been making trip tapes for year=
s,
and I've always compiled them that way, for all those reasons. It makes
learning
the songs quicker, because there seems to be a "turn off" factor in my brai=
n
when I hear the name, then I forget to pay attention to the song. This way,=
I
have to pay attention to the song, and if I don't pay attention to the name=
, I
don't get the reward of knowing how I did. A couple times through a tape do=
ne
this way, and I've got the majority commmited to memory, whereas the other =
way
it seemed to take a lot longer.
sherri
Bangor, PA
Doug Von Gausig
Clarkdale, Arizona, USA
Moderator
Nature Recordists e-mail group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturerecordists
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
|