My small 2p worth on this topic. I've just been listening to a 9-hour
recording made with 3032s (no bass cut filter) made between 6.20pm and
Message: 3.
Subject: 20am in our wood last Mon/Tue night.
What immediately struck me was that the small window of (relative!)
"silence" I was getting a couple of years ago has shrunk to an even
smaller size. Then I guess I could rely on about 12.30am to 4.30am
being pretty traffic-free. On this night it was at most a couple of
hours, with the traffic racket ramping up again at around 2.30-3am. Ye
gods!
In the recording the low-frequency noise is horrendous and the
overview panel in my sound program shows the strength of the noise
picking up almost to evening levels as early as 2.30am. At all times
it is so strong that it's difficult to spot the little concentrations
of higher-frequency signal made by an owl, a fox, or a badger picking
through leaves, even when quite nearby (50-70yards?). There's nothing
wrong with the mics -- they're brand new and all the sound is quite
identifiable (by ear) as external.
The noise is almost all traffic, and by the sound of it heavy
vehicles. Planes don't feature nearly so much and the night was
completely windless. It's clearly the sound of tyres, with a less
noticeable contribution from engine noise. I'd guess (from the road
layout of our largely rural area) that LF sound from roads as far as
4-5 miles away was being gathered. Single vehicles can be heard for
several minutes as they cross the recorded area.
My guess, for what it's worth, is that particularly haulage and
delivery vehicles are increasingly taking to travelling at night to
avoid the ever-worsening daytime congestion, especially on the
motorways (and the awful A21 for anyone who knows it!) out of London.
Daytime recording is already almost impossible; now even night
recording and dawn choruses seem to be going down the pan.
Yes, it's my new Fostex FR-2LE, now doing 9 hours on a 4,350 mAh RC
battery and using a John Hartog rig -- mics lashed either side of a
tree trunk! I want to move onto an Olson rig when there's time to run
one up. I agree with someone's earlier comment that the Fostex's
preamp gain is rather weak -- a lot less that the HHB or Edirol R4 --
and I had to amplify a lot in the sound prog to hear well. At least,
through all the noise, I found out that our owls are alive and well,
which was all that mattered that night!
So, no need to blame it on the messenger. The roar, the growl's all
out there and soon it will be there all the time where most of us live.
romillyh
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