Bernie has (had?) a preview of whistling wind at his wildsanctuary.com
website. I made a spectrogram and noticed how the wind paints a
serpentine brushstroke through the frames. A nice feature like this
can give meaning to accompanying, diffuse wind sounds.
However it is also important to not neglect the mundane. If our wind
recordings sound like "modulating pink noise" then we have failed to
do the wind justice. Could also be the equipment, stereo compression,
the setting, not enough practice or human error at 4a.m. Or maybe we
are playing it too loud.
In a couple weeks I have a chance to visit a quiet desert where I hope
to record some nice wind sounds. In the mean time I will have to
listen to Gordon Hempton's wind CD again.
John Hartog
www.rockscallop.org
--- In Ed Anson <> wrote:
>
> On Apr 13, 2008, at 12:13 PM, Scott Fraser wrote:
>
> > On the other hand, when I've recorded lovely sighing wind lightly
> > rustling through the tops of pines trees, it has always come out
> > sounding like modulated white noise on playback & has never portrayed
> > a realistic sense of the soundscape to my ears.
>
> Both wind and waves do tend to sound like modulated pink noise. The
> additional cues that make them sound like what they are can be subtle. =
> For example, I once recorded the wind in a pine forest. The main thing =
> that made it sound like wind (instead of noise) was the cracking of
> the tree limbs in the wind. When I hear recordings of surf, it's
> generally the sound of gulls in the distance (or a fog horn) that
> helps me identify it.
>
> OTOH: I have played plain pink noise to some friends and they said it =
> sounded like waves.
>
> Ed
>
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