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Re: Dawn Chorus - Gordon Hempton

Subject: Re: Dawn Chorus - Gordon Hempton
From: "Martyn Stewart" mijdog2000
Date: Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:53 pm ((PDT))
In over 35 years of recording nature I still don't see how hard it can
be to position microphones. Recording species or recording biomes
takes and extreme amount of luck and if lady luck shines on you then
you smell of roses. It was far easier to record natural sounds years
ago than of today, one of the main reasons was there were fewer people
about, we have over 6.5 billion people on the planet now competing for
every available space. I agree with Kevin that observing the target
will give you a head start but say you are on location for a week in
some remote place and the weather changes for the worst? Imagine being
on a schedule in Texas at the moment to record ambient sound? Great
for wind and hurricane noises but what if you were there for something
else at the time? Placing the microphones and sitting far away from
them and being extremely quiet takes no skill, just a whole bunch of
patience and you need a hell of a lot of that these days..
30 years ago I could record a pristine hour  in around 4-5 hours, in
todays environment it can take up to 2000 hours. On the Canning delta
on the national wildlife refuge I could hear the oil rigs from Prudo
bay. On Katmai national park there was constant noises from bush
planes, generators and people. This is Alaska!!!! In Papua New Guinea
the sounds of bush planes drone the soundscape like hornets.
I liken nature recording these days to taking 500 shots with a camera,
you would expect to get at least 3 or 4 extremely good pictures from
500, I rejoice if I get 30 seconds from 4 hours of the call of a
species.
I certainly doubt Gordon Hempton can record in environments without
editing as he claims, it is basically impossible in todays environment
unless you find an anechoic chamber somewhere full of animals!





Martyn
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Martyn Stewart
http://www.naturesound.org

Redmond  WA
425-898-0462

Make every garden a wildlife habitat
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On Sep 11, 2008, at 9:17 AM, Kevin Colver wrote:
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