At 10:33 PM -0700 12/28/08, M, J, & V Phinney wrote:
>Indeed - natural sounds are quite scarce during a northern winter. I live
>about 600 km northwest of that location, and when the temps are -30 to -45
>like they've been lately, there's not a lot of natural sounds...and the
>man-made ones seem to carry farther with bare trees and cold, dense air.
>Your best bet might have been to put the mics near a bird feeder, but unless
>the location is very remote, you'd still end up with a lot of background
>racket.
>
>At least the gear was working properly!
>
>Mark Phinney
>
>on 12/27/08 11:34 AM, corthner at
><corthner%40yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Well I am back now. I did manage to make a recording Christmas morning
>at my in-laws north of Spruce Grove, Alberta. I set out my mics about
>7 hours before I started the recording. The temperature was about -33C
>when I started the recording at about 6am. I set out the recorder
>(SD702) only when I started to make the recording. There were
>absolutely no problems at all. No pops, clicks or hissing.
>Unfortunately there was nothing captured on the recording of any
>significance likely due to the cold temperature. The world woke up at
>around 8:30 and all the vehicle traffic and dogs etc. made a mess of
>the silence. I did manage to pick up 2 trains rumbling through at a
>distance of about 10km(6.25 miles)early on in the recording. I thought
>Christmas morning would be a great chance of some real quite at the
>acreage, but that was not to be. I have tried one other recording
>there on a Sunday afternoon and there was literally not 10 seconds out
>of 45 minutes without a quad, traffic, chainsaws, dogs, people etc. I
>love how recording has opened my ears to what really is noise. At the
>same time it makes me very sad to realize how little quiet is out there.
>
>Collin Orthner
>
Glad that you achieved your goal, Colin.
Yes, the man-produced sounds seem to have worsened at a faster rate
over the last 10 years. In addition to a significant increase in car,
truck and air traffic, there seems to more use of equipment that
operates nearly continuously like transformers, compressors, pumps,
transfer stations. These sources are disheartening because they
remain even in the gaps in traffic that can occur. There was less
traffic when gas was $350USD/gallon.
Would some mammals be active even in the brutal cold, Mark? Perhaps
under the ice near streams or select habitats? I'm much further
south in Wisconsin but the mice, voles, rabbits and owls seem to
still be fully active during nights when its under -20F. At -10,
things can be pretty much normal with deer, yotes, etc. The huge
variety of freezing and thawing sounds can be thrilling too. The
denser air has a plus side in that the increased "reach" can make
recordings seem more spatial. Rob D.
= = = =
--
"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
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