Hello all,
A quick introduction since this is my first post... I've been lurking,
listening, and learning in this group for a few years. Many years ago I
used a Marantz PMD stereo cassette recorder (that will date me) to
record while backbacking and hiking, mostly in the mountains and deserts
of the southwest USA. Unfortunately all the tapes (and the recorder)
disappeared during a move around 20 years ago. Last year when I read
that the AT3032s were being discontinued and were on sale, I took the
plunge and bought 2 along with a Foxtex FR2-LE from ebay. In September I
took them to the White Mountains in eastern Arizona (USA) for a first
attempt to return to nature recording.
This was recorded in Auger Canyon, (near Nutrioso, AZ) at the transition
between Ponderosa Pine forest and the grassland along Auger Creek, at 5
am on September 4, 2008. I had got up early with the idea of going
outside to try to record the dawn chorus, and was sipping coffee and
testing mic levels when things started to happen, so I quickly set up at
the sliding screen door inside the house. Fortunately it faced the
action. I apologize in advance for all the noise - the biggest monsoon
storm in years had rolled through the day before and it had rained all
afternoon and night, so there were a lot of dripping sounds and house
noises. It was also the darkest night I've ever seen there, with no
moon and thick overcast, so I couldn't watch the critters - just listen.
There are some edits in the first third of the recording, mostly to cut
out creaks and drips, a car in the distance, and my cat freaking out
(running up and down the stairs and jumping from window to window to try
to see what was happening), while the last 2/3 of the recording is all
real-time with no edits. There was also a low frequency hum which I
believe was coming from a wet transformer near the house, so I used the
low-frequency rolloff on the mics. You can still hear the hum with
headphones at higher volumes, but it's not too distracting.
This excerpt is around 9 minutes of a 20 minute recording. For an
authentic experience, listen with headphones in complete darkness. ;-)
I do notice that much of the action is not audible when playing over my
built-in computer speakers, even at max volume, but too loud at that
same level with headphones plugged into the computer, so I guess it's a
good compromise level.
http://rni.net/~tgs1/WhiteMountains/B04h57m02s04sep2008-EDIT-3.mp3
<http://rni.net/~tgs1/WhiteMountains/B04h57m02s04sep2008-EDIT-3.mp3>
or
http://tinyurl.com/c2q3c2 <http://tinyurl.com/c2q3c2>
I'll let the subject of the recording be a surprise. ;-) Questions,
comments, criticisms and suggestions are very welcome. Thank you to all
those who post here for letting me learn from you! And apologies to
those who already read this long post in the naturerecording group.
Terry Stambaugh (aka Terry in AZ)
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