I'm in Devon in the South West of England which is advertised for its
sun to holidaymakers, but last night it chucked down and has only just
cleared an hour ago. I'd left a stereo pair 100 metres into my small
nature reserve, but had covered them up with a towel and a bin bag.
The trees are still dripping and the small stream is in spate giving
me an interesting background atmos. I'm waiting for tawny owls.
I worked for 28 years with the BBC Film Unit in the old Ealing Studios
where the comedies used to be made, until my "Nagra back" gave out and
I took early retirement in 1991. I've been sidetracked since with
pedigree cat breeding and then bat conservation which involves
recording and computer analysis of bat calls (now using Audacity). I
still have three rather good mics from the old days and in the end I
persuaded myself to buy an SQN mixer off ebay and got them rigged up
with a Tascam DR1. This pocket job gives much superior recordings than
any tape machine I have used, including ones costing lots of noughts.
I pioneered mobile field coincident mic stereo in the 1970's and still
find it the cleanest sound. When BBC TV went stereo I was already up
and running with a Nagra 4S and had recorded several documentaries
including "World About Us - Cape to Cairo" the railway that was never
finished. Some of my recordings went on an Argo record for train
buffs.
BBC Autumnwatch had a feature on Thursday with Chris Watson and some
of his remarkable wildlife recordings, so I have a long way to go in
that department.
David
David Brinicombe
North Devon, UK
Cogitocogito ergo cogito sum - Ambrose Bierce
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