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Re: FYI - BBC story on recording "too quiet" critters

Subject: Re: FYI - BBC story on recording "too quiet" critters
From: "Avocet" madl74
Date: Fri Mar 23, 2012 1:36 pm ((PDT))
> Bang Goes the Theory is on Monday 19 March at 19:30 GMT on BBC One.
> Watch again on iPlayer (UK only) using the link.

I listened again to the BBC's "Bang", a popular science
programme, in the anechoic chamber. Interestingly, the final
mix noise was a quite audible -48dB below peak which is not
good for digital, but you rarely got to hear this as they
plastered annoying muzak all over the quiet sequences as
they do.

For a few days, it's on:
www.highbickington.com/sounds/default.htm

Chris Watson is an ace wildlife recordist and very
experienced and he has been doing both Radio and TV
presenting. It's nice to see a former colleague doing well,
but "near legendary status" is perhaps a slight hyperbole.

Anyway Chris was out with one of Jez's specialist contact
mics attached to a glass plate, but most of his recordings
were done on a conventional lapel mic. Now maggots make a
noise as anyone who has handled an old dead wildlife
specimen can tell, but the sound we heard was not of the
single maggot as it was out of sync. It sounded more like
the tub of maggots rustling in their bedding. A close-up
cheat, normal for TV. Done them, got the T-shirt. It will have
happened in editing, so it's not down to either of our presenters.

Hold a snail on a lettuce up close to your ear and you will hear it
munching. It is sad that so few people nowadays can't hear this,
either because of high background noises or lack of snails on Iceberg
lettuces. :-)

The centipede sounded good and was the best example and even
might have been sync sound, but the reason they didn't get
any sound from the snail on the glass is because they were
looking for the wrong frequencies. Also it would have been
drowned out by the -48dB background rumble.

David

David Brinicombe
North Devon, UK
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - Ambrose Bierce








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