Hi all,
noise is a diffuse problem in Italy as the population density is quite
high and even remote and high altitude areas receive almost continuous
noise from roads, highways and from airplanes. While searching for silent
areas we also "discovered" that flight corridors, in particular near
airports, are concentrated on wild areas rather than on populated ones.
Animals can't protest!
As for the techniques to reduce noise in post proc I appreciated the smooth
approach described by David. As we are habituated to noise I think
acceptable to maintain a certain amount of noise in the recordings; too
clean recordings often sound unnatural just because we rarely listen to
absolutely clean sounds in nature. It is different if we need a clean sound
for making measures or other specialistic uses.
I teach bioacoustics and I do a lot of divulgation about soundscapes to
educate to appreciate silence, to appreciate little natural sounds, and the
contrast among silence and nature sounds, however I also consider important
to educate people by forcing them to listen to noises as well, to explain
how much noise is invasive and unnatural. When I record deers on the Alps
it often happens that when an approaching plane is too noisy the deers stop
to vocalize and wait until the noise is gone.
My greatest joy is when I'm in a really silent location! It is rare, and
when I have noise coming from a given direction I try to use directional
microphones and try to move by giving my back to the noise source. If the
noise sources are ubiquitous then it is really difficult to reduce their
effect in soundscape recordings, in some cases it is only possible to get
good recordings of individual singers or of a section of the available
space by using highly directional microphones. In some cases I got good
soundscape recordings by using 2 Sennheiser K6/ME66 angled with a V of
about 30 degrees.
Gianni
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