It is officially the beginning of fall on September 21, and one of the things I always miss the most are the sounds of insects at night.1 When I was kid, the silence that came with fall meant the stress of homework due on Mondays and research papers that seemed never ending. Who knew there would be way more serious stressors in adulthood?
I was recently chatting with Stephen Vitiello about this very phenomenon and I thought it would be fitting if we caught the waning sounds of summer evenings in our respective yards—Stephen in Virginia, and me in the wilds of New Jersey. I also snuck in some evening recordings from Upstate NY.
Both of our yards feature the typical stuff, some grass and trees, and our recordings are not immune from hvac units, trains, and vehicular traffic as well.
The bonus New York recordings feature the Upper Delaware River in the background as well as a two-lane road that cuts through a Catskills mountainside. The last recording in this grouping is late enough in the evening when there are no insects present and the depth of the space is really discernible.
Recording Geek Note: My Rig consists of Schoeps CMC1′s with MK4 capsules set up for ORTF. It was tracked with a Cooper CS 104 feeding a Sound Devices 744T
Stephen’s rig consists of Schoeps CMC6’s with an MK41 and MK8 setup for Mid-Side. It was tracked with a Sonosax SX-M2D2 feeding a Sound Devices 722.
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I don’t miss getting bitten up by mosquitos, but who loves that except for maybe the mosquitos? ↩︎
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Mountain Lake Biological Station
This post comes from Stephen Vitiello who has been spending time at the Mountain Lake Biological Station in Pembroke, VA: I was tipped off to some sounds to listen for – juvenile barred owls, calling after sunset. I left a pair of DPA 4060s in a tree over night and captured some call and response and a moment of rain.
Bird Deck
One of the things I love about long holiday weekends is that most of my neighbors head out of town. Last weekend was Memorial Day weekend here in the states, and in terms of noise, that means quiet. Not only were the neighbors quiet, but temperatures didn’t peak enough for HVAC units to start kicking on. With quiet in mind,
All Clad
What is that expression about making lemons out of lemonade? Or is it lemonade out of lemons. For the next few weeks my next door neighbors are having their roof and siding redone, and if I am going to have to suffer through it, I might as well get some useful recordings out of it. This recording is from day