Hólmavatn is a heath lake in the interior in west of Iceland between the two valley Kjarrárdalur and Hvítársíða. It is a part of a big lake system on a heath named Arnarvatnsheiði.
I have once before record the soundscape by this lake before. That was mostly a struggle with wind all the time, so I did not get anything interesting.
But at 22nd of June 2019 the weather forecast was perfect for this area, clear sky and calm most of the night.
I arrived with my gear around 9 pm at my previous recording place. It was still windy and some anglers about 500m away east of the lake. I quickly put up my rigs knowing that a calm weather meant just lot of gnats. I decided to put a two stereo pairs close to the shore, facing out to the lake. LCT450s in NOS about 60 m east from my car and MKH20 pair 70 m in the west. Suddenly around 11pm the wind stopped to blow and I started the recording.
What glorious soundscape. All those small tiny things and all those bird species. The LCT540s sounds much cleaner and brighter than MKH20, I guess mainly because of the different location.
But there was a big problem which I did not notice with my bare ears. The anglers made so much noise it was clear they would destroy my „natural silence“ recordings this night. They were playing a radio all the time, talking, starting car engines, and even worse, soon after I started the recording two of them started a motor boat. All this noise lasted for about two or two and a half hours.
Later that night when this noisy anglers were gone, all the birdsong became calm and less active. I am not sure why, but afterwards when I listened to the recordings it seemed like the anglers on the boat were disturbing birds on their habitat.
Following recording is a part of this „anglers moment“, probably the best part because the motorboat was mostly far east on the lake most of this time.
In the beginning of the recording you can clearly hear tiny sparks. It is coming from foam which forms between stones in the shore during windy days. When the bobbles in this foam blows, they make this tiny sparking sound. During the recording the sparks get fewer and lower because the weather is calm and no waves on the lake.
But there are so many bird species I guess I will not know them all. Great Northern Diver, Read Throated Diever, Arctic Tern, Whooper Swan, Pink Footed Goose, Black Headed Gull, Golden Plower, Dunlin, Whimbrell, Common Snipe, Common Redshank, Arctic Skua, Rock Ptarmigan and probably some other which you are welcome, if you know, to name in comments below.
You will hear the fish jumping and Arctic Tern hunting on the lake surface. Other background noise other than human noise from anglers is mainly from the river Kjarrá which flows in the Kjarrárdalur valley 4Km north of the lake .
This recording got a gently noise reduction, mainly because of high gain.
It was recorded with 47dB gain. In post the gain was normalized +26dB up to -5dB
Quality open headphones are recommended while listening at low to mid level, or in speakers at medium level.
(mp3 256kbps / 68Mb)
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Recorder: Sonosax SX-R4+
Mics: Lewitt LCT540s (NOS setup)
Pix: Canon EOS M50
Location: 64.799603, -20.895132
Weather: Dry. Mostly calm up to 5m/sec
HLJÓÐMYND - SOUNDIMAGE 
That’s great. What’s your opinion of the LCT540s after using them for a while?
I am still not sure.
I have only use them for outdoor / nature recording. Not for music.
If I compare LCT540s to NT1a, my short answer is this:
They are equal in sensitivity. LCT540 have somehow far better sound quality, But NT1a seems to have less self noise. LCT540 have better, or more natural low frequency respond. NT1a have very good focus on the midrange, so no other mic is as sensitive to pick up the smallest details of the silence. But at the same time it sounds more „flat“ or „thin“ compare to LCT540.
Sometimes LCT540 sounds strange, especially somewhere in the midrange to upper midrange. I think that could be normal if the rig setup or the placement is wrong, but I can not remember NT1a was as sensitive for that issue.
I still got „WOW“ moments when I listen to LCT540 recordings. They can sounds so natural and relaxed compare to NT1a. Anyway I remember I got the same feeling 10 years ago when I start to use NT1a, but that was probably for different reason.
I can not compare them how they act in windshield because I have use them in different windshield.
But keeping LCT540 in Rycote WS ORFT windshield gives far better result than keeping NT1a in Rycote WS2
Magnús, Thank you for the detailed and very useful reply. I know there are many people, like myself, who are considering the LCT540s for quiet nature recording, for whom your observations are invaluable.
I have – of course – more questions:
– How do the LCT540s compare for quiet nature recording with the other microphones that you have. What’s your current preferred microphone set up for such recording?
– I noticed that you had been using various stereo configurations with the LCT540s . Do you have a preferred stereo technique to use with them ?
– Can you give more detail on how the LCT540s sound strange?
Thanks in advance
Justin
I need to make more comparisons between different mics and LCT540s if I like to get clear facts. What I am telling you is mainly build on feelings with short experience.
It has been difficult to find a good cardioid mic for quiet nature recordings. I normally use MKH20 in AB40 which sounds very natural and relaxed on the whole frequency range plus low noise. But when I like to record or avoid soundscape from one direction I have use NT1a and sometimes MKH8040 and fewer times MKH40. In very quiet soundscapes the MKH have notably higher self noise than NT1a (or NT1) So If I am recording something quiet with low frequency the NT1a could not handle it. But LCT540s seems to do it in very good sound quality.
– I will soon compare LCT540 to MKH40 and MKH8040. I guess this three mics are equal when it comes to „sound quality“ for quiet nature. But they have different self noise which could be interesting to compare. Plus, I like to compare how they all pick up the finest details in the silence (like the „sparks“ from the foam in the recording above).
At the moment I am waiting for Nevaton MC49c which I like to include in this comparison.
– For just plain stereo recordings I am used to use AB setup in the nature, both for omni and cardioid. But last two years I have been playing with IRT cross which give me a lot of options in post. Then I have sometimes use NOS, MS or binaural / „baffled“ setup.
– About this recording which sounds so strange. The only thing I can say it was some strange boost on the frequency range between ca 1,5Khz and 5Khz.
As I mentioned earlier, I guess it was a problem with the setup. I was recording a gust in trees and the rig was probably too close to the ground so the mics pick up some „reflection“
Thank you Magnús. Very informative.
a wonderful clear recording of a most amazing environment – I so enjoyed listening to this. Thank you. 🙂
Frábær upptaka, takk fyrir mig.
I had a problem with the humidity in the NT1a. The problem disappeared after drying the capsule. And how do you deal with high dynamics. What settings are you making to avoid clipping?
It probably sounds stupid to say that I use intuition or instinct. The main rule is to never go too high with gain. It can always be raised in post-production.