Last autumn and winter I published some of my recordings from 25th of June 2012 in the nature reserve at Flói in the south of Iceland.
Day after, during the night and early morning at 26th I continued to record, but now I moved the microphones about 3-5 meter closer to nearby pond.
Something happened. There was a strange echo or reverb in some directions. It sounded strange because this area is very flat. But afterwards I thought it came from a ridge about 50cm high along the pond. This echo was sometimes very nice so it is worth to continue to put this recordings from Flói on the web, maybe in 2 to 4 parts.
I skip the first two hours of this night recording, mostly because of a high noise from the surf along the coast site, 3-4 km behind the microphones and some truck traffic 7 -14 km front of the microphones.
As usual this recording are made in virtually quiet environment. It starts around 1 am and lasts for 25 minutes. It is mostly very quiet, but in the end a choir of Red throated Diver gets very loud.
Friðlandið i Flóa 2012, 5. hluti
Síðastliðið haust og í vetur setti ég nokkrar upptökur úr friðlandinu í Flóa á vefinn. Voru það upptökur sem ég tók upp nóttina 25. júni 2012 .
Daginn eftir tók ég líka upp svo til á sama stað en færði hljóðnemana örlítið úr stað. Við það gerðist það undraverða að fuglar úr vissum áttum hljómuðu í einhverju bergmáli. Það er frekar óskiljanlegt nema að bakkar umhverfis nærliggjandi tjörn eru frekar brattir og u.þ.b. 50cm háir.
Það er því vel þess virði að halda áfram að setja á netið hljóðmyndir úr Flóanum.
Hér má heyra í fuglum s.s. óðinshana, hrossagauk, stelk, lómi, spóa, kríu, hettumáfi, músarindli og maríuerlu sem og mörgum öðrum fuglum. Bakgrunnssuð er helst frá briminu með suðuröndinni u.þ.b. 3-5 km fjarlægð fyrir aftan hljóðnemana og svo trukkaumferð eftir þjóðvegi nr.1 í 7-14 km fjarlægð. Upptakan er líklega frá því milli kl. 1 og 2 eftir miðnætti.
Three stereo microphones noise and sensitivity comparison.
Shure VP88 – Rode NT4 – Audio Technica BP4025
This recordings include a spoken word from pocket radio at very low volume and ticking alarm clock in 1,6m distance. The volume settings on the radio was so low, the sound was hardly audible with bare ears. Noise from radiator pipeline is audible in the background. Miscellaneous bird life is outside and should be also clearly audible.
Keep in mind. This test is only noise and sensitivity comparison. High sensitivity and low noise is VERY important for nature recordings. This comparison does not give any information how this microphones sounds for music recording or how they withstand high pressure sound level. See spectrogram and pictures
Quality headphones recommended while listen.
Shure VP88, Rode NT4 and Audio Technica BP4025 direct from recorder. All at same gain level at 55dB.
All three recordings are now independently level normalized up to 0dB.
At 13th of May I cycled to the shore, west side of Reykjavik to make some microphones setup test in quiet environment. It was sunny and calm, but cold as it has been all this year’s spring.
This coastline is mostly unspoiled from humans works so there is miscellaneous birdlife. Along is a very popular walking and cycle path. Some places can be very quiet like the beach south of Skildinganes where I have recorded many times nature sounds…as far as it goes.
As usual where nature are close to humans automotive world there is a deep rumbling noise, a terrifying noise from burning fossil fuel. It does not only disturb my ears or recordings, it is a very clear warning about our stupid lifestyle that will sooner or later destroy our planet within a century.
Drunurnar frá Mordor
Upptaka af notalegri vorstemmningu í Grófinni sunnan við Skeljanes.
En í bakgrunni heyrast drunur frá vítisvélum borgarbúa sem fyrr en síðar munu breyta þessum ljúfu vorhljóðum í fjörunni.
Every 1st of May is a Labour day parade in Reykjavik, where people walk together to the city center, listening to speeches and music.
For one year ago I walked this parade and listening to the day’s program with binaural microphones. Following recording contains the end of the day’s program and suddenly song and speech income of Iceland’s well known socialist Þorvaldur Þorvaldsson.
Another recording from the parade this day can be found at Audioboo
Verkaliðsdagurinn 1. maí 2012
Verkaliðsdaginn 1. maí, nákvæmlega fyrir ári síðan, mætti ég niður í bæ með Binaural hljóðnema. Ég bjóst ekki við neinu spennandi en lét upptökutækið þó ganga allan tíman. Þegar opinberum ræðuhöldum á Hallærisplaninu lauk tók við söngur Karlakór Reykjavíkur og Léttsveitarinnar. Þar á eftir tók við samsöngur á Internationalinum.
En óvænt í lokin þegar öllu átti að vera lokið kom Þorvaldur Þorvaldsson (Þorvaldur kommi) inn með hressilegan söng og hélt beztu ræðu dagsins.
Önnur upptaka, frá gönguni sjálfri þennan dag er að finna á Audioboo.
This is another ambience recording from the island Flatey in Breiðafjörður, a straight continue of part one.
Women, children as well as the elderly all gather for a boat is docking. Two men, with the day’s catch, step ashore.
When the catch has been divided, the whole throng returns to the village in a cacophony of conversations and drift homewards.
Somewhat nearer, in front of the microphone are a few Red-necked Phalaropes as well as Mallard ducks with ducklings. Other distinguishing birds like the loud Arctic tern and Whimbrel, as well as many other species of bird, can be heard.
Flatey í Breiðafirði 2012. Annar hluti.
Þetta er beint framhald af fyrsta hluta.
Nú safnast allir saman, konur, börn jafnt sem gamalmenni því bátur kemur að landi. Tveir menn með afla dagsins ganga á land. Þegar honum hefur verið skipt, kemur allur manskapurinn aftur inn í þorp með miklu skvaldri þar sem hver fer til síns heima.
Nokkuð nærri, framan við hljóðnemana voru fjörugir Óðinshanar og stokendur með unga. Aðrir háværar tegundir eru háværar s.s. kría og spói auk margra annarra fuglategunda.
During Icelandic independence day, 17. of June 2012, I was in Önundarfjörður fjord in the Westfjords, the north west peninsula of Iceland. This fjord lies deep between steep mountains with high cliffs. After midnight I entered an Arctic tern colony to record their sounds. The recording conditions was as good as it gets. The weather was calm, dry but cloudy, and the temperature was about 7 °C. Almost no traffic was in the fjord so most of the background noise was only coming from falling water in the mountains and sea waves at the shore.
This Arctic tern colony is big and has been there for decades, even centuries. This bird is very territorial and aggressive protecting the colony and many other bird more passive species feel safe to nest among the Arctic tern. So this recording includes sounds from many other bird spaces such as Whimbrel, Black-headed Gull, Black-tailed Godwit, Common Redshank, Oystercatcher, and Golden Plover… and many more
The recording contains also human and sheep voices from a nearby farm. Swans, Red-throat Diver, and common Eider at the shore side and a some sound from a Gull colony high in the cliffs all around the fjord.
During the recording the Arctic Terns attack many times the furry microphones. Sometimes you may hear their excrement fall to the ground around the microphones, but at this time they never hit or peck the Blimps.
The duration of the recording was almost 80 minutes. Following recording contains the last 36 minutes so my disturbing visit is not much audible. This is just a nice ordinary summer night in the north west of Iceland.
Krían í Önundarfirði 17. júní 2012.
Upptaka þessi var gerð í kríuvarpi nærri Holtstanga innst í Önundarfirði.
Veður var stillt, þurrt en skýjað og hiti um 7°C. Það var því varla hægt að kjósa sér ákjósanlegra veður til upptöku á fuglalífi. Allt iðaði af lífi. Fyrir utan kríu mátti sjá og heyra í hettumáfum, spóa, lóu, stelk, tjaldi og fleiri fuglum, Efst í fjöllunum mátti sjá allt fullt af fuglum á sveimi björgunum. Í flæðamálinu voru álftir, lóm og æðarfugl.
In 10th of February 2013 I recorded a concert with Amateur symphony orchestra.
The program contained a wonderful melody “Senur” composed in four chapters by Sigurður Sævarsson. It was composed for string orchestra and obo. Both the orchestra and the soloist, Guðrún Másdóttir, played it flawless. Hereby is the first chapter of Senur without any post work.
I was pretty happy with the recording result, even though the concert hall (a church) sounded terrible for recording. It has a very harsh sound and difficult peaks in some resonance frequencies.
Over the orchestra I used a Jeclin disk with a double pair of mics, parallel MKH8020 and MKH20 in 45°+45° (as shown on the picture).
Close to the soloist there was a pair of MKH8040 and far behind in the hall was a pair of SE4400 with spaced Omni (70cm).
Past months I have got a few emails where people ask me for a sound sample with my Jecklin disk. So here are two samples, both almost the same, but one is recorded with MKH20 in 45°+45° and the other one with parallel MKH8020.
“Senur” fyrsti kafli
Sigurður Sævarsson hóf söngnám við tónlistarskólann í Keflavík undir handleiðslu Árna Sighvatssonar. Þaðan lá leiðinn í Nýja tónlistarskólann, þar sem hann nam hjá Sigurði Demetz Franzyni og Alinu Dubik. Hann lauk þaðan prófi vorið 1994. Sama ár hóf Sigurður söng- og tónlistarnám við Boston University í Bandaríkjunum, þar sem kennarar hans voru William Sharp, Charles Fussel, Sam Hendrick og Martin Amin. Hann lauk þaðan meistaraprófi í báðum greinum vorið 1997.
Helstu viðfangsefni Sigurðar hafa verið óperur og kórverk. Tveir geisladiskar haf verið gefnir út með verkum hans. Hallgrímspassía kom út árið 2010 og Missa Pacis kom út 2011. Nýjasta verk Sigurðar er Jólaóratórían sem var frumflutt 2. desember 2012.
Sigurður samdi “Senur” upphaflega fyrir óbó og strengjakvartett, að tilhlutan Eydísar Franzdóttur óbóleikara. Verkið var frumflutt á Myrkum músíkdögum 2012 og hefur verið flutt nokkrum sinnum síðan í Tékklandi og Þýskalandi. Sigurður umritaði verkið fyrir skömmu fyrir óbó og strengjasveit og er sú gerð verksins frumflutt hér. Guðrún Másdóttir hóf að læra á óbó í Tónskóla Sigursveins D. Kristinssonar 14 ára að aldri. Hún lauk þaðan fullnaðarprófi árið 1992 undir handleiðslu Daða Kolbeinssonar. Hún sótti nær öll námskeið Sinfóníuhljómsveitar æskunnar undir stjórn Paul Zukovsky á árunum 1985-1991 og hefur nokkrum sinnum leikið með Sinfóníuhljómsveit Íslands. Guðrún hefur leikið með Sinfóníuhljómsveit áhugamanna óslitið frá byrjun árs 1991. Hún er í stjórn hljómsveitarinnar og hefur umsjón með vefsíðu hennar, en aðalstarf Guðrúnar er staða tölvunarfræðings hjá fyrirtækinu Mentor.
Flatey is the biggest island in Breiðafjörður bay in the west of Iceland, but nevertheless a small island. It is a wonderful place. Rich, widely spiced bird life and no car traffic. Most houses are old and most of them are nicely rebuilt. No one lives there all year around but in spring, summer and autumn lot of people stays there. Sometimes the place is overcrowded with tourists but there is both a campsite and a hotel.
I spent few hours in Flatey in June 2012 with my family. We just walked around in this relaxing surroundings. The east part of the island was closed because of bird’s hatch and eyas. But the life in the “village” was also interesting.
Strong gust from vest made recording difficult but I found a quiet place beside a wall not far away from the “main street”. In front of me was a small marsh and it was overcrowded with all kinds of birds; snipe, gull, golden plover, white wagtail, oystercatcher, arctic tern, ducks and so on, but closest to the microphone is a red necked phalarope. In distance Kittiwake and other birds are audible.
I was very lucky this time, there were few tourists on the island so the recording contains relaxing conversations between neighbors in this wonderful ambience. In the beginning a child is drumming a box, but it last only for 5 minutes. After that it is possible to listen what people and birds have to say.
Flatey í Breiðafirði 2012. Fyrri partur
Í lok júní fórum við fjölskyldan í dagsferð út í Flatey. Auðvitað lét ég upptökutækin ganga á nokkrum stöðum þótt vindur væri nokkur úr vestri. Ekki bar mikið á fólki eða vélum. Andrúmsloftið var því mjög afslappað.
Inni í miðju þorpi er mýri sem iðaði af fuglalífi. Ég kom því hljóðnemanum í skjól við húsvegg og hljóðritaði stemmninguna í u.þ.b. klukkustund.
In the beginning of February, Sonic Terrain blog introduce a funny and interesting BBC4 program. This program is inspired by the musician and Eco-philosopher David Rothenberg’s book “Why birds sing”. This documentary explores the intriguing, charming, complex and often conflicting theories on why birds sing like they do and why humans are so attracted to the sound.
After watching the program on Youtube in six pieces, I searched my recordings if some of them contained a birdsong I could be almost sure of that the bird was singing for pleasure, rather than making a territory call.
Lo and behold, I found one.
It was recorded in the evening 9th of June 2012 in my garden. This is a recording that I normally delete or do not publish because it is categorized as a “test file”.
I was testing Parabolic dish with Shure MX391/O capsules with strangely defective Sound Professionals PIP-Phantom power adapter.
But the recording does not only contains “hiss, snap and bad sound” it also contains a lovely birdsong.
Rock band was playing somewhere in the neighborhood. Suddenly a Common Blackbird with a nest in a nearby garden arrived and started to sing. First gently as he was shy but suddenly just before the band started to play Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin the bird began to sing very loud a fabulous song, something I have never heard it sing before, but this bird has been around my house for some years now.
This is far from being a quality recording, but it is worth to listen.
Now the question is, what was this bird thinking when it sang this fabulous song? I am, sure it was just doing it for fun.
Svartþröstur, Jimmy Hendrix og Janis Joplin
Í byrjun febrúar kynnti Sonic Terrain bloggið skemmtilagan og áhugaverðan sjónvarpsþátt frá BBC4. Fjallaði þátturinn aðallega um David Rothenberg og bókina hans “Whay bird sing” Tekist er á um kenningar milli fræðimanna um tilgang fuglasöngs og ólíka sýn manna í þeim efnum.
Eftir að hafa séð þáttinn á YouTube í 6 bútum leiddi ég hugann að mínum fuglaupptökum þar sem segja má að fugl hafi sungið sér til ánægju fremur en annað.
Jú og viti menn ég fann eina upptöku úr garðinum frá því 9. júní 2012 undir flokknum “test”. Var ég þar að prófa parabóluskerm með Shure MX391/O hljóðnemum og biluðum PIP-Phantom power breyti sem ég hafði fengið sendan frá Sound Professionals.
Þó upptakan hafi sína galla þá hefur hún að geyma skemmtilega uppákomu úti í garði þetta kvöld.
Í nágrenninu var nokkuð fjörugt garðpartí með útitónleikum þegar svartþrösturinn í næsta garði fór upp á loftnet og tók lagið með hljómsveitinni. Fyrst þegar hann kom var hann jafn hljóðlátur og venjulega þar sem hann muldraði í barm sér. En skyndilega tók hann við sér og söng allt hvað af tók, svo mjög að ég hafði ekki heyrt annað eins úr barka hans frá því hann kom í hverfið nokkrum árum áður.
Því miður voru ekki réttu græjurnar á staðnum. Hljómurinn er því ekki eins góður og á verður kosið, auk þess sem hávaði frá bílaumferð er allt of mikill að vanda. En upptakan er engu síður þess virði að á hana sé hlustað.
Sometimes when I am going to record a specific sound I bring home something totally different.
That happened 4th of July 2012. It was a very nice weather, calm and dry, so I made a decision to cycle with my gear to the shore at Seltjarnarnes to record bird sounds and ambiance.
But shortly after I left home the wind started to blow and it got stronger with cold northern breeze . When I arrived to Seltjarnarnes the wind was too much for almost any wildlife recordings. So as usual with most cycle trips like this, I decided to go back.
But before the wind blow me back home again I found a shelter on wooden platform beside a golf clubhouse. And there was an interesting sound. Two golf course flags with poles were flapping and hammering two picnic tables. Their flaps were like an “audio indicator” for the wind waves.
Arctic Tern, Oystercatcher and other bird spices in combination with heavy sea waves at the shore made this all as a great concert.
I stayed there about one hour while I recorded and listened to the concert, watching a thick smoke coming from burning garage in Kopavogur district, seven kilometers away.
Following is twenty minutes of this session.
Fánar í vindi
Ætli það séu ekki í u.þ.b. 80% þeirra ferða sem ég fer til að hljóðrita, að ekkert kemur út úr því. Oftar en ekki er ætlunin að taka upp eitt, en ég kem heim með eitthvað annað. Þá gerist stundum það óvænta að slík hljóðrit koma skemmtilega á óvart.
Eitt af slíkum tilviljunum var hljóðritað 4. júlí 2012.
Logn og blíða var í Austurbænum svo ég ákvað að skjótast út á Seltjarnarnes til að fanga dásamlegt sumarkvöld nærri sjó með fjölskrúðugu fuglalífi. En því nær sem dró Nesið því snarpari gerðist vindurinn og þegar þangað var komið var ekkert veður til að fanga nein rólegheit.
Áður en ég lét goluna feykja mér til baka þá ákvað ég að leita skjóls undir skyggninu við Golfskálann. Þar vanaði ekki hljóðin sem umsvifalaust gripu áhuga minn. Tveir golffánar á nestisborðum hömuðust þar í takt við breytilegan vind. Þegar svo við bættust önnur hljóð frá kríu, tjaldi og öðrum fuglum sem og þungum nið haföldunnar, þá hljómaði þetta eins og skemmtilegt tónverk.
Ég kveikti á upptöku og naut tónverksins í klukkutíma á meðan ég horfði á breytilegan reyk leggja frá eldsvoða í Kópavogi.
Hér má heyra 20 mínútur af þessu hljóðriti.
HLJÓÐMYND - SOUNDIMAGE 