In last week of August the first “real winter storm” arrived to Iceland, with strong cold wind and snow down to 300 m o.s. Luckily it was not as bad as weather forecast expected.
But for sure more and stronger storms will arrive in coming months. Sometimes it happens during high tide and with extremely low air pressure so the whole harbor is floating in deep seawater.
Last autumn 2012, we got at last two times a “real storm”, and both this storms arrived while I was at work. It was really dangerous to be outside so we spent most of the day inside. Regularly we heard loud “drumming sound” and got a taste of an earthquake when containers and reefers flew of the stacks to the ground.
Following recording was recorded in one of those bad weather situations 2nd of November 2012. It is mostly audible wind noises with flying garbage around when suddenly somewhere in the harbor one container take off from a stack and fells to the ground.
Fljgúandi gámar
Upptaka frá Sundahafnarsvæðinu í Reykavik frá því 2. november 2012, þegar gekk á með miklu norðan hvassviðri. Þá fór mikið af Sundahafnarsvæðinu á flot og nokkrir gámar tókust á loft með miklum látum. Í upptökunni sem hér fylgir má heyra í gám þegar hann fellur úr stæðu einhvers staðar á svæðinu.
Early May I went into the Raufarhólshellir cave with a group of peoples. The tour was done to listen to the sound in the cave when water drops fall on ice on the floor. This sound can be really amazing when hundreds of drops fall in to all kinds of sizes and depths of holes in the ice.
But, most of the ice was gone, so the sound was not as expected.
Anyway, the experience and the sound was nice.
Hljóðin í Raufarhólshelli
Annan maí s.l. fór ég með ágætu fólki í Raufarhólshelli til að hlusta á vatnsdropa falla niður á ísinn á hellisgólfinu. Við viss skilyrði, þegar gólfið er ísi lagt, þá mynda vatnsdropar misdjúpar holur í ísinn. Þegar svo droparnir falla í þessar holur heyrist heil sinfónía af dropahljóðum sem er ákaflega gaman að hlusta á.
Því miður þá var mestallur ísinn horfinn þegar við mættum í hellinn. Hljóðin voru því ekki eins breytileg og vonast var til, en þó var ákaflega notalegt að gefa sér tíma til að setjast niður og hlusta.
Last spring was cold and windy and 26th of May was no exception when I cycle downtown Reykjavik with my recording gear. It was a accordion day and members of the Accordion club of Reykjavik was playing in the city hall. When I arrive it was overcrowded and the sound quality was poor from the amplified monitors. So I decided to stay outside and listen instead to the birds on the pound, close to the hall.
This recording contain my walk beside the pond, from the southeast side (as seen on the picture) trough the city hall to the northwest side, into very different atmosphere.
Gengið í gegn um ráðhús Reykjavíkur
Þann 26 maí gerði ég mér ferð í ráðhúsið í norðankalda til að hlusta á Harmonikkufélag Reykjavíkur spila á hinum árvissa harmonikkudegi. Það átti ekki að koma á óvart að hljómburðurinn í Ráðhúsinu var handónýtur svo ég staldraði stutt við. Í staðinn fór ég að fylgjast með fuglum á tjörninni og hljóðrita það sem fyrir augu og eyru bar.
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.
HLJÓÐMYND - SOUNDIMAGE 