I love recording nature sounds. It often boils down to water flowing and birds, but hey, you take what you can get. One of the cleanup processes is always to ensure that the low rumble in recordings gets eliminated.
A little EQ on the audio gets rid of the low-end rumble in a second.
So I did that first, then started listening to the recording. I was recording this spot with a Zoom F3 with Rode M5s as well as a Zoom H6 with a pair of Clippies.
It was the clippies that surprised me. While the recording was good with the EQ, I still had the impression that something was missing (apart from the low frequencies, of course). So, I switched off the EQ and listened to it again.
In the low end of the recording, I heard drumming. A rhythmic drum coming from a bird far away. This was the drumming of the Ruffed Grouse, as shown in the picture. The EQ had cut off all the drumming, together with the low-end rumble of any recording not too far away from people.
The Zoom F3 with the Rode M5s barely picked up the drumming because they were pointed away from the Grouse, so they picked it up way less.
Here is the recording with the drumming in place at the 40 second mark:
It simply goes to show that you need to check your recording before applying any corrections, under penalty of removing something interesting.
It won’t happen again! ;-)
Until next time...