Wintertime in the countryside is very quiet. Hardly an animal to make a noise, forget about the birds as well, except for some Chickadees here and there. Even the crows are quiet. For field recording that leaves you with banging on things or recording flowing water and waves.
I am not one to bang on things, even armed with a recorder, it looks like people around here LIKE it quiet. A nut with a stick banging on things is frowned upon.
So flowing water for me it is… Winter in Canada often even prohibits flowing water as well, leaving total silence in many places. Here in Nova Scotia, I can get around the problem fairly easily. Winter temps come and go, and sometimes the cold is chased away by heavy rain and melting snow. And that gives me the flowing waters. If the wind allows for some quiet moments, recording in the woods is a real pleasure. On top of that, the wind in the woods is rarely so strong that recording is not possible. The lead picture here shows my setup for half of the recording here. A Zoom F3 with a pair of Clippys.
Meltwater galore for recording
The area was nice and not too far off the road. The first 20 seconds of the recording are with the Clippies, while the rest is with Behringer C-2s in an “ORTF” configuration. Kind of. I’m not sure if I had the angle and the separation of the mics right.
Check the transition around the 20-second mark. I find that the omni mics have a lot less stereo image than the C-2s. I guess I have to experiment more with them to get the right effect.
Until next time…