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On 24 April 2016 I took out my recently purchased Sony PCM-D100 recorder to Branscombe Landslip, near Beer, Devon, UK, to record there, in the landslip's beautiful reverberant acoustic, for as much of the day as was practical (about 10.15 a.m. to 6.0 p.m.), making concurrent recordings with that recorder and a PCM-M10, to see how they compared.
The results can reasonably be described as astounding. Over these last few years I'd been under the impression, like many other people, that the PCM-M10's recordings were brilliant - spacious and full of detail, and generally greatly lifelike. But now, having heard the M10 recordings alongside similar albeit not completely identical recordings made with the D100 on this day, I've been feeling quite embarrassed that I'd been putting in public display recordings that I now recognise as actually having a seriously blurred stereo image and a sort of sonic fogginess that obscures a whole mass of detail.
I came to the conclusion that I was very unlikely ever again to record with a PCM-M10. After toying with the idea of using external mics with the M10 in future, I came to the conclusion that I was very unlikely ever again to record with a PCM-M10 at all, as external mics are a lot of additional gear to squeezed into my already very full rucksack on my hiking outings. Instead, in order to have two recorders as I'm used to working with, I actually ordered a second D100.
I should emphasize that I always use the D100 with the 120-degree wide stereo mic configuration. Its 90-degree XY setting produces a very narrow soundstage that has no relevance to recordings of natural soundscapes.
(Later note, February 2021 - last year some experimentation showed that with the D100 I should be able to get excellent wide-soundstage **zoomed-in** recordings with the D100 set at 90-degrees XY, by the simple means of post-recording processing with the VST plugin A1StereoControl, in two passes, the first at 200% and the second at 110%. I can't wait to get out to some of my prime recording sites to get some zoomed-in recordings like that - no more so than the hilarious colony of guillemots in a large cave in the south-side cliffs of Pentargon Cove, near Boscastle, Cornwall.)
Anyway, I decided I would delete the M10 recordings I made on this day, to save space on my computer, despite their being excellent recordings in terms of what the M10 can do. I thought, however, that some people would appreciate these recordings despite their shortcomings, and so I am sharing them all here before I delete them from my system.
This is the second of these M10 recordings, and was made from a tree branch part way up a steep and precarious narrow track leading towards a cave high up on the chalk cliff towering above. The recorder is facing roughly east-south-east, obliquely over the coast path and across to the heavily vegetated part of the cliff that fell away to create this landslip and undercliff area; the sea is behind, right (being hidden otherwise by that fallen-away chunk of cliff). As usual the windshield was the Rode DeadKitten (old light-grey version, which performs better than the current black version).
I used Audacity to apply a custom EQ profile to correct for the high frequency muffling caused by the windshield and also to correct for the audible broad 'hump' in the bass frequencies of ALL my PCM-M10 recordings prior to processing.
We are actually shielded by a lower small cliff from most of the direct sea sound (as I say, behind, on the right), so the latter is rather muffled, and it is actually echoing beautifully on the cliff towering above. However, in this recording, for some arcane reason the sea 'action' sounds to be just right of centre despite there being no channel imbalance - and the echoes of the sound of the individual waves on the chalk cliff towering above on the left are heard only as a vague haze of sound spread out from the obvious sea sound.
Indeed, I found consistently that the M10 couldn't really usefully resolve the sea echoes on any cliff; the D100 was a revelation over that, capturing the echoes faithfully. Various birds are singing and often answering others of same species in different parts of the landslip and undercliff.
Please note that the volume level of this recording has been carefully adjusted for listening purposes, and, except where otherwise expressly indicated, ALL my recordings so far are meant to be listened to with a volume setting that would give a realistic level for playback of CLASSICAL music (a large but not exceptional symphony orchestra). If you have the right volume setting, you should not need to change that setting from one recording of mine to another.
ALL my recordings are COPYRIGHT, with all rights reserved apart from the 'attribution' non-commercial use provision of the licence given for this recording. You must give a clearly visible / legible attribution to me and if at all possible with a reference or (preferably) link to this page. If you want to use the recording for a materially money-making purpose, then you must agree a fee with me. Fair's fair!
(CD-quality downloads of many of my recordings can be found in my natural soundscapes CD Store.)
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This recording can be used free of charge, provided that it's not part of a materially profit-making project, and it is properly and clearly attributed. The attribution must give my name (Philip Goddard) and link to https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/345470/
Type
Flac (.flac)
Duration
49:27.610
File size
492.6 MB
Sample rate
48000.0 Hz
Bit depth
24 bit
Channels
Stereo
2 years, 6 months ago
Beautiful
7 years, 11 months ago
Mr Goddard should be justifiably proud of his recent April 2016 series of masterful recordings at Branscombe Landslip. Wonderful.