Strong wind in the trees high up in Teign Gorge (1)

Strong wind gusts rushing over the top of the hill and roaring through the trees as they come racing, chasing, down and around, over or into the deep steep-sided valley known as the Teign Gorge (Drewsteignton, Devon, UK) on 1 February 2020. This isn't quite gale force, but the gusts are still pretty strong. The wind gradually strengthens during this recording.

This is the irst of two consecutive recordings here, this one just slightly below the Hunter's Path, just inside the western side of Drewston Wood, and above the track leading obliquely down to Fingle Bridge, while the second recording was made from a little above that spot on the Hunter's Path.

I actually did what seemed to be a silly thing in my placement of this first recording, because I had the recorder facing south, across the valley. That would then capture the two loudest patches of trees, one on the left and the other on the right, and both rather behind the recorder.

However, although that placement made for some degree of spatial balance between those primary sound sources, it inevitably meant that the movement of gusts would mostly be from behind to in front of the recorder and going away from it. Soon after I started that recording I had doubts about that, as it would surely minimize the sense of the gusts actually moving about. I did let this recording run for the allotted time, though, for I decided to follow it with another one with what I thought would be a much better placement…

Months later, however, I listened to this recording again and found it truly wonderful in its own different way. The sense of gust after gust rushing up from behind and then over and down into the valley was impressively beautiful. The effect is imposing and majestic. My error about it earlier was simply that I was too rigidly requiring a particular effect, and failing to recognise when I'd got something beautifully different instead!

Advisory:
To hear the intricate detail of the vibrant sound panorama, do treat yourself by listening to this with high-grade headphones!

Looking roughly west along the Hunter's Path during this recording. The arrow points to the black furry windshields of the recorder.

Techie stuff:
The recorder was Sony PCM-D100, with two nested custom Windcut furry windshields. It was used on a lightweight Hama tripod.

Initial post-recording processing was to apply an EQ curve to compensate for muffling from the furry windshields.

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