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Lazy-sounding very deep booms punctuate this idyllic clifftop soundscape, as the sea interacts with clefts and unexpected ends within the cave system below and presumably right underneath us.
I made this recording on 29 October 2016 on the cliff edge of the largest alcove of Beeny Cliff, near Boscastle, Cornwall, UK — not as part of a hike this time but in a dedicated morning-and-afternoon recording session, though I had to pack up by 3.30 p.m. in order to be able to start my hitch-hike back to Exeter in reasonable time to avoid difficulties (bearing in mind the time of year and relatively short days).
In the event I did have some difficulty with that journey, not getting back to my abode till nearly 10.0 p.m. My type of outing is always something of an adventure, with a delectable assortment of unpredictables!
Advisory
Because of the strength of some of the cave booms, to get a realistic sound level the playing volume needs to be set at some 3dB above a normal sensible level. In addition, high-grade headphones are strongly recommended in order to hear all the detail and reproduce the very low frequencies reasonably correctly.
That doesn't mean that the booms sound loud (they don't), but that very low frequency peaks of that sort of amplitude still carry a lot of energy even though they usually seem pretty quiet, and indeed they can readily overload lower-grade playing systems.
This recording taking place. Wonderful time and place for an extended eating stop here!
Beeny Cliff, in telephoto view from Penally Hill on north side of Boscastle Harbour. The arrows point to the two main-alcove recording positions during this session. This is the cliff-edge one; the other is actually on a fence post just a little above the coast path.
Techie stuff:
The recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with two nested furry windshields — the inner being a Movo one of rectangular box shape*, and the outer a custom Windcut one —, and it was placed on a mini-size Zipshot tripod.
* Note that I WARN AGAINST use of windshields that are of any sort of box shape, for I soon found that they were inherently unsuitable for any decent-quality recording. While no doubt non-box-shaped windshields from Movo would be okay, the presence of relatively flat surfaces, edges and corners creates internal narrow resonance peaks in the treble, which give the latter an abrasive and rather 'screamy' quality, no matter who's made the particular windshields. When I realized why my recordings had developed that nasty treble quality I had to go back through all recordings made with that dratted box-shaped windshield, and use Voxengo CurveEQ to enable me to precisely neutralize two narrow treble peaks and thus enable the recordings to sound wonderfully natural rather than bafflingly stressful.
Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshields and correction for the D100's weakness in very low bass — and then, later on, the aforementioned remedial EQ measure using Voxengo CurveEQ to remove the two narrow treble peaks kindly added by that rogue model of furry windshield.
Please remember to give this recording a rating — Thank you!
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/687203/
Type
Flac (.flac)
Duration
105:28.409
File size
517.1 MB
Sample rate
44100.0 Hz
Bit depth
16 bit
Channels
Stereo
10 months, 1 week ago
I'm very impressed with your recordings Philip. Much detail and depth. Thank you.
Also thank you for the technical descriptions, very useful for fellow sound artists.