Gentle-sounding dawn rain with thunder and some quiet birds

This is peaceful despite the thunder, which is all leisurely and non-threatening. The rain sound itself is subdued from this viewpoint, and accompanied by much trickling sound from run-off water in drainpipes — a very pleasantly watery soundscape.

When I got up on Saturday 28 September 2013 with daylight hardly showing yet, I was aware of some quite heavy rain, but not at all expecting thunder. With the double-glazed windows closed I thought I was also hearing the refuse collectors banging around a bit as I went to get breakfast. Then I saw a flash and got my brain into gear — not refuse collectors at all: wrong day! Hurried set-up of recorder on bedroom window sill!

Thank goodness, although it was early morning there was surprisingly little pronounced traffic noise as I'd expect normally at that time (this is in city centre) — no doubt because it was a Saturday, and maybe the rain was discouraging some people from setting out so early. So I had surprisingly little to cut out of the recording because of disturbances.

Location of recording: Exeter city centre, Devon, UK.

Advisory

Despite this being a peaceful soundscape the dynamic range is still pretty large. For a realistic rendition a volume setting of 9dB higher than a sensible normal level is necessary. Also, high-grade headphones would generally get the best listening results.

As no sufficiently relevant photo was available, I just took this afternoon shot on 12 July 2023 to show my hilariously precarious setup for all my bedroom window recordings up to my disastrous one on the night of 26-27 May 2017, about more of which just see below…
— Dash! Just noticed. I thought the recorder should be a little more forward, and I now see why. The tripod should be the other way round, with one leg at the rear and the other two at the front!

Techie stuff:

The recorder was a Sony PCM-M10, with Røde DeadKitten furry windshield (original, superior, light-grey version). It was ill-advisedly (read 'stupidly'!)* placed on a Hama Mini tripod, which is very mini, on my bedroom window sill, raised sufficiently by a stack of books, and with the thick curtain pulled across behind it to minimize sounds from within my flat (and doors also kept closed).

*I say 'ill-advisedly' because in certain circumstances the recorder could easily get pushed or knocked out of the (second-floor) window, with paving stones to fall on below. This did happen with my first PCM D100 in 2017, which taught me not to take chances about that in the future. — And then I remembered a much chunkier Velbon 'mini' tripod that was languishing in a drawer, and used that with no leg extension and maximum column extension, which took the recorder to just the right height with the legs still fitting on the ledge, the recorder a little further forward, and not a book in sight. That setup was impossible to get pushed out of the window, so since then it's been my standard arrangement for bedroom window recordings.

As to the fate of that D100 recorder that did hit the paving stone — that model is, figuratively, built like a tank, and although the (metal) casing was a bit buckled, and it was a little fiddly operating control buttons because the casing was raised a little on top, with some edge gaps, to this day it still works flawlessly. I just regard it as a backup 'extra', and also always use it for bedroom window recordings — of course with small polythene bag around its body to minimize ingress of dust, water and prying little beasties. So, yes, you could say I have a fond 'special relationship' with that recorder, which is my elite bedroom-window thunderstorm one.

Post-recording processing was EQ in Audacity to correct for muffling caused by the furry windshield, and to correct for a quite strong 'alcove resonance' in the low bass, which any recorder picks up there. Subsequent processing was in A1 Stereo Control VST plugin to widen and sharpen the stereo image (160%).

Please remember to give this recording a rating — Thank you!