Gypsy Mezzo and bamboo wind chimes, high up in Teign Gorge

So doleful! — Haunting Gypsy Mezzo chimes a little way above the Hunter's Path, high up in the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK. The Gypsy Mezzo was the largest, lowest-sounding and most ponderous in action of all my chimes at that time.

For the most part natural sounds are very sparse, but at least this recording is graced by a little nature drama in which a couple of blackbirds either have a little spat, or possibly sense a potential predator nearby and end up uttering their alarm calls for a few minutes.

Chimes used:

1. Music of the Spheres Gypsy Chimes, Mezzo (Eastern European Gypsy scale, lower range)

2. Bamboo chimes, large and small set (rather indeterminate tuning, with a touch of whole-tone scale — bought cheaply at local store)

I made this recording on 28 November 2012 in a spot where I wouldn't normally record, because the spots by the Hunter's Path, high up on the north side of the Teign Gorge that I'd previously used successfully were too sheltered from the northerly breeze. So I walked up to almost the top of the hill, where the breeze was coming across sufficiently.

The only problem was that I was then too far removed from the River Teign for me to get more than a faint hint of 'continuity' background sound from the River Teign down in the bottom of the valley, which latter was behind rather than in front of the recorder, so reducing that sound even more in the recording.

Another factor minimizing the level of the natural soundscape, to detriment of all recordings made in this session, was that I hadn't properly appreciated how loud and penetrating was the tone of the Gypsy chimes. Really they always needed to be a fair way back from the recorder, and indeed from any other chimes that I that were in a recording. In this case therefore, the bamboo chimes were distinctly quieter than intended in all the recordings, as well as the overall soundscape being overly quiet in order that the Gypsy chimes wouldn't make uncomfortable listening and indeed get clipped peaks.

There are now two transformed versions of this recording:
Nature-Symphony 7 (Processional in solitude) and
Nature-Symphony 7a (Solitude's fire chamber)

This recording taking place. The wind was coming over the top of the hill, i.e., from straight ahead in this view.

Techie stuff:

The recorder was Sony PCM-M10, with Rycote Mini Windjammer furry windshield. It was set up on a Hama Mini tripod, which I regard as not just 'mini' but tiny. Although I fairly quickly learned subsequently to avoid having recorders so close to the ground (distorts the frequency spectrum and tends to overemphasize lower parts of the frequency range), actually in this situation it was necessary to have the recorder really low down, where the wind was much lighter.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield — and then more recently stereo widening / sharpening-up using the VST plugin A1 Stereo Control (160% widening).

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