Transformed wind chimes: Nature-Symphony 27

Nature-Symphony 27 (Quest for the ever-concealed mountain — Prelude to the mountaineer's 'Poem of Ecstasy') — An intense and challenging work of a visionary nature, which is one of a pair using almost the same metal chimes ensemble. Unsurprisingly, the next one is indeed The mountaineer's 'Poem of Ecstasy' (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/718667/ ), and is at least as intense and challenging as this one.

This work is distinguished by its use of an immensely potent ensemble of six metal chimes as a starting point — the complexity of sound being considerably augmented by using that recording in two layers, both half-speed but the lower layer further reduced in pitch by a fifth, and out of step with the other. The metal chimes provide the higher and sustained notes, and the rarefied quality suggestive of high places on huge mountains, while the bamboo chimes in this context (slowed down to produce low and even quite deep bass sounds) suggest the low ground surrounding the mountains (and perhaps the lack of adventurousness / high aspiration) that is typical of the vast majority down there.

Although this work has a sense of a great inspirational vision, it's as though this is from a viewpoint of some sort of sadness or melancholy. The culprit is the Gypsy chimes, which together, without other chimes, sound intractably melancholy. In this case the Woodstock chimes all disrupt that melancholy, but the Pluto and Mercury chimes appear to be covert conspirators with the Gypsy chimes, and convert the deep melancholy into a sweeter-sounding much more gentle wistfulness. The inspiration is more in the form of hoping or intending to achieve the big aim some day, rather than yet actually being 'there'. This is why this work is subtitled Prelude to…, in the light of the effects of using the same metal chimes ensemble minus the Pluto and Mercury chimes in Nature-Symphony 28, where any sound of overt melancholy is eliminated and almost all wistfulness gone too, revealing an incandescent positive force that shines like a beacon throughout that work.

Chimes used: (total of 7)

Layers 1–3 (metal chimes):

1+2. Music of the Spheres Gypsy Mezzo and Soprano chimes (tuned to different modes on an Eastern European Gypsy scale)

3. Woodstock Chimes of Pluto (moderately high-pitched, tuned to a sunny-sounding mode on the pentatonic scale, with a quite 'major-scale' sound in its harmonies)

4. Woodstock Chimes of Polaris (high-pitched, tuned to a radiant-sounding mode on the pentatonic scale)

5. Woodstock Chimes of Mercury (very high-pitched, tuned to a radiant-sounding mode on the pentatonic scale)

6. Woodstock Chimes of Mars (very high-pitched and penetrating, tuned to a scale that I can't put a name to)

Layers 4+5 (bamboo chime — with relatively imprecise tuning):

7. 'Pink hibiscus' ornamented chime, 6-tube, medium size (42cm longest tube) (Particularly full-toned and resonant for its size, and hence able to produce some really deep bass when recordings are slowed down or their pitch lowered sufficiently).

I made the metal chimes recording on 10 December 2013 on steep, rough ground just below Hunting Gate, highest point on the Hunter's Path, on the north side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK. (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/695733/). The geolocation given is for this recording.

The bamboo chime was recorded on 21 November 2023 a bit further west, in open copse a little above the Hunter's Path, almost at the top of Piddledown (quite near Castle Drogo), just a little to left of the other recording's position on the Geolocation map.

For more details about the different metal chimes used, please go to https://www.philipgoddard.com/shop/store-windchimes.htm.

Advisory
To get the best out of this, listen with high-grade headphones.

A different recording (the one after this one) taking place. The recorder (light grey furry windshield, left) is perched on a small branch rather than on a tripod. We're looking down a quite steep slope from just by Hunting Gate. The chimes with black tubes are the Gypsy ones — the Mezzo being the largest and loudest and so placed furthest from the recorder; the Woodstock chimes are Polaris (left) and Mars (centre). This recording also contains the Pluto and Mercury chimes.

Recording the bamboo chime for Layers 2+3. The recorder is close to the ground, facing steeply upwards to this chime, off the bottom of this view, slightly right of centre.

Techie stuff:
The recorder for the metal chimes was a Sony PCM-M10 with Røde DeadKitten furry windshield (the original, more effective, light grey version), perched on a tree branch by means of a GorillaPod.

Basic post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield, and, much more recently, stereo widening (160%) using the A1 Stereo Control VST plugin. Then I applied my custom extreme wind-cut preset in TDR Nova GE to drastically reduce the bass aspect of the wind noise.

For this Nature-Symphony I made two copies of the recording thus edited:

Layer 1: half-speed (octave below original)
Layer 2: speed to give pitch of octave plus minor seventh below original.

Both those layers given back-of-cathedral acoustic in OrilRiver VST plugin.

Recorder for the bamboo chime was Sony PCM-D100, with two nested Windcut furry windshields, and mics set at narrow angle (90°), on an Aoka carbon fibre Mini tripod (keeping close to ground in order to minimize mic wind noise).

Basic post-recording processing (in Audacity) was to apply an EQ preset to correct for muffling by the windshields, and, in A1 Stereo Control, widening of the stereo image by 135%.

Then I applied my custom extreme wind-cut preset in TDR Nova GE to drastically reduce the bass aspect of the wind noise. I further used Audacity's noise reduction function to reduce consistent basic background sound (mostly River Teign far below) by two steps of 6dB, and (in WavePad) used CurveEQ to tailor a severe high-pass filter (two 12dB increments) to virtually eliminate frequencies significantly below the chime's lowest pitch.

I made two copies of part of the recording, and reduced their speed, to get respective pitches of an octave plus a tritone below original, and three octaves below original, followed by applying back-of-cathedral acoustic to both layers.

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