Transformed wind chimes: Nature-Symphony Prelude 1

Nature-Symphony Prelude 1 (Prelude to a springtime forest tableau) — Exquisitely beautiful and hypnotic! This little Prelude uses the same chimes recording as in the following Nature-Symphony 31 (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/720049/ ). Indeed, I actually produced this as a prelude within the original N-S 31, but I abandoned that N-S because of a combination of too little chimes sound, often birds singing too close, and rather over-strong background sound from the River Teign far below. Initially, therefore, this Prelude was the one bit that I salvaged from that abandoned Nature-Symphony. It uses a tiny section of the original recording, used in three layers to produce its gripping effect. The long fade-out was intended for a gradual crossfade with the main layers of the original prospective N-S 31.

The chimes used in the original recording make for about the most sad and melancholy sound I could get, but the speed / pitch reductions have resulted in a universal vision that goes beyond Earthly emotions, to where one is in touch with the intrinsic beauty of the core of human experience.

Chimes used (all metal):

1. Woodstock Chimes of Olympos (tuned to a melancholy-sounding Ancient Greek scale)

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

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

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

Other important sounds: birdsong — though not that much as compared with the following Nature-Symphony 31, which has a lot.

I made the original recording on 1 April 2014 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.

You can hear the original chimes recording at https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/690095/ .

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.

Another recording taking place, in the same spot the previous month, with a similar ensemble. The recorder (light grey furry windshield, centre) is perched on a small branch rather than on a tripod. We're looking down a quite steep slope from just by Hunting Gate.

Techie stuff:

The recorder 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 Prelude I made three copies of the recording thus edited, deployed as follows:

Layer 1: Speed reduction to give pitch a fifth below original

Layer 2: Half-speed and thus an octave below original

Layer 3: Half-speed but an octave plus a fifth below original.

Layers 1+2 start together, but immediately are getting increasingly out of step with each other. Layer 3 starts about halfway through, giving a deepening of tone.

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