Transformed wind chimes: Nature-Symphony 58 (with improved ending)

Nature-Symphony 58 (Anticipation, eruption, remembering, remembrance) (with improved ending) — About the first half of this relatively short Nature-Symphony is more or less quiet and static, with a pronounced sense of anticipation. A pair of ravens are flying around, uttering their croaky calls in various directions and, thanks to the layering, they're sounding at various slowed-down pitches and with greater or lesser reverberation. They add to the sense of unease in this apparently peaceful landscape. Just past half-way through, a wild and loud eruption occurs, followed by a short cooling-off, as though one were remembering the eruption, and finally something more sombre as the music grows more distant, and a family of ravens flies around, slowing down and lowering in pitch tritone by tritone, adding both an earthy joyful note, yet also keying in with the gathering sombreness…

This work uses one main recording, of four metal chimes, with a pair of ravens flying around for a while, deployed in six layers. — Just for the ending I took a clip of a family of ravens from a much more recent recording (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/692607/ ); more about their deployment further below

Chimes used (same for all six layers):

1. Music of the Spheres Gypsy Chimes, Soprano (Eastern European Gypsy scale, higher)

2. Music of the Spheres Gypsy Chimes, Mezzo (Ditto, lower)

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

4. Woodstock Chimes of Mars (very high-pitched, and quite penetrating for such a small chime, tuned to a scale I haven't identified)

I made the original recording (which isn't online) on 10 December 2013, on steep rough ground just below Hunting Gate, highest point of the Hunter's Path, high up on north side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK. The ravens heard during the ending were taken from a recording made on 24 June 2023 at the east end of the Lower Deer Stalker's Path, on the wooded slope of Cranbrook Down, high up above Fingle Bridge, Teign Gorge. — Geolocation is for the chimes recording.

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

The main original recording 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.

Zoomed-in view from same position. 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).

Techie stuff:

Recorder for the chimes was a Sony PCM-M10, with Røde DeadKitten furry windshield. It was placed on on a tree branch by means of a GorillaPod.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield, and more recent processing with A1 Stereo Control to greatly improve the atrocious stereo imaging of the PCM-M10.

Layer 1: Half-speed, with pitch-rise to give a tritone below original. Acoustic: middling foreground in cathedral

Layer 2: Half-speed, giving pitch an octave below original. Acoustic: moderate back-of-cathedral

Layer 3: Half-speed, with further pitch-reduction to 2 octaves plus tritone below original. Acoustic: middling foreground in cathedral

Layer 4: Ditto. Acoustic: ditto.

Layer 5: Speed reduction for an octave plus tritone below original, with further pitch-reduction to give 3 octaves below original. Acoustic: ditto.

Layer 6: Speed to give pitch reduction of an octave plus a tritone, and further pitch-reduced to give total of 2 octaves plus tritone below original. Acoustic: extreme back-of-cathedral.

Recorder for the ravens mixed in for the ending was Sony PCM-D100, with two nested custom Windcut furry windshields.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for furry windshield muffling. Corrective processing of the clips used here was de-hissing, using Bertom Denoiser Pro.

5 additional layers for the ravens were mixed in for the ending: top layer real-life speed / pitch, each other layer slowed to a tritone lower than that above, so bottom layer is quarter-speed and 2 octaves below original. Acoustic for all five layers: middling foreground in cathedral. I did NOT tune them to the chimes! — By a fluke they came out already in tune with them. Don't know how 'Mother Nature' does it — striking and beautiful!

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