Fall Field Crickets - 1

Recording of fall field crickets (chirping/droning) on 10.6.2014 in the deep woods of East Texas - used a Tascam DR-680 recorder (Busman mod) with 2 Rode NT1A mics. Mics setup with 120°angle/21cm spacing, 6 feet above ground. Recorded 1am to 4am - fairly quiet except for highway traffic 2-3 miles away. Light breeze from direction of highway, which brought in traffic noise some. Download is smoother sounding, less brittle.

Technical:

EQ'd down distant traffic noise and wind, most everything from 1500 Hz and lower. Rolled off everything < 16 Hz. NT1A's tend to be a little bright, so also EQ'd opposite the mics' freq chart to smooth out sound better. Stereo width okay, no adjustment. Did EQ a couple of crickets down, mainly some loud ones closest to the mics. That made it easier to hear crickets with lower tones and those droning instead of chirping. Might try putting the wind back in on another post if I can get it to cycle in and out in an interesting way, instead of just being constant.

Extra Story:

The segment above is taken from a much longer, 2-hour recording I made that night. It does not include a funny encounter I had during the evening with a critter common to the area. Thankfully, the whole adventure turned out kinda humorous. (After processing it, I may eventually upload it to freesound.) Anyhow, I'd been steadily recording for around 90 minutes when a weird sound in my headphones made me think something was going wrong with my mics. Another puzzling issue was that the sound became more distinct every time I clicked the flashlight off. Well, after 30 minutes of this happening, I'd grown rather frustrated (and worried). But, I was determined to solve the mystery. First, I checked the fur on the mics, which I used to block wind - no luck, nothing in fur. Next, I tried switching my flashlight on each time I'd hear the sound. I was hoping to see something - anything. After 3 failed attempts, I started thinking maybe the mics really did need some kind of repair. Dollar-signs started floating in my head. Well, as luck would have it, on that 4th attempt, the mystery was suddenly solved. Talk about relief. I clicked the light on to observe one tiny, crazy, curious bat, echo-locating my microphones - directly in front of them, at about 3-4 inches! In the recording (not the one posted above), you can hear me chuckle when I realized the mics were just fine. It appeared I'd simply made a very good friend with a highly curious, flappy-winged night-critter. As for that sound I kept hearing? Well, it was just the little guy's wings flapping like a bewildered hummingbird, straight in front of the microphones! I went home that night with a descent recording and a cool story.