First Time Recording in Forests

Question

I've lived in Dubai all my life and have never really been "into the wild" much other than camping in the desert and mountainous areas as a Boy Scout so this is pretty exciting. I'm going to be visiting Perth, WA in Jan just before I head to NZ for film school, when we're there my brother and some friends are planning on visiting some interesting places for photography. I'll be going along obviously recording sounds but all I got is an H4n (Hopefully a PreMix-D to accompany it in that time) and a Rode NTG-2 which is better than nothing I guess.

I'm wondering if you guy's could possibly give me some general ideas on what to record that aren't very obvious like ambience and foley, I'll also do some research on the sort of sounds are commonly found in these type of libraries. Also could you give me some insight on how to take care of my stuff? I hear there are quite a few ticks around in one of places we're visiting I don't want any getting on my deadwombat, also its going to be summer in Australia so I'll be putting my gear in a little pouch with a silica gel packet in there. The last thing I want to do is ruin my gear just before starting film school. Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

I'm not really familiar with the west side of australia, but there's a good chance you'll be able to get a lot of cicada recordings. In fact, you might wish those little things would just shut up for a second, depending on the weather and area. Like Stavro said, some generic tree forest movement tracks would be fantastic. I always find myself wanting recordings of branches creaking/rubbing, and close perspective leaves rustling.

As far as weather, i think WA is generally pretty dry, but don't quote me on that. Your gear should be good, as long as you don't let it overheat. Try to keep it shaded. And i don't think ticks will be attracted to your dead wombat, as they go for body heat. Always check yourself for ticks after you've been walking through bushes and whatnot, though. Also, general safety tips: take more water than you think you'll need, and be careful around long grass, as you might disturb a snake.

Good luck and happy recording! And enjoy NZ film school; there are a lot of brilliant sound post folk down in that corner of the world.

Answer 2

Well, it falls under ambience, but I've always been interested in hearing more tracks where you can hear the occasional twig or tree branch snap. Soundstorm has two tracks of these, they're great and uniquely perfect for forest scenes, but that's the sad part - there's only 2, and they're little too sparse/quiet amidst the noise floor so they're not always ideal.

EDIT: Kookaburras too... there seems to be a lacking of decent recordings of these in libraries in my experiences (although the BBC Nature Series might have them).

Answer 3

fwiw -- I live in Auckland and 3 days ago I heard the first lone cicada fire up its ratchet --- I'm scrambling to get a bunch of exterior recordings I need before summer hits us properly because cicada's here are such a pain!

Not sure about WA but I lived in Brisbane for a year and seeing as how summer is about 5months long there's just no escaping insects during that period -- good opportunities for hunting out single insects though, and if you can get close enough without spooking them then that's worthwhile.

I've found the very beginning \ end of summer here is best to find lone insects to record, the ones which for whatever reason have missed the memo, and are still in their lounge singing karaoke