SEASONS OF EARTH – EUROPEAN SUMMER
We take a look behind-the-season with our recordist
SEASONS OF EARTH – EUROPEAN SUMMER is the sixth continuation of our treasured nature ambience series. In the same spirit as the original SEASONS OF EARTH (now complete and available in this bundle), we’ve set out to capture pristine ambiances covering all of Europe’s unique biomes.
SUMMER marks the second entry into the SEASONS OF EARTH – EUROPE series. Trekking across vast, remote landscapes with a huge surround sound mic rig in hand, setting up in the right places and the right times, takes a lot of patience and determination, but it’s nothing our recordist Shane W. can’t handle. He traveled again across the continent, from the sweltering deserts near the Mediterranean to the cool, waterfall-riddled forests of Scandinavia to capture the best sounds that typify the season for the continent.
Here he shares with us his experience.
THE SOUNDS OF SUMMER
“As spring shifts to summer, the bird songs change,” Shane says, explaining some of the key differences between the sounds of spring and summer. “In spring, they try to mate and call each other, looking for partners. In summer, the bird calls are more likely to communicate about threats, food sources, or calling for their young.”
It’s not just the birds though. The wolves are less active in the spring as they birth their pups. “As soon as they’ve grown a little in summer, they will interact with each other more and call for their pups, who can wander far from the pack and howl to communicate and interact.”
There are similar sounds and places that repeat through the library series, and they take on decidedly different tones because of the seasonal changes as well. When Shane records, he tries to emphasize these differences, and focuses on what he thinks typifies the summer sound. “I try to be a producer in my head of a game or of a movie,” he says. “I think, ‘Okay, what would I want to have in a pack like this?’ There shouldn’t be a lack of anything content-wise. Maybe some things are similar in spring, like the waves, and they don’t really differ in each season, but I still think it’s an important thing to have. I want to make sure that every scene of a game or movie can be covered by this.
“Of course, when you have a bird singing above a river, and that itself won’t sound any different than a river in spring, but the world around the river will definitely sound different, and you will have distinct variations. For instance, you will have more birds singing in spring, and less in the summer.”
A THUNDERING AFFAIR
The ways Americans and Europeans define the seasons have some variation because of the different climates. Europe is much more north than the US, en par with Canada, and is really a large peninsula, surrounded by the North and Mediterranean Seas and Atlantic Ocean. Summer can mean for many Europeans storms and rain, though it is also hot and arid the more you travel south.
“Summer was in full action when I was in Spain,” said Shane. “The cicadas were still doing their job. Thunder and rain are something more likely in Europe during the summer months, due to the warm weather and moisture. Clouds start to form and release this energy in the form of thunder… it’s something where you have to be really spontaneous and act fast because you never know if it’s just rain or thunder, and the weather predictions are not always on point.”
For the sounds of thunder, Shane was in Sweden. “It’s pretty rare up North, in Scandinavia, but this summer I was lucky. Otherwise, I would have tried to record them in Spain or Germany, which wouldn’t be easier because of the dense air traffic and population. So this was just perfect.”
Of course, there’s always a little complication when recording thunder. It typically comes with rain. Water drops are not known to be friendly to gear. “I just needed some extra protection,” Shane points out, “because when you’re recording thunder, it’s not like you record just 29 minutes and you’ll have what you want. You want to capture as many impacts as possible, so you need to be sure that you have a good outdoor spot where your gear is protected from the rain and you’re able to leave it for 2 hours to get all these recordings done.”
The shelter has to be as natural as possible, so that the sound is as natural as possible. That means working with natural materials like leaves instead of plastic, which might be easier and more secure. “I had to build a little house for the microphone made of sticks and cover it with leaves so the rain wouldn’t hit the microphone and make it completely wet,” Shane said.
IS IT A BIRD?
Shane had it in his head that he really needed some particular sounds for EUROPEAN SUMMER. Among those were the scops owl and the nightjar, two birds that are common throughout Europe, but at different places depending on the season.
“The scops owl are these really tiny owls that make a radar-like ‘ping’ sound,” Shane describes. “I was at first totally confused by the call because it sounds like something digital. It’s short, and they repeat it and keep it going.”
Then there were the nightjars. “Nightjars are great,” Shane says. “They’re my favorite. They look like little dragons. You will rarely see them, but you hear them. They do this sound… when you hear them first you’ll think of an insect because they make this buzzing sound.
“It goes continuously, they pitch up and they start to come back to the same pitch again. They’re at home in bog lands. I had to really search for them, and I found this valley in Sweden where there was this river complex. And at night, when I was sleeping at this place, I started to hear them come from everywhere. I got some great recordings of them there.”
HUMAN PROBLEMS
The biggest problem with recording in nature is always humans. They interject themselves on the natural soundscape of the land across the planet. They make recording natural ambiences in pure environments nearly impossible. Between planes, hikers, turbines, farms, and so on, the human impression is found everywhere. So, it takes an incredible amount of patience and dedication to get the best recordings.
As Shane mentioned in his previous interview for EUROPEAN SPRING, “Airplanes are a true [recording] nightmare.” Spain and Germany are the worst in this regard, having two of the most heavily trafficked skies in the world, with flights crisscrossing routes to the US, Madrid, Paris, Frankfurt and Munich.
And even in places like Sweden where there’s less air traffic, there are still other human problems. “Out in the villages, they don’t have commercial heating systems,” Shane explains. “They mostly heat their houses with wood. Everywhere you have little houses, and no matter how remote you want to be you have people doing things.
“They are actually the loudest in the winter and summer, because in the winter they have to clear out the snow and in the summer they have to prepare the wood for the heat and also the fishing season brings all the tourists. There are fishing trips with motorboats on the lake, and the quieter the area the louder it sounds. You wouldn’t notice a boat driving past in Cologne, because there are so many distracting sounds.
“The same for wildlife hunting. You have guest hunters coming to Sweden from other countries to shoot the animals.”
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
There are certain things a recordist can do to mitigate the difficulties with humans in the nature. There are ways to set up a rig, position the microphones, or so on. Placement is the biggest trick: Find a mountain or a hill and go to the other side.
“You can try to go somewhere behind a mountain or hill to block the sound,” Shane explains. “And you can record something like a river, or something with higher input. You don’t want to record something with a lesser volume of input, since you want full headroom in your recording. A river, for instance, is super loud compared to a chainsaw. The river drowns out the other noises.”
LITTLE SURPRISES
Typically, when Shane records, he has some idea of what he’s going to get. “I have a vision,” he says. “In this place, I’m going to get this and that, and then something happens and you won’t get anything there.”
Or on the other hand, he accidentally strikes gold.
“I found a great place in Sweden, about two miles behind where we were staying. One night, I placed my microphone overnight and went through my basic routine. When I do night recordings, I go out, make sure everything is safe, and give the place a listen. If everything is on spot, I go and pick the microphone up the next day. The one day I had a really nice surprise. I came home, did my basic stuff, checked the recordings, and of course there were evening birds singing and then after an hour or two when the birds start to calm down and it became almost night, the wolves started to howl. There were some really young wolves howling. They sounded a bit funny because they were still learning to howl.
“You have to be really lucky to find them. You find the direction which they were going, and then you try to get a bit closer the next time. I managed to get a bit closer, so it turned out I got two great distant recordings of the wolf pack, which was awesome.”
BUY EUROPEAN SUMMER TODAY!
SEASONS OF EARTH – EUROPEAN SUMMER transports the listener into the ambient soundscapes of a European summer, complete with the singing cicadas, calling owls, howling wolves, and a symphony of wind and storm.
Prices and availability:
The library includes 230 (115 surround & 115 stereo) wav files making up 115+ GB (23+ GB for the stereo and 92+ GB for the surround) of total summer-time immersion.
The regular price is $349.00/329,00€ and will be available for $279.20/263,20€ during our introductory sale.
The stereo only version costs $129.00/119,00€ and will be available for $103.20/95,20€ during our introductory sale.
