Diving deep into lush and untamed territories, TROPICAL JUNGLE is our latest sound effects library release. The library is full of rainforest animals like howling monkeys, singing tropical birds, rain atmospheres, dense and lively jungle vibes, and much more. It took our recordist Matt Mikkelsen two separate trips totaling a month of onsite recording plus a lot of time for careful preparation and planning to capture all the rich sounds and textures of this collection.

Matt, who was also behind many of our SEASONS OF THE EARTH libraries, brought his trusty SCHOEPS ORTF-3D Surround Set on his explorations of the jungles, cloud forests, and rainforests of Costa Rica and Ecuador. Working with a local tribe, he was able to find the best spots for recording in the most isolated, remote areas of the Amazon.

We talked with Matt to get the scoop on his jungle adventures.

THE ARRIVAL

Matt was inspired to go into the Amazon by his old colleague and friend, Gordon Hempton (the man behind our QUIET PLANET series). He knew a chief, Randy, of the Cofán tribe in Ecuador, who had invited him and a few colleagues down to do some recordings. The Cofán are an Indigenous people who lived for centuries along the Amazon Basin. The Cofán would act as their guides into the depths of the jungle, which would in turn help the trip with their new eco-tourism direction.

“We weren’t staying in a lodge and just going out for the day recording like on a usual project,” Matt shared. “We were setting up a camp deep in the jungle.” The trip to their camp would normally take at least a full day of travel by car and canoe to reach. If there weren’t mass protests going on.

When Matt and his colleagues landed in Quito, they were greeted by a mass strike that strangled the transit in and out of the city. “We were sitting in Quito for 3 or 4 days, unable to leave, kind of trapped in our hotel,” Matt shares. “At some point, Randy was like, ‘Okay, we just gotta go for it and see if we can make it.’

“This eight-hour drive turned into a sixteen-hour drive because there were roadblocks everywhere. They had dumped gravel across the roads or lit tires on fire to create barricades and prevent cars from passing, and people were standing there with spears and guns. It was probably one of the most stressful travel experiences of my life.”

INTO THE JUNGLE

They endured the trip though and finally made it to the river, where they had to ride for four hours in a canoe to the actual village. They stayed the night in the village and woke up to spend another day on a boat. But the entire experience was worth the trouble.

“We were so relieved to finally get there,” Matt recalls. “When we got to the jungle camp, it was beautiful. They had set it up with a black tarp over the tent area, a little kitchen area, a bathroom. Just the amazing work ethic of the Cofán people – it was incredible to watch them clear trails or build shelters. We had some 5 or 6 year old kids who were tagging along too, with their machetes and helping build shelters and cook and fish. It was out of this world.”

THE PEOPLE OF THE RAINFOREST

It was at first difficult to communicate with the tribespeople since none of Matt’s colleagues knew the Cofán language. Randy though could speak English, Spanish, and Cofán, so he served as the main translator on the trip.

Despite the communication issues, working with the Cofán was an incredible experience for Matt. “They know their environment so well,” he said. “They know every sound, every creature… they know the weather patterns. At some point we were standing there, and Randy just turns to us and says, ‘In about an hour, we’re going to get a big rainstorm. Like, really big.’

“Sure enough, it was a deluge. It flooded our camp. We were getting mud slides coming through and had to build trenches around our tents. And our rain jackets were useless, we were just running around shirtless trying to drain the camp out. The rain there was incredible, just like someone pouring a bucket on us the whole time.”

POWER AND WATER

Rain and flooding were obvious issues to deal with, but power and humidity issues also took their tolls, especially regarding the energy-devouring rigs and sensitive mics. In the deep rainforest and jungle, there’s no infrastructure for electricity, and the light for solar is poor due to the dense spread of the trees overhead.

“I had about ten brick batteries and five more battery packs that I could charge those batteries with,” Matt explains. He also used his solar chargers as best as he could manage.

As for the rain and moisture, these were constant fiends, whether it was in having to build more shelters or figuring out how to keep the mics dry. “Microphones don’t like such high humidity,” Matt says. “There were a lot of technical issues. When the sun would start shining in a little hole in the forest, I’d put the microphone out so I could try to dry it in the sun, and I’d pick up a leaf and start waving it at the microphone to try and get some air flow. Then I’d get a few more hours of recording before the microphone would start to malfunction and the process would repeat. That was a nightmare.”

To deal with the rain, they’d “build these kinds of temporary structures out of natural materials to shield microphones. We’d build these banana palm leaf structures that were acoustically transparent but wouldn’t allow rain to come through. We had three of those set up around our camp.”

NIGHT RECORDING

A lot of Matt’s work would take place at night, so he could capture the full spectrum of sounds. But when he was recording at night, he’d have to stay constantly near his equipment, to be sure nothing happened to it and there were no faults.

“And I couldn’t have my headlamp on that whole time because I didn’t have enough batteries,” he added. “So, I’d just set up the gear and stand there with the headlight off, just in total darkness. And you can’t sit anywhere because there are these biting ants and scorpions and spiders everywhere. When you’re wearing your headlamp and you shine it through the forest, you see all this glittering in front of you – that’s all the spider eyes that are just lit up, and there are thousands of them all around you. So, you just stand there in the darkness, hoping nothing eats you.”

COSTA RICA

Matt had a lot easier of a time in Costa Rica, though it was still an amazing experience. He rented a car with his recording partner and was able to drive to the different ecosystems. And this time, both were aided by assistants. “It was a lot less intense than the Amazon. It was easier to access, there’s more infrastructure, there are eco lodges,” he adds. “We had three different locations: one was a research station in the cloud forest that you had to hike to, then a lowland eco lodge and a coastal jungle.

“Costa Rica is really popular for eco-tourism,” Matt said. “So, we had to find spots that were still in the wild; we had to try a little harder and to go to some of these hike-in locations.”

Overall, the working conditions were much easier. The humidity was much less, so there were no issues with the mics, and they had ready access to electricity since there was never a time that they were so remote for weeks on end.

THE SOUNDS

In the Amazon, the wildlife is omnipresent. Starting with the insects, which “were loud and cacophonous,” Matt describes them, filling up all the hours with a barrage on the ear drums, which was hard for sleeping but great for recording. “There’s a layering of different insects there that is amazing, and when you look at the spectrogram, you can actually see all the different layers of insects that are happening simultaneously,” he continues.

“One of my favorite sounds is of the howler monkeys in the distance. I have some really close, intense recordings too, but there’s some really spacious and distant ones as well. They kind of make this eerie croaking and howling sound that reverberates through the jungle, it’s kind of spooky. But it’s an amazing sound.

“In Costa Rica, we estimated that we recorded over 90 species of birds in one, lowland location. So just the bird life was incredible… there would be toucans that would sit and come to one tree and start chirping from there. And scarlet macaws, the same way, would start with silence and fly in and do their thing for a while and then fly out. It’s really raucous and crazy.

“One of my favorite sounds from the whole collection is the dusk in the coastal jungle. There’re one or two dusk files, and there’s just a spaciousness to them. You can hear the distant pounding of the waves on the shore and the monkeys and birds. It’s just a really peaceful recording.”

TROPICAL JUNGLE

Matt’s adventures, from navigating through flaming roadblocks and enduring long canoe rides to overcoming technical challenges amidst torrential rain, highlight the dedication and perseverance required to capture these pristine audio moments. Collaborating with the Indigenous Cofán tribe not only provided invaluable guidance but also fostered a deep appreciation for their profound knowledge of the environment.

In result of Matt’s hard work, we’re able to present TROPICAL JUNGLE, a collection of 123 files (246 including the stereo) of amazing, authentic jungle environments. And during the first two weeks, until June 4th, 2024, we’re offering our introductory 20% off, so get your copy today!

The Demos