Nature Sounds CD's

Two more producers worthy of investigation are Jean Roche(with 70 nature recordings) and Lang Elliott. My apologies to other producers of quality not yet purchased and named.

A perfect binaural recording would sound odd in stereo so most binaural recordings have blended sound fields to get a compromise effect.

Since the content is timeless, a CD may be reissued with updated covers or with different ownership.

Over time, nature sounds will become historic documents because of species extinction, global warming, deforestation, urban expansion, drought, etc. The location may be destroyed but we can still hear it.

The limited combinations of words like NATURE NATURAL SOUNDS REFERENCE SEA OCEAN RAINFOREST SERIES etc creates identical titles with completely different contents.

Don't bother purchasing in mall record shops. You will have more luck in the throwout bins, pawn shops, thrift shops, eBay, Amazon, etc. Look in the ambient/new age category.

Eventually you will become discerning and start discarding. I suggest starting the absurd like whales singing to orchestra; the impossible like an orchestra in the rain; the out of context like wolves in a jazzclub; the doodling of free-range musicians; the insulting of maestros like Bach at the beach; the overlay of classic warhorses in inappropriate settings (Pachelbel Canon is common), etc.

If you like the music, then I suggest you go to the sources of high-quality ambient music like Windham Hill.

The pocket -size solid-state recorders enable anyone to make quality field recordings. In the good old days, Dan Gibson had ‘on location’ a suitcase for the tape recorder, box for the lead batteries and amplifiers, plus a huge reel of microphone cables. He needed a team of porters.

I have read of two CDs (insects crawling/eating under bark and bats in flight). Not sure if the appeal is novelty (drilling holes for mikes) or overcoming technical difficulties (frequency division). If you can hear these sounds in nature, then you are qualified to write hi-fi equipment reviews.

I expected the growth of personal/headphone listening and decline in room-based hi-fi listening would encourage binaural recordings. Hint -there is a market, go record and sell. If you self-publish, the download market delivers instant gratification with ephemeral products. Collectors prefer stamped CDs with proper printed inserts (writing on both sides) using ink which doesn’t stick.

Noise pollution is everywhere. Acoustic ecology (lookup Gordon Hempton) is shamefully ignored. You have a responsibility to protect and preserve the natural sounds of this planet. Education and appreciation has to be supported by resources (nature sounds recordings).
Can I have your thoughts.

The music tracks on many (sounds+music) are often synthesiser based. These recordings are now a timescale of analogue and digital sampling evolution. The early CD synthesiser tracks are now unlistenable because they sound so primitive.

I have two CD where each producer has sampled animal noises and separated the sounds into tones. He then painstakingly spliced these tones together in a new order to make the animals sound like a human conversation was occurring.  A bit like dogs singing the happy birthday song on Youtube.  They call this creation art or a collage or sound tapestry.

Another CD has carefully sequenced natural sounds of birds (example penguins in water, jumping onto rocks, climbing the beach, greeting mate, feed chick, etc). Unfortunately,  the recordings were from different locations and even countries which question its authenticity.

This isn't an expensive hobby. The last CD went from list $26.95, sale $4, reduced $0.95, finally purchased for $1.25 in a thrift shop.

I have just been listening to five CDs from the Sounds of Nature” series by Chuck Plaisance and Suzanne Douchet. These are common, good value (cheap) and binaural. As an example: an amazon reviewer reported "Rolling Thunder" has human noises" (I reckon a TV) throughout. Its extremely low volume and not intrusive. I also hear occasional farmyard noises. The CD has no indexing (so you can't skip), headphone listeners have a drainpipe positioned next to the left ear, no lightning sounds, possibly some repetition of storms, and the dynamic range is compressed (thunder should sound like cannons firing). The alert reviewer says the same master tape was used for another CD in the same series. An unnecessary economy because thunderstorms are fairly common.

I purchased a mers&oceans CD by Fernand Deroussen.  The CD is binaural but not listed on his French language website ''naturophonia".  Fernand appears to record everything The first complete guide of sound stridulations of 55 species of grasshoppers of France, insects, animals, bird call compilations, local and overseas soundscapes, even has sounds to complement art exhibits. The sound bites are generous and the quality is excellent.  The links to other sites is particularly useful.