Water Exploration

These sounds were recorded over 3 years in southern Australia.

It comprises ambience and atmosphere recordings of beach waves, forest streams, rivers, a dripping cave system and even a sewage processing plant (The Poo Machine!!). There are also Hydrophone recordings of urban swamp insect life, jetties and water treatment systems. Many of the recordings offer multiple perspectives of the same subject from close up to distant.

They were all recorded using Sennheiser, DPA, Sanken and Soundfield Mics as well as a pair of Hydrophones. All recorded into Sound Devices 788 or 633 recorders.

The recordings were mixed to stereo with minimal post processing.

Most files are loopable. And great care was taken to record clean sounds that are useable in an edit.

I hope you enjoy and find these useful for you projects.

The Beach sounds were recorded on the Mornington Penunsula in Victoria Australia. The waves range from gentle currents lapping at the sand to heavy surf waves. Different perspectives from close to distant were recorded to give greater flexibility when editing. These were recorded using a pair of supercardioid mics.

The cave recordings were captured at the Yarrangobilly caves in the Kosciuszko National Park, they feature a continuously dripping soundscape. The entrance to one of the caves is a large cavern with part of the roof caved in. In this space birds dart around and water drips. Further into the cave there is just the continual dripping of water. These were recorded using a spaced pair of Omni mics to give a sense of space and a centre hypercardiod to pick some detailed drips.

Also captured at Kosciuszko National Park are some recordings of rain and wind gusts through trees. I was able to place the microphones and recorders into protected rock formation and leave them recording for hours on end. 

A pair of hydrophones was used to explore an urban water treatment project at the Trin Warren Tam-boore (Bellbird Waterhole) The wetland has been designed to treat water from the surrounding area through natural biological processes.  It provides water to irrigation systems for the Royal Park Golf Course and other sporting grounds in Royal Park.

I was able to record pumped water flow as well as a symphony of underwater insects. The insects probably included Backswimmers and Dragonfly larvae, often called ‘mudeyes’, amongst others.

The streams and rivers were recorded in both country New South Wales and Victoria. Most of these recordings were captured using Soundfield Microphones, the ST450 Mk2 as well as the SPS200. There is a variety of fast flowing, gentle, close up and distant. As well as a ’study on fishing from a tin boat’. No fish were caught.!!

And finally a machine. A sewage treatment plant gives us a great slopping, mixing sludge sound.

I hope you enjoy these sounds.