Jungle of Central America : Colombia / Costa Rica – WILDERNESS AMERICAS

Wilderness Americas : Central American Jungle is a collection of sounds captured in the different Tropical Forests of central America across many countries. For this first chapter, we will focus on : North Colombia and Costa Rica.

This library focus on the wildlife and wilderness sounds of the different type of forest encountered across these countries : rainforest, cloud forest, montane tropical forest, Tropical Dry Broadleaf Forest, primal forest, bamboo forest, etc.
As you can see there is not just one type of jungle or forest, but rather a multitude of very different ecosystems that we have tried to record.

In this places, the ecological variety is quite stunning and preserved. Maybe because there is few people and maybe because of the weather conditions who are very rude for human (and audio equipment : extrem humidity, rain and heat don’t works great with microphones and recorders.)
We have selected audio gear for this purpose : tropicalized microphones : sennheiser MKH 8020 and MKH 8040-30 series in a surround configuration + world known recorder : Sound devices Mixpre10T. We have taken also a humidity proof microphone basket (Cinela)
This weather proof setup permit us to record even under tropical rains. (We have also a special mic cover which reduce the sound of rain drop on the microphone basket)

We have always focus on places, where they protect and respect the wilderness.
-> We went record in this different places : In north Colombia, around Minca inside the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, where you evolve inside a Montane Tropical Forest at 3000 m altitude, but also in a lonely valley near the Cocora valley region.In Costa Rica, we met the primal tropical forest, in the Osa Peninsula and the Corcovado National Park : The ecological variety of this place is quite stunning. National Geographic has called it “the most biologically intense place on Earth in terms of biodiversity”. We also went to the Monteverde region to meet the cloud forest, who is a hight altitude tropical forest, where the cloud meet the tropical forest. We also explored the biological reserve “Lomas Barbudal” which is a “Tropical Dry Broadleaf Forest” and finish our journey near the Arenal volcano.

To sum up:

In Colombia we were around Minca, in the montane tropical forest, we spend more than two weeks, recording birds and animals inside the forest.
In Colombia we were in a parallel lonely valley of the famous Cocora Valley, also in the montane tropical forest.
In Costa Rica we were inside the Corcovado National Park, we spend here one week, exploring this protected area, nights and days inside the primal rainforest.
In Costa Rica we were in the cloud forest inside the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.
In Costa Rica We were inside the “Biological Reserve Lomas Barbudal“, inside the dry broadleaf tropical forest, looking for spider and howler monkeys.
In Costa Rica we were freely explore the Arenal region.

We have used “sound trap” technics for long and immersive recording :
we have hide microphones and protect recorder in a waterproof bag and let it for days and night in the middle of the tropical forests (usualy 24 hours non stop recording).
This system allow us to record the sunrise, dawn chorus, and sunset, time where the animals are more active.

Here is some animals we have recorded :

Exotics Birds and more especially : parrots, parakeet, macaw, toucan, woodpecker, Oropendola, cacique, humming-bird, etc.
Insects and more especially : cricket, cicada, bumblebee, etc.
Mammal : spider monkeys, howler monkey, brown monkeys, etc.
Amphibien : frogs, toads

We have record using a surround setup (Sennheiser DMS (Double M/S)) using 3 mic capsules
The DMS signal can be decode in many different format (5.0, stereo (XY/ORTF/AB), mono, binaural). for decode it you can simply use your DAW or for more convenient the Harpex plugin or the free Shoeps DMS plugin.
With the DMS you can adjust the stereo spread/imaging, or even make rotation in the surround pan field.
In some few cases, with have record with a parabola dish + Sennheiser MKH 8020. (animals)

Each sound recording are located with GPS coordinate and a full soundminer metadata.

–The Full sound bank (Stereo + Surround) contains 114 sound takes record in 24/96khZ (Total length : 661 minutes) and decline in 330 files