Field recording – Daan Hendriks

Black River Sweden: field recording trip

July 9, 2018/0 Comments/in Field recording, Wildlife & nature sound /by Daan

Anyone who likes to go out into Western European nature for sound recording or listening knows that finding good sites can be a challenge – air traffic and road noise, human overpopulation and wildlife underpopulation; the frustrations are familiar.

But for me, the allure of Sweden as a recording destination has always been strong: I imagined endless forests, a low density of humans and noise, plus a healthy mix of wildlife for European standards. And learning about the Black River sound recording trip, which had its inception in 2017 and was now due for its second instalment in April 2018, I finally had a good opportunity to see and hear it for myself.

Browsing their site, I immediately took a liking to their down-to-earth approach: just join them to a special part of Swedish nature which they know well, and make up your own plan while you’re there. Rent a bike or canoe, or just hike and discover sounds and good recording spots by yourself. And in between these bits of exploration, they will take you to sites deep in the forest and soggy bogs where unique and delicate wildlife events are taking place that time of year. Specifically for April, that meant the western capercaillie and black grouse “leks”: the mating rituals where males try their hardest to impress the ladies.

Sound recording roadtrip through Uganda

June 7, 2018/0 Comments/in Field recording, Wildlife & nature sound /by Daan

It had been over a year since I had last been to Africa for sound recording, and it started to itch. I poured over maps, dreamed up plans, made a few half starts and eventually settled on visiting Uganda for a three weeks field recording trip. I wanted to experience the same freedom as in 2015, when I drove through and camped in Botswana and Namibia, recording whenever I could.

Why choose Uganda? It is a relatively small country that with its great variety of nature is almost a miniature sub-Saharan Africa, offering dense rainforests, expansive grassland savannas and spectacular mountain ranges. It is a top African birding destination, and right now the best country to see mountain gorillas in the wild.

And while not exactly cheap, Uganda is relatively affordable yet not as touristy as neighbouring countries Kenya and Tanzania. So the question to me quickly became: why not choose Uganda?

Recording lions and chimps in Spain

November 11, 2017/0 Comments/in Field recording, Wildlife & nature sound /by Daan

Spain isn’t precisely the first country that would jump to mind when thinking of big cats and great apes, but nevertheless I recently went there to get some high quality, close up recordings of lions and chimpanzees. I was given permission to spend a day at the most excellent wildlife refuge centre Primadomus, the Spanish headquarters of the Dutch foundation Stichting AAP. AAP/Primadomus rescue animals, in particular primates and big cats, rehabilitate them and either find them a new home or let them live out their days at AAP/Primadomus’s generous facilities.

I normally try to record animals in their natural environment, in the wild so to speak. I think there are a lot of unique calls and interactions that can only be observed and recorded that way. But the flip side of recording in the wild is that unpredictability is huge, so you need a lot of time and a healthy dose of calculated luck. Being granted permission to spend a day in close proximity to species as vocal as chimpanzees and lions was a great way for me to get some recordings I would otherwise struggle to get.

One of the two generously sized chimp enclosures. There are also separate areas for other primates, and the big cats.

SONIC MMABOLELA – a report for fellow sound designers/recordists

March 21, 2017/6 Comments/in Field recording, Wildlife & nature sound /by Daan

When I first read about Sonic Mmabolela, I knew immediately that this was something I wanted to partake in. A two week sound recording workshop/residency held at a private game reserve in South Africa, rented out in its entirety for the sole purpose of recording and thus promising minimal outside interference – it’s a field recordist’s dream come true. And further reading of its description, plus the fact that it is organised by renowned sound artists Francisco Lopez and Barbara Ellison, promised that this was going to be thematically quite different from other recording workshops out there, which tend to focus a lot on the technical side of things.

Pictures from a previous year of Sonic Mmabolela

I had many reasons to join up, but chief among them were a longing to go back to the African continent for more sound recording, and a growing interest in sound art. I was curious to learn from people who work as independent sonic artists and perhaps find a new outlet for my love of recording sounds of the natural environment and its wildlife.

All that being said, the biggest draw was simply to go out and spend two weeks of non-stop recording in the bush. If nothing else, perhaps I could gather enough material to release another African wildlife themed library. And so it happened that I found myself at the end of November of 2016 as one of the participants in that year’s Sonic Mmabolela.

Sound recording & camping in the African wilderness – Part 2: Namibia & South Africa

September 2, 2015/0 Comments/in Field recording, Wildlife & nature sound /by Daan

Read part I about recording & camping in Botswana here

Namibia is a land of extremes: huge empty deserts with glowing red sand dunes and rock formations shaped as if placed by giants, a wild coastline littered with shipwrecks, whale carcasses and immense seal colonies, lakes and salt pans attracting all the wildlife that you’d expect from an African country, and lush green tree and shrub savanna in the Caprivi strip bordering Botswana, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Its natural extremities not withstanding, this is a country easily traversed by car, boasting endless straight-lined gravel roads through its vast expanses of nothingness and national parks. Unlike Botswana, a 4×4 vehicle is for many areas not even a necessity, though having one opens up parts of the country that would otherwise be inaccessible. As for our trip specifically, we only needed the 4-wheel drive engaged on a couple of trails in Namib-Naukluft national park.

Sound recording & camping in the African wilderness – Part I: Botswana

August 23, 2015/3 Comments/in Field recording, Wildlife & nature sound /by Daan

Take a look at this image, a screenshot of worldwide flight traffic taken from a random visit to the Flightradar website.
What do you see?

Likely, your eye will be drawn to the insane clusters of air traffic that obscure those parts of the map where the United States, Asia and Western Europe lie; the latter being where I generally call home. But go down from Europe to Africa, and we are greeted by space, emptiness, a lovely void of air traffic.

While a few airplanes dot the skies over southern and eastern Africa, seeing this image late 2014 reinforced my will to visit the southern part of the continent, and bring my microphones with me. The never-ending cacaphony of anthropophonic noise in Western Europe, caused by continuous overflying air planes, highway drones and general overpopulation is without a doubt one of my main annoyances – not just as a sound recordist, but as a human being. I crave for a degree of quiet and solitude, for a place that is wilder and more real than the perfectly cut grassy fields and micromanaged spaces that we call ‘natural parks’ in Europe and the UK.

And so I flew down in March 2015, to first spend a couple of months in Zimbabwe, learning about the environment and recording as much wildlife and nature sound as I could, about which I have already quite extensively written & shared recordings of on this site.

After my time there, I flew to Johannesburg in May to meet up with my girlfriend and pick up a rented Toyota Hilux, equipped with all the tools and toys for a few weeks of camping, self-drive game drives and sound recording in the nature of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.

The car, as we picked it up
Still nice and clean and with everything intact.
Camp fires were made every night
Sometimes to cook, and always to keep the wildlife at bay.
My mics were placed on top of the car
For overnight recording, as long as there were no baboons roosting nearby.
Another shot of the mics on top of the car
The recorder was normally inside the tent, allowing for monitoring overnight.
A typical camp site
This was taken in Moremi, Okavango Delta, Botswana