Slowed down blackbird + tawny owl = deep sea chorus

Slowing down recordings, yes we have all done it, but would I ever get bored of it? I slow down sounds to my heart’s content. It is like Christmas every time – what wondrous goofy or awe-inspiring sonic textures lay beyond the pitching down of this here sound? Those are the sort of questions I heroically and relentlessly seek answers to.

Here is a recording I made of a blackbird doing what it does best, sitting on a tree branch singing its guts out, showing off and telling all other nearby songbirds how it’s done.

And this here is a male tawny owl hooting wistfully from a perch to a distant female.

Now what happens when we slow these recordings down and combine them?


In the playlist below there’s two audio files. The first briefly showcases what both animals sound like when slowed down by 48 semitones (4x slower). The second file is a short & simple composition of both the slowed down tawny owl and blackbird combined, which kind of sounds like a massive lonely, melancholic sea creature or two. No fancy editing or fx processing going on here, just a quick slowdown of two recordings, some EQ and then just layered on top of each other.

Now ain’t that lovely, old chums.

I would recommend good headphones or good monitors to appreciate the booming bass produced by the slowed down tawny owl.

 


 

The picture I use at the top of this blog post is of (or at least associated with) Noc the Beluga whale, who did the news rounds a few years ago as a ‘talking whale’ imitating the sound of humans. Listen to Noc doing his thing below…

 

 

Though certainly remarkable sounds, I am not sure how this kazoo-gone-mad could fool anyone into thinking it is human speech, but then again I have never been to Maine, which accent this whale adopted, according to one researcher.

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