Last year, I made a short video featuring the Thermal Sounds of Yellowstone.
This fall, I attempted to recreate parts of that video in 3D and stereo sound (rather than the monaural recording of last year).
Here are some samples of what I recorded this year, both uploaded to the blog as MP3 files:
- 2012YellowstoneDragonsMouth – the Dragon’s Mouth thermal vent/geyser inside a short cave at the Mud Geyser Basin.
- 2012YellowstonePaintPots – the sound of the Artist’s Paint Pots
- 2012YellowstoneBlueMud – the Blue Mud Steam Vent sounds like a washing machine!
Recording sound is hard work. First, I needed to be out early – or late – to avoid the crowds and people talking and walking on the boardwalks, making noise. Second, even then I often had to wait for quite some time until the area was free of visitors (fortunately, not all visitors are noisy so sometimes I recorded when people were nearby!). Third, to get sound like this I used two 18 inch long shot gun mics, through a Beachtek audio mixer, and then into my little Canon HF M301 consumer camcorders (set up for 3D).
A photo of the set up looks like this – two shot guns on top (home made wind muffs), the Beachtek mixer, attached to a mostly home made 3D camera mount. Click on the image for a larger photo. While bulky, this set up is not very heavy – carrying it mostly means not constantly bumping the mics into tree branches while hiking on the trails!