free range sounds
“Do you have an aux cable? Bluetooth?”
Whenever I’m asked about what I listen to while I drive, especially when I take on passengers in my truck, I never quite know how best to answer. Because, left to myself, I really don’t listen to anything in particular at all. I turn off the radio and listen to the road. To my truck. To the cars passing by. To the city. I’m not exactly sure when or why I do it, but I’m glad for it. There exists, I think, a magic in those sounds which compose our daily environments. Overexposure tends to disguise it but, still, they persist.
And I love to hear them.
Especially out on the trail, away from the city and deep in the topography of a place largely unknown to me. Field recording always comes with a long list of challenges, especially for the under-equipped, but having a fair amount of experience in fields in general, I’m always thrilled to find foley opportunities. So, I set out to the trails of Pedernales Falls State Park. Having not only grown up but also spent most of my life in Texas, I had a decent idea what my ears could expect — but that familiarity never diminishes my experience. As I made my way around the backcountry trails, handheld field recorder and microphone at my side, every time I stumbled into an interesting sonic environment or across something that grabbed my attention, I’d do my best to capture it.
If you think the biggest challenge to field recording is wind noise, you’re probably right. If you think the second biggest challenge to field recording is the battery life of your gear, you’re probably right. The biggest challenge I faced on my excursion though was how long it took my recorder to boot up. It’s definitely frustrating to find your gear 30 seconds late to the party, having missed something especially exciting, but the alternative is letting your gear run indeterminately in anticipation. And obviously there are ways to mitigate how judicious you have to be with your batteries — rechargeable battery packs, solar panels, multiple batteries — but when you’re trying to pack lightly or, as was my case, foley work is secondary to your objective, that’s the balance you have to figure out for yourself.
There exists, I think, a magic in those sounds which compose our daily environments.
Sometimes you can capture that perfect sound, sometimes all you can do is listen to it fade away and appreciate you heard it in the first place. I spent a good couple of hours around camp capturing snapshots as the evening slipped into night, and the taxing day caught up with my aching muscles. As I lay in my tent, watching the stars drift across the sky, the call of an Eastern Screech-Owl warbled in the dark. And all I could do was listen, and wonder what he was hearing.
In that regard, I think it’s like being a musician. On some days you’ll be struck with a melody, and reach for a piano or staff paper in time, and on others it's all you can do to simply watch it slip back in the ether. And I appreciate that about it, about both arts. There’s an ephemerality inherent to sound, and it makes it, I think, precious. And that struck me, enveloped by the nature I know, listening to the midday cicadas, and strikes me, listening back to that world through my headphones, as parallel. Beautiful things worth observing. Worth preserving. Worth noticing.
To find a sample pack of the sounds I recorded on this excursion, check out our royalty free sound collection!
