Wildlife and nature sounds recorded with Telinga parabolic reflector

On my recent expedition to Kenya, I was working on a couple of wildlife sound recording projects. I needed clear sounds of animals with little to no background sound that could be used in films, video games and other media as sound design elements. If you've been listening to my work for a while, you know I'm very fond of lush natural ambiences with plenty of place acoustics. Incidentally, wildlife would call close to my mics and I've made many clean recordings this way, but it was not my main focus previously.

On this trip I planned several approaches, one of which I'm illustrating in this soundscape recording. I had used parabolic reflectors in the past - in fact the first video uploaded to this channel is a shot of me walking in Scotland with an old Telinga. As a result, I was already aware of their advantages and limitations. I reached out to Telinga and they agreed to offer me one of their new modular dishes that had just been released, which I'm very grateful for. In exchange I agreed to test their beta foam that they're making for use with two lav mics.

Normally I would use a cardioid microphone inside the dish for added directionality. With two side-by-side lavaliers and a baffle between them, I was able to capture something between the overly directional sound of the parabolic and a wide stereo configuration. It's definitely not on the same level as a pair of spaced omnis, but it offers a bit more than what a single microphone would.

I've actually talked to several recordists who said they're not too fond of mono wildlife or nature recordings, and I feel the same way. Mono recordings might be great for sound design, but I wouldn't listen to an hour-long recording captured with only one mono microphone. I think Telinga managed to work around this issue with the new beta foam while still offering the possibility of recording with a directional microphone in the dish. More importantly, I was still able to record those focused bird calls that I needed for my projects.

One thing to keep in mind is that, as with any other parabolic, its size will affect the frequencies you can effectively capture directionally. While you'll still be able to record low frequency sounds if the sources are close to the microphones, you'll only be able to capture mid to high frequencies coming from more than a few meters. This is physics and you could technically record a deep elephant bellow if you had a big enough parabola, but that would have to be a few meters in diameter to work. At its current size, the Telinga modular can reliably capture bird calls above a certain frequency at a distance (and even mammal calls that are higher in pitch such as the sounds that hyraxes make).

Probably my least favourite aspect is the fact that you can hear a slight filtering effect. This doesn't always happen, but in this situation there were a lot of flies and other insects buzzing around, and some of these frequencies sound a bit too thin as a result of the limited frequency in the directional pickup of the dish. It doesn't bother me too much but it's worth mentioning.

I enjoyed using the Telinga Modular on this expedition and I managed to capture some excellent bird calls that would have taken much more work to get with regular mics. It was easy to carry, light but surprisingly sturdy so I plan to take it on other expeditions too. It's a versatile and useful tool in my sound recordist kit. To find out more about it check their website: https://www.telinga.com/products/pro-...

Recorded with Sony PCM A10, Lom mikroUsi and Telinga Modular. Enjoying the videos I upload on here? Feel free to support me by:
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