Greetings everyone! I’m pleased to announce that I’ve just published Yasuni Soundscapes, a fully-binaural, 30-minute narrated “3D binaural” podcast featuring 23 recordings I made in early November at Sani Lodge, in the Yasuni National Park region of Ecuador’s lowland Amazon rainforest. For a realistic surround sound experience, please listen using headphones!
In this immersive nature sound experience, I share my Amazon rainforest recording adventure, condensing nearly six days of field work into a reconstruction of a typical day of observing and listening. The soundscapes that are featured can indeed be experienced in a day. Not so with recording … it’s far easier to listen than to actually capture the soundscapes. I worked very hard, day and night, for my entire stay. I’m quite happy with the results, but I sure wish I could have extended my trip another week or two, so that I could sink more deeply into the spectacular Yasuni rainforest environment.
As an aside, the guides at Sani Lodge, all indigenous, were terrific. Not only did they know the sounds of virtually everything, they were also wonderful imitators, quite often singing back to the birds, for the sheer joy of it. I was humbled by the depth of their connection to their surroundings. Javier Hualinga, who was in charge of overseeing our stay, was of considerable help … he listened to my recordings and identified the main singers! Without his help, it would have taken me weeks to figure it all out.
Please let me know what you think of my podcast! And for more information about my trip, please check out my previous Ecuador or Bust blog post.
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Hi Lang: Listening to this again, and really am enjoying it. Want to talk to you about your equipment so I can better write about these wonderful recordings.
OMG wonderful! Makes one forget the virus!
Just fabulous. The narration and identification adds so much. Just got to this now and it sure sounds wonderful to hear all this rain forest life on a below zero night.
So beautiful!! Was in the Peruvian jungle at one point, these sounds, although not all the same, take me back there. Thankyou!
I was at the Sani lodge nearly 15 years ago. It was very new then, and arriving at dark and seeing the lights, meaning they have electricity, was really amazing after so much travel without electricity. I re-lived every moment of it through your podcast. Thank you
Susanne: So glad to hear that you liked it!
I could sense it coming just before I started to listen…I feel like I’m there, in the Amazon with the animals and sounds. I was right in the environment with them and I loved it. Beautiful and amazing. Thank you Lang.
Lily
You’re welcome Lily. That’s what’s so special about binaural recording … it transports the listener into wild nature … at least if it’s done correctly.
Merry Chritsmas and Happy New Year
Thank you Senen!
Loving this. It is so great to be told who is making the sounds. I assume you will have other edits without narration and longer chunks of soundscape? The night soundscapes are gorgeous.
Now I see that you have many other recordings from the trip uploaded to Soundcloud. Awesome.
Yes … and a playlist of recordings featured on my last blog post.
Love it! A real getaway for when you just can’t!
Thank you!
Wonderful stuff Lang, my first ‘foray’ into South American ‘wild-sounds’.
There are so many to choose from down there … like a candy store for amazing sounds. That said, the bird populations throughout the Amazon basin seem to be nose-diving, and not just in areas where the forest is being cut. That’s rather discouraging, for sure.
Horrible news 🙁
Loved listening to this podcast. Great compilation of Amazonia soundscapes!
Why thank you, Mr. Foster!
Oh, goody! I’m downloading the podcast now. Thank you so much for these lovely listening experiences.
: >) Let me know what you think of it. It took me nearly a week to put it together!
It’s absolutely splendid! I enjoyed hearing songs and sounds that were completely unfamiliar to me. And you put just enough delay before explaining that I also said to myself, “What is that?!” 🙂