The advent of digital audio has coincided with an explosion of field recordings, natural soundscapes witnessed and shaped by the skills of heroic recordists like Bernie Krause, and Chris Watson. Certainly field recording has a significant pre-digital history as well. But the portability, relatively silent operation, and long recording time made possible by digital equipment has transformed the documentation of audio in the wild. Krause, Watson and many others have traveled the world in the last thirty years, placing mics on the tops of glaciers and under the ocean, in rainforests and in deserts. The audio archives they have been creating are unlike anything made with analog equipment in the 20th century - when heavier machines, louder self-noise, and shorter recording times led to a greater focus on particular sounds, rather than the wide-open, multi-dimensional soundscapes captured today.
However, as Krause takes care …
