Audio Recording

Stan Courtney’s Sasquatch LIstening Project – 2 CD Set

Stan Courtney’s “The Sasquatch Listening Project” is a nine year recording project using remote audio recorders to continuously monitor sites with a history of sasquatch activity.

These 2 cd’s (a total of 150 minutes) include all sound files of possible sasquatch recorded from 2005 to 2013.  Included  with this set are “Night Sounds” of various common birds and animals frequently mistaken for sasquatch.

A special thank you to Alex Evans for her amazing drawing of “The Call”.

The price for the 2 CD set is $30.

While listening to the CD’s you can follow along and access the accompanying blogs for most of the sounds by clicking on the blog link,  which will take you to discussion, background information as well as spectrograms of the sound clips.

The index to the 2 CD’s is found here:  Sasquatch Listening Project – CD 1 & 2 – Notes

By |2019-07-29T14:29:31-05:00March 22nd, 2014|Audio Recording|7 Comments
Read More

Free Sound Editors

The following list is of free sound editors. I have not used many of them. Most programs have their individual strengths and weaknesses. Professionals typically use several different editors.

Sound editing is a very important aspect of field recording. I typically record 24/7 which necessarily means that the sound files are very large. The newest editions of sound editing software allows the user to review sound files both visually and audibly. After isolating sound clips they can then be filtered to eliminate extraneous noise.

The two biggest factors to remember with sound editing are:

1. The closer to the sound source the less filtering that is necessary.

2. The higher the quality of the recorder and microphone eliminates the need for sound manipulation.

Sound editors are so numerous that I can not list them all or try them all out to give a fair evaluation. The following is a list of the most popular brands, includes links to the products as well as forums that deal with using each specific editor.

Sound editors span the gamut from free to very expensive.

——————————————————————————————————————

Ardour

——————————————————————————————————————

Audacity

——————————————————————————————————————

Audiobook Cutter

——————————————————————————————————————

Cool MP3 Splitter

——————————————————————————————————————

DJ Audio Editor

——————————————————————————————————————

Ecawave

——————————————————————————————————————

Eisenkraut

——————————————————————————————————————

Expstudio Audio Editor

——————————————————————————————————————

Free Audio Editor

——————————————————————————————————————

FREE WAVE MP3 Editor

——————————————————————————————————————

Hydrogen

——————————————————————————————————————

Jokosher

——————————————————————————————————————

Kangas Sound Editor

——————————————————————————————————————

LMMS

——————————————————————————————————————

Mp3DirectCut

——————————————————————————————————————

Mp3Splt

——————————————————————————————————————

Music Editor Free

——————————————————————————————————————

Power Sound Editor

——————————————————————————————————————

Qtractor

——————————————————————————————————————

ReZound

——————————————————————————————————————

Rosegarden

——————————————————————————————————————

Sound Engine

——————————————————————————————————————

Sweep

——————————————————————————————————————

Traverso DAW

——————————————————————————————————————

WavePad Sound Editor

——————————————————————————————————————

Wavesurfer

——————————————————————————————————————

Wavosaur

——————————————————————————————————————

By |2012-04-29T09:23:51-05:00April 29th, 2012|Audio Recording|Comments Off on Free Sound Editors
Read More

The Banger

One of the more commonly reported sounds is wood knocking. Now whether wood knocking also includes vocalizations, hand slapping or rock clacking is open to debate.

Another type of knocking or banging heard in the woods is what sounds to be banging as if on metal.

From the book Gorilla Behavior by Terry L Maple and Michael P Hoff  (Van Nostrand Rheinhold Co., New York: 1982 ) we read on page 197,

“In captivity, as we have seen gorillas incorporate the built environment into their aggressive displays. They will drum, pound, and kick against any surface that reverberates the sound. Their use of the environment to create noise may be seen as a kind of tool use, and in gorillas the behavior is clearly an extension of their natural chest-beating display.”

Chest-beating has also been reported from this location. Using a remote recorder I recorded the following sounds on the night of the 30th of March 2011.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Metal Banging 2 

Waveform View

Spectral View

Each one of the ten bangs is very short and at a distance, therefore the signature on the photo above is small.  There is old farm equipment close by so perhaps something was banging on it.

By |2011-04-08T09:13:53-05:00April 8th, 2011|Audio Recording, My Research|2 Comments
Read More

The Sniffer

On the 30th of March 2011 I recorded something sniffing and checking out my recorder at my main research area. Now when I place out remote recorders they are usually an object of interest by the forest critters. Most of the time I assume it is raccoons, possums or even field mice.

This audio was a little different and made me wonder if it wasn’t something a little larger. It had a long approach getting to the recorder and leaving. Also heard are several different types of owls, coyotes and the long rumble of a train. I could not filter at all because it would lose those lower sounds. The best way to listen to this sound is with headphones and the volume turned up. Although the subject was very close to the microphone the noises it made were very subtle. Is this the same way gamecams are inspected, by coming up slowly and and staying out of the front of the camera? It would be interesting to have audio recordings on those gamecams that have revealed out-of-focus fringes of hair around the edges of the vision of field.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Sniffer 1

Waveform View

Spectral View

Location of the recorder placed underneath a log. As the small recorder was not visible to any casual passer-by my hunch is that it was detected by the animal having smelled it. None of the leaves appeared to have been moved so I would think that what ever was inspecting the recorder was careful not to touch either the recorder or the leaves that were close to it.

By |2011-04-02T11:59:39-05:00April 2nd, 2011|Audio Recording, My Research|10 Comments
Read More

Woman Screaming, Pt. 2

I received the following comment from Bobby concerning my last post Woman Screaming. Since my reply was a little bit long I thought I would make a second blog post.

————————————————————————————————————————————

Stan,
With all due respect and in your case my respect for you is immense. I respectfully gotta call you out on this one. Your saying that it’s 50/50 because theres no film/vid of a cougar making this sound?

————————————————————————————————————————————

Bobby,
Thanks for the comment.

I have never said that any sound that I have recorded or anyone else has recorded is a sasquatch. To my knowledge there are no videos publicly available showing a sasquatch making a vocalization and accepted by science as doing so.

Now with respect to cougars sounding like a “woman screaming.”

Let’s look at my Guidelines for Sound Identification.

Guidelines for Sound Identificaiton – # 1

I am unaware of a sound file of sufficient quality of a cougar sounding like a “woman screaming” to use for analysis. I may be wrong and hopefully someone has a sound file that they would share or a url  of an existing sound file on the internet that fits this description. Perhaps a university somewhere has one in their collection and we just don’t have access to it.

Guidelines for Sound Identificaiton – # 2

I have spoken with several people who say “Well, I have seen cougar tracks in these woods, or I have seen cougar in this area, therefore that sound must be from a cougar.”

Guidelines for Sound Identificaiton – # 3

And lastly we just don’t have a sound clip fitting the description of a “woman screaming”.

I have seen two tawny cougar and two black panthers here in Central Illinois since 2004. I have been recording continuously since the spring of 2006. No one would be more thrilled than myself to record a cougar in the wild.

Here are a few sites with cougar vocalizations:

Jungle Walk – Cougar

Partners In Rhyme -Big Cats

Paws On Line – Feline Sounds

Pictures of Cats – Cougar

Soundboard – Cougar

So please, if anyone knows of any additional websites with cougar vocalizations or of a video showing a cougar sounding like a “woman screaming” please let me know.

By |2011-02-05T16:12:25-06:00February 5th, 2011|Audio Recording|2 Comments
Read More

Night Sounds, Pt 8 – Human

And finally probably the most difficult sounds to separate from possible bigfoot / sasquatch sounds are of course human. Obviously there is no need to post typical human sounds but in an upcoming series of posts I will provide some sound files that don’t seem to fit into the human category.

My wife Vickie and myself enjoying a campfire with squatchin’ friends in West Virginia.

By |2010-10-13T14:45:38-05:00October 13th, 2010|Audio Recording|2 Comments
Read More

Guidelines for Sound Identification

One area of purported evidence for the existence of bigfoot / sasquatch is vocalizations. Many recordings of varying quality are available either on the internet or by retail sales.

One problem with sound identification is that to my knowledge there are no publicly available videos showing a sasquatch making a vocalization.

So for the sake of clarity I have drawn up what I call three “Guidelines for Sound Identification”.  I would consider this a sort of “rules of engagement” when discussing possible sasquatch sounds.

If anyone has any ideas for what should be added or changed please let me know. I would like this to be a collaborative effort among those serious researchers who concentrate on audio recording.

Comments are welcome.

Guideline # 1

“To identify a sound as belonging to a certain species requires an audio recording of sufficient quality and volume to be analyzed in sound editing software. The sound must then be compared to a sound recording of a known species. A poor quality recording that has been distorted with bad filtering techniques is next to worthless.”

Two examples of poor quality sound recordings, due to the poor field recording equipment available 30 years ago.

1973 Whoop-Howl from Puyallup, Washington

1978 Whoop-Howl from Snohomish County, Washington

Two examples of better quality sound recordings.

2006 - Illinois howl

2009 – Colorado Howl

Guideline # 2

“A soundscape is made up many sounds coming from various sources. The unknown sound does not necessarily belong to any of the predominent sounds. Just because you hear a cow or a coyote does not mean that all the sounds recorded are of cows or coyotes.”

Example # 1 The following sounds can be heard on this two minute clip – dogs, coyote, Illinois Howl, dog howling, wild turkey.

Illinois Howl – 4 Apr 2006

Example # 2 – The following sounds can be heard on this two minute clip – coyote ,  cattle,  Illinois howl, dog, cattle, coyote, dogs.

Illinois Howl – 12 Apr 2006

Guideline # 3

“To illustrate a point about a sound you need to be able to produce a sound clip that matches your example. Don’t say ‘I hear that sound all the time’ but then be unable to produce a recording.”

By |2010-10-06T18:37:58-05:00October 6th, 2010|Audio Recording|Comments Off on Guidelines for Sound Identification
Read More

Night Sounds, Pt 7 – Cattle

Some researchers may think it strange that I would include cattle sounds as being mistaken for sasquatch.  Several times I have had witnesses contact me about recordings they have obtained that they wanted my opinion of the sounds. When I listened my answer was that it was a bull bellowing. Neither witness was familiar with cattle and were not aware of how deep and loud a bull’s bellows can be. These bellows can be very deep, repetitive and carry a great distance.   Neither witness was happy with my answer and wanted to argue, although both areas had cattle grazing in fields close by.

Belle sizing up a range bull in New Mexico.

The following sound clip is of my neighbor’s bull.   Click here for: bull bellowing

This bull is about a half mile north of where I live, I need to get the microphone closer for a decent recording.

File # 20 – 2011.06.03_Cattle_04.mp3
File # 19 – 2011.06.03_Cattle_03.mp3
File # 18 – 2011.06.03_Cattle_02.mp3
File # 17 – 2011.06.03_Cattle_01.mp3
File # 16 – 2011.06.01_Cattle_01.mp3
File # 15 – 2011.05.31_Cattle_03.mp3
File # 14 – 2011.05.31_Cattle_02.mp3
File # 13 – 2011.05.31_Cattle_01.mp3
File # 12 – 2011.05.17_Cattle_01.mp3
File # 11 – 2011.05.16_Cattle_03.mp3
File # 10 – 2011.05.16_Cattle_02.mp3
File # 09 – 2011.05.16_Cattle_01.mp3
File # 08 – 2010.10.22_Cattle_04.mp3
File # 07 – 2010.10.22_Cattle_03.mp3
File # 06 – 2010.10.18_Cattle_02.mp3
File # 05 – 2010.10.18_Cattle_01.mp3
File # 04 – 2010.10.18_Cattle_03.mp3
File # 03 – 2010.10.18_Cattle_02.mp3
File # 02 – 2010.10.18_Cattle_01.mp3
File # 01 – 2010.08.31_Cattle_01.mp3

Copyright 2004-2010 by Stan Courtney. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

By |2010-09-17T19:20:59-05:00September 17th, 2010|Audio Recording|1 Comment
Read More

Night Sounds, Pt 6 – Wolves

Historically the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) was widespread throughout most of North America. Although government sources say wolves were eliminated from Illinois by 1860, newspaper articles show that wolves were still being killed in Illinois as late as 1930.

With wolves having been reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995 wild wolves are spreading out into different states.  Northern Minnesota has also been one of the last havens for wild wolves in the lower 48.  There have been several reports for Illinois.

I have seen wild wolves in Yellowstone and with spending extended visits in wilderness areas out West I hope one day to get audio recordings.

In September of 2009 I spent the morning touring the Wolf Education & Research Center located in Winchester, Idaho

This is Randy Stewart, Education Coordinator, for the facility.

Copyright 2004-2010 by Stan Courtney. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

By |2010-09-12T15:06:18-05:00September 12th, 2010|Audio Recording|Comments Off on Night Sounds, Pt 6 – Wolves
Read More

Night Sounds, Pt 5 – Cougar

 

(Photo courtesy Valerie Abbott)

Cougar (Puma concolor), including black panthers, are fairly commonly seen in Illinois.  I am assuming black panthers are a melanistic color phase of the cougar. My purpose here is not to delve into the political aspects of these wonderful animals but provide information about possible misidentification of their vocalizations.

There is something in the woods of Illinois that screams. What that animal is can only be sorted out by comparing recordings with known animals. Although I have had four sightings of cougar in Central Illinois,  I have yet to get a good recording.

For  a previous post about cougar please see: Big Cat Crossing

Other articles concerning Illinois cougars include:

Cougar Watch

The beast of the bluffs.

Wildcat scare keeps Palmyra pupils inside / DNR officials doubt it

I am doing recordings in several areas with frequent cougar sightings so I hope to have sound files of these large cats posted soon.

Copyright 2004-2010 by Stan Courtney. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

By |2010-09-10T08:33:00-05:00September 10th, 2010|Audio Recording|2 Comments
Read More
Toggle Sliding Bar Area

This Is A Custom Widget

This Sliding Bar can be switched on or off in theme options, and can take any widget you throw at it or even fill it with your custom HTML Code. Its perfect for grabbing the attention of your viewers. Choose between 1, 2, 3 or 4 columns, set the background color, widget divider color, activate transparency, a top border or fully disable it on desktop and mobile.

This Is A Custom Widget

This Sliding Bar can be switched on or off in theme options, and can take any widget you throw at it or even fill it with your custom HTML Code. Its perfect for grabbing the attention of your viewers. Choose between 1, 2, 3 or 4 columns, set the background color, widget divider color, activate transparency, a top border or fully disable it on desktop and mobile.
Go to Top