SOUND ADVENTURER
When an Aussie recording engineer traded metropolitan studio
life and headed for the hills of Tibet and Nepal, it was the
recording opportunity of a lifetime, as he tells Tim Goodyer
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU
found yourself temporarily short of
work, looking for a new place to live,
feeling restless, and generally bored
with city life? After reflecting on just
such a situation last year, Sydney-
based recording engineer Greg
Simmons sold off most of his
possessions, put the rest into
storage, and combined two of his
biggest passions – travelling and
recording.
Where to go? ‘There are many
exotic places in the world, but Tibet
has topped my list for a long time’,
says Simmons. ‘I’ll never forget the
first time I heard the harmonic
chanting of Tibetan monks. It was
one of David Lewiston’s classic
recordings from the early 1970s,
and I’ve been fascinated with the
sound ever since. I’m also very fond
of the sound of singing bowls, which
are found throughout the Himalaya
region, particularly in Nepal. So,
Tibet and Nepal seemed like good
places to start with.’
Simmons did not have any
recordings arranged before he left,
in fact, he wasn’t even sure of who
or what he was going to record. His
plan was to take a high-quality
recording rig, immerse himself in the
budget backpacker culture, and
make recordings during his travels –
an approach one acquaintance
dubbed ‘acousto-tourism’. The only
thing he knew for certain was that
the recordings were going to be
spontaneous – captured on the spot
as sonic ‘snapshots’. For this, he
was going to need a rig that could
be carried around all day and be
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ready to record at a moment’s
notice. However, it also had to be
capable of making 24-bit, 96k linear
PCM recordings, ruling out the ultra-
portable options of an MP3 or
MiniDisc recorder. Considering the
difficulties and expenses involved in
making these recordings, he wanted
them to be as future-proof as
possible. ‘I’ve always admired field-
recording pioneers like David
Lewiston and Alan Lomax,’ says
Simmons. ‘They carried basic but
rugged recording equipment into
distant and remote places and
came back with amazing recordings,
sometimes made under quite
adverse conditions. I figured that,
with the right equipment, I might be
able to do something similar.’
Portable recording technology has
come a long way since Lomax’ and
Lewiston’s early recordings. Gone
are the miniaturised reel-to-reel
recorders; in their place are highly-
refined portable hard-disk recorders
with less weight, greater recording
capacity, and considerably more
versatility. Simmons reckoned that it
would be possible to put a rugged
high-quality recording rig into a
sports backpack that could be
carried around all day, if necessary,
allowing him to capture whatever
sounds caught his attention. That
rig consisted of a Nagra V 24/96
hard-disk recorder, a Schoeps MS
microphone system with Rycote
windscreen, beyerdynamic
DT250/80 low-impedance
headphones, a Manfrotto 001
collapsible lightweight microphone
Recording the sounds of Bouddhanath Stupa, Kathmandu, Nepal. (Sherap Gyaltso)
stand, and two lengths of Mogami
2930 two-channel microphone cable
(1.5m and 20m). This all packed
snugly into a modified Targus
CV1001 sports backpack, initially
designed for carrying a laptop
computer and accessories. He
avoided the traditional PortaBrace
bags and Pelican cases because he
was travelling alone and didn’t want
to draw attention to himself. The
Targus bag allowed him to appear
much like any other traveller, rather
than a one-man recording team.
Furthermore, the entire rig remained
permanently connected, so making
a recording was as simple as
unzipping the bag, removing the
microphone rig and headphones,
and turning on the Nagra V (which
remained in the bag). For added
security he could wear the bag
reverse style, on his stomach, while
making a recording, thereby keeping
everything within his possession
and sight.
Simmons bought his Nagra V in
Clockwise from left: Recording in Lhasa;
Bitter cold challenged both recording
equipment and operator; The recording
kit ready to go.
Main pictures Alistair Bray
2003 and has nothing but praise for
it, repeatedly referring to it as
‘practically perfect and perfectly
practical’. With 10 hours of battery
life, a 40Gb removable hard drive,
high-quality microphone
preamplifiers and 24/96 capability,
he felt it was the obvious choice for
the job. The choice of microphones,
however, was not so easy. First there
was the question of which stereo
technique would be the most
appropriate: Blumlein, ORTF, spaced
omnis, XY cardioids, or one of the
numerous variations of the MS
technique? After much debate, he
settled on the MS technique with a
cardioid M capsule. Using a 1:1 MS
ratio, this decodes to two cardioids
with small rear lobes crossed at
90°, but with the advantage that
sounds in the centre are directly on-
axis to the M capsule (rather than
appearing 45° off-axis to each
capsule as they do when using
cardioids crossed at 90°) producing
a solid centre image with no
concerns over the precise matching
of a pair of cardioids. This technique
also requires an extremely wide
soundfield – approximately 180° at
a 1:1 MS ratio – to reproduce a
stereo image from hard-left to hard-
right. According to Simmons, the
solid centre image, the ability to
compress a 180° soundfield into a
stereo image, and the ability to
easily alter the recording’s width,
were all ideal for what he had in
mind – recording something against
its sonic background so as to
immerse the listener in the
environment. The shortlist of
acceptable ‘natural-sounding’
microphones came down to DPA,
Schoeps, and Sennheiser’s RF
condensers. The Sennheisers were
rejected due to their physical size
and weight when compared to the
compact models from DPA and
Schoeps, while the decision to use
MS took DPA out of contention
because it doesn’t presently make a
bidirectional capsule – ‘quite a
restriction on an otherwise excellent
product range, don’t you think?’,
notes Simmons.
The Schoeps MS microphone
system consists of a CCM4Lg
cardioid and CCM8Lg bidirectional
shock-mounted in a small Rycote
windscreen with pistol grip,
producing ‘an excellent solution with
a wonderfully realistic sound and
superb stereo imaging, I doubt any
other microphones could do better
in these circumstances’. The
microphones spent their entire
travelling lives shock-mounted
inside the Rycote, not only to ensure
they were always ready for action,
but also because they were better
protected than in their boxes.
Many recordings were made in
Nepal, including rickshaw rides
through the streets of Kathmandu,
evening sounds during festival
times, and over an hour’s worth of
folk music played by Gandharba
musicians. The biggest recording
challenges, however, arose in the
jungles of Royal Chitwan National
Park, where Simmons recorded
swamps at dusk and dawn,
elephants making their way through
tall grass and deep water, rhinos
having territorial disputes, dew
drops falling from leaf to leaf in the
early morning mist, fish leaping out
of the water to feed on insects, and
numerous other creatures going
about their lives. ‘The Nagra V’s 10-
hour battery life and 20s pre-record
buffer proved invaluable for making
nature recordings, allowing me to sit
and listen quietly for hours,
capturing only what was interesting
rather than endlessly recording for
fear of missing something’, he says.
‘Also, the natural sound and precise
imaging of the Schoeps MS system,
when heard through the closed-cup
headphones, often left me forgetting
I was monitoring a recording, which
can be disorientating when you’re
not facing the same direction as the
mics – where did that sound really
come from?’
Speaking of microphone
directionality, Simmons often wished
he had an omni for the M capsule,
particularly when recording jungle
ambience. At a 1:1 MS ratio, an
omni M capsule decodes to two
coincident cardioids back-to-back,
capturing a 360° soundfield without
favouring any particular direction. To
simulate an omni he aimed his
cardioid MS rig directly at the sky, so
that all land-based sounds would
enter the M capsule approximately
90° off axis, regardless of their
direction. ‘Thanks to the CCM4Lg’s
excellent off-axis response, this
worked very well. And because it’s a
true cardioid, all sounds entering
90° off-axis were 6dB down in level,
so all I had to do was increase the
level of the M channel by 6dB when
decoding and I had the next best
thing to using an omni – although it
did tend to favour birds passing
overhead.’
Tibet turned out to be a far richer
source of sounds than expected,
with folk musicians, monks chanting
on street corners, children reciting
mantras, pilgrims visiting sacred
places, and locals performing
spontaneously for the microphone.
Most of these offered
straightforward recording
opportunities, but capturing the
sound of prayer flags blowing in the
wind on high-altitude mountain
passes proved particularly difficult.
‘The best sound was always directly
behind the flags, but that meant the
microphone was facing directly into
the wind, and sometimes, even with
the Rycote windshield and furry
windjammer, there’d be wind noise,’
says Simmons. ‘Other times, the
sound of the wind against my
clothing, or simply the sound of my
own movements – such as the
rustling of my down jacket, or my
hiking boots crunching the gravel
beneath them as I shifted my
balance – would ruin the recording.’
He didn’t capture the sound
properly until the last pass before
leaving Tibet. ‘I knew this was my
last chance, so I took no chances,’
He fitted the Schoeps WMS foam
windscreen over the microphone
capsules, placed them inside the
Rycote windscreen, and secured the
Rycote furry windjammer over it.
Then he removed his padded gloves
(a necessity for operating the
equipment) and down jacket,
trekked out to the prayer flags, and
started recording. ‘I don’t remember
the exact temperature, but it was
below zero and that wasn’t allowing
for the wind chill. I recorded about
one-and-a-half minutes worth of
sound before it simply got too cold
and I had to stop. The equipment,
however, was happy to continue…’
‘It’s a little-known fact that
Tibetans love to perform,’ observes
Simmons. One notable recording
took place in the town of Lahtse, en
route to Lhasa (the capital of Tibet).
Venturing onto the street at about
10pm during a power blackout, he
met some young girls who were very
curious about the Westerner
wearing headphones and holding a
big fuzzy thing in the air. After one of
them took a listen she transformed
into a pop star, singing numerous
PRO AUDIO ASIA May-June 2005
songs with her friends harmonising
in the background. ‘They turned out
to be special recordings,’ Simmons
says. ‘You can’t plan spontaneous
moments like that, and you can’t go
back and get them again.’
Simmons is returning to the
Himalayas in November to continue
the project, this time hoping to visit
Bhutan, Mongolia and Ladakh. In
the meantime, he’s planned some
improvements to the rig. ‘Most
importantly, I’m going to have the
limiters fitted to the Nagra V
because they are essential for
spontaneous and unrehearsed
recording,’
The outcome of the recordings
remains undetermined. ‘The
outcome was always a secondary
concern. The important thing was to
actually do it. I was also aware, from
past experience, that if you collect
enough material, it will take its own
shape…’
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