Katydids.......yeah summer katydids.

[esldude]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fmogwro9pdzxukn/Crickets.zip?dl=0

 

Okay here is a zip file that opens into a couple of 3 minute files and one 1 minute file.  24 bit/48 khz.   Recordings of katydids late at night.  No processing of any kind.  Two microphones straight to the ADC and into a file. 

 

You may hear a passing vehicle on a nearby road. 

 

I live in the southeastern US and there is never a time during July when everyone's AC is off unless there is no electricity.  So you'll hear different AC units running at different times during the recordings.  They don't overpower the katydids fortunately.   

 

Obviously there are no wrong nor any correct choices.  Yet audiophiles seem to believe they have an innate ability to know which recordings sound most natural and correct.  Well katydids should be natural enough, and unlike needing tickets to the opera house or concert hall everyone should have heard enough katydids to know what they are supposed to sound like. 

 

So I am wondering will there be a consensus about which of the three files is most cricket like in the most natural way?

 

I have an opinion which will in time be revealed. 

 

Starting with my common moderate volume setting for music listening I had to turn down the volume around 6 to 8 db lower to match the real genuine cricket sound.  So I suggest you do the same.   

 

I would also ask that everyone mention what speaker or headphone they used to audition the files.  Don't need your entire system, just the transducers that made the sound.

 

Yes, this is a goofy poll, but maybe a good time in hot weather for some frivolous audio discussion.

 

EDIT:I altered the original post and poll title as it was made clear these are katydids and not crickets on the recordings. 

[esldude]

Sorry to anyone who tried to reply to this thread.  Thanks to STC for letting me know.

 

One choice with the new forum software is a poll which only shows poll results while blocking comments.  I had set this up that way by mistake.  You should be able to post a reply now.

 

 

[fas42]

Dennis, I've had a first listen, just on the laptop speakers - unfortunately, what we have down here are cicadas, which will blow out one's eardrums if just a couple of feet away - the beasts in your clips are pretty feeble in comparison, would be hard to say which are "most real". First up, I hadn't groked your point about the ACs, so was questioning your recording technique ... - but will give it another try at some point.

[Ralf11]

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Cricket_acoustic_communication

[Abtr]

Played through KEF LS50s + Sunfire sub, file one and three sound a bit harsh. File two sounds relatively dull but I think the crickets (and the cars passing by) do sound the most natural..
 

[AJ Soundfield]

I unzipped but Foobar wouldn't play

[STC]

Esldude, I pick "Crickets? These don't sound like any crickets to me. Nothing natural about any of them." Unfortunately, I couldn't vote because I lost the privilege yesterday when I was trying to reply to your post.

 

The crickets sound is very different here. Something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg

 

 

There were some obvious difference with my main system. #1 and #2 had a bigger soundstage than #3. The static drone in #3 was too loud. This recording is very different from #1 and #2. One of that had a slightly different height information which probably could due to increased HF. 

 

With the cheap Sennheiser Mx600 earphones, the static drone was not standing out in #3 but the #3 is more centralized than the other two. None of them sounded like cricket that I am accustomed to. With my main system I would choose #2 as my preferred recording not because of naturalness but due to the soundstage and relaxed overall sound. Something about #3 is very different from the rest. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say #3 is the original recording because in nature it is extremely hard to localize cricket's sound. They appears to come from everywhere.

[esldude]

3 hours ago, AJ Soundfield said:

I unzipped but Foobar wouldn't play

Anyone else have this problem?  They should unzip into 3 .wav files.  I played them on Foobar a minute ago just to see they would work. They did.

[esldude]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Cricket_acoustic_communication

Thanks for this. 

 

Just random things.  The DR rating of these is DR12 to DR14.  Most of the sound from the wildlife is between 2 and 8 khz.  The fans on an air conditioner up the street create a low level 10 khz or so tone down at my house. 

[esldude]

4 hours ago, Abtr said:

Played through KEF LS50s + Sunfire sub, file one and three sound a bit harsh. File two sounds relatively dull but I think the crickets (and the cars passing by) do sound the most natural..
 

Just curious how loudly you played them.  This sound can be harsh if played louder than life.   At levels near the real sound of the crickets it shouldn't sound harsh or at least doesn't in person or on my gear.  It does if I crank in about 10-15 db more volume. 

 

Using a noise app on my phone which I have calibrated with a umik1 I get sound levels of around 65 db or so. The phone of course rolls off frequencies below 200 hz so the air conditioners lower frequencies are somewhat ignored.  

 

Of course the sound of these isn't smooth by any means.  It is somewhat raucous at times.

[esldude]

3 hours ago, STC said:

Esldude, I pick "Crickets? These don't sound like any crickets to me. Nothing natural about any of them." Unfortunately, I couldn't vote because I lost the privilege yesterday when I was trying to reply to your post.

 

The crickets sound is very different here. Something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg

 

 

There were some obvious difference with my main system. #1 and #2 had a bigger soundstage than #3. The static drone in #3 was too loud. This recording is very different from #1 and #2. One of that had a slightly different height information which probably could due to increased HF. 

 

With the cheap Sennheiser Mx600 earphones, the static drone was not standing out in #3 but the #3 is more centralized than the other two. None of them sounded like cricket that I am accustomed to. With my main system I would choose #2 as my preferred recording not because of naturalness but due to the soundstage and relaxed overall sound. Something about #3 is very different from the rest. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say #3 is the original recording because in nature it is extremely hard to localize cricket's sound. They appears to come from everywhere.

Sorry about the drone in #3, a nearby air conditioner turned on. The other two the air conditioners running in the background are further away.

 

All three are original recordings.  No processing was done at all.  Differences are in microphone technique and brand microphone in use.

 

These are probably not just crickets.  Firstly there are more than one type of cricket outside, some are also grasshoppers, and a kind or two of katydids.  This time of year lots of critters making noise at night.

 

Driving on wooded backroads in a convertible with top down this time of year, you hear this chorus of insects over the sound of the wind and car.  They mostly congregate in trees I would say.  If you drive under trees or along tree lined sections it is loud, if you come to pasture land or areas without trees it is much lower in level.

[esldude]

5 hours ago, fas42 said:

Dennis, I've had a first listen, just on the laptop speakers - unfortunately, what we have down here are cicadas, which will blow out one's eardrums if just a couple of feet away - the beasts in your clips are pretty feeble in comparison, would be hard to say which are "most real". First up, I hadn't groked your point about the ACs, so was questioning your recording technique ... - but will give it another try at some point.

Probably some cicadas in my recording.  Not an insect expert.  We have cicadas too, but those actually vary considerably around the world in the sound they make.  I recorded this on my front porch and most of the sound is from scattered trees in the neighborhood.  If you walk into a wooded area at night the sound is probably 10 or more db louder, but still not enough to blow out eardrums.  So those must be some nasty cicadas. 

[fas42]

Here you go then ... !

 

 

Think of having your ear a foot away from a smoke alarm when it goes off - that type of thing.

[Speed Racer]

Those are katydids...not crickets and not cicadas.

[Ralf11]

katy lied

[esldude]

9 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

Those are katydids...not crickets and not cicadas.

Or maybe it is a really bad recording of crickets that makes them sound like katydids.  

 

 

 

[Speed Racer]

Nah...the cricket's song has a different cadence to it. The cicada's song is different too.

[esldude]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bring-science-home-cricket-temperature/

 

I remember doing this with some crickets in the basement when I was a kid.  I had read of it in some book at the library.  The formula I had seen was chirps per minute divided by 4 plus 38.  It was pretty accurate.  There is a formula for katydids too, but I no longer remember it.

[STC]

So many of them? http://songsofinsects.com/cicadas/lyric-cicada

http://songsofinsects.com/crickets/spring-and-fall-field-crickets

http://songsofinsects.com/crickets/southern-wood-cricket

http://songsofinsects.com/crickets/southeastern-field-cricket

 

http://songsofinsects.com/grasshoppers/bolls-and-carolina-grasshoppers

 

There are many more out there.

 

 

[esldude]

http://songsofinsects.com/katydids/common-true-katydid

This closer to what I recorded, but still not right.

 

Click on the recording at the top of the page from a woodland full of them singing.

 

Also I hear these cicadas where I live pretty often, but only in the daytime.

http://songsofinsects.com/cicadas/scissor-grinder-cicada

 

Thanks for those links to that site by the way.  @STC

 

Also now that I have been listening trying to figure out what we have, I do at times hear a cricket or three along with the katydids. 

[STC]

@esldude, could please explain about your microphones and techniques used in those recordings?

[esldude]

The first recording was a pair of Shure KSM32 microphones in a coincident x-y configuration at an angle of 90 degrees.

 

The second was the same microphones in an ORTF configuration.

 

The third was a pair of Lewitt LCT 540's in a 45 degree x-y configuration. 

 

I planned to use the Lewitts in a 90 degree configuration and ORTF, but too many nearby air conditioners came on and ran for too long a time.   Both microphones have a cardioid pattern.

 

The recording was on the edge of my front porch which has a roof and is elevated a few feet, but the nearby trees are taller so much of the sound was 20-30 degrees elevated.  The microphones were aimed level so it was also an experiment to see if any height information would make it through.  The bulk of the sound is in the range where our hearing is most adept at hearing height differences.

 

The signals went to my audio interface and were recorded with no processing or alteration of any kind.

 

Having access to the real sound just outside the door.  It is my opinion the first one sounded most like the real sound.  It however failed to have much in the way of height information.  It was reasonably accurate in a 2D sense both for width and depth in playback on my system.  If we get a cooler night later, I may try a version where I add some mics to capture height and mix into the results to see how that works. 

[STC]

3 hours ago, esldude said:

The first recording was a pair of Shure KSM32 microphones in a coincident x-y configuration at an angle of 90 degrees.

 

The second was the same microphones in an ORTF configuration.

 

The third was a pair of Lewitt LCT 540's in a 45 degree x-y configuration. 

 

I planned to use the Lewitts in a 90 degree configuration and ORTF, but too many nearby air conditioners came on and ran for too long a time.   Both microphones have a cardioid pattern.

 

The recording was on the edge of my front porch which has a roof and is elevated a few feet, but the nearby trees are taller so much of the sound was 20-30 degrees elevated.  The microphones were aimed level so it was also an experiment to see if any height information would make it through.  The bulk of the sound is in the range where our hearing is most adept at hearing height differences.

 

The signals went to my audio interface and were recorded with no processing or alteration of any kind.

 

Having access to the real sound just outside the door.  It is my opinion the first one sounded most like the real sound.  It however failed to have much in the way of height information.  It was reasonably accurate in a 2D sense both for width and depth in playback on my system.  If we get a cooler night later, I may try a version where I add some mics to capture height and mix into the results to see how that works. 

 

? . So the ORTF gave the biggest soundstage. The height information in #1 could be due to higher HF level. Is it possible for you to analyze the files further to see whether the HF content is higher in #1?

[esldude]

There is no big difference.  Recorded at different times by a few minutes so not a way to do precise comparisons.  Looking at a 2k FFT, generally each of them is different by 2 db or less in most bins of the FFT.  Which is louder in each bin varies around randomly.  So HF content isn't higher in one vs the other generally speaking.

 

The ORTF does sound like a more expansive sound stage when comparing one to the other by a small amount.  It actually is a bit wrong.  It has a less forward quality. The x-y coincident is more forward and that is actually what the real sound is like.  I have one tree just slightly left of the microphones in my front yard.  Further left are trees in my neighbor's yard.  Other trees are further away in various directions. 

 

So in person the katydids in my tree are sharp and rather forward then further left not quite as forward with a base level of the sound behind all and around that.  When I listen at a position with speakers making a 90 degree angle things are positioned well though not lifelike in the fully detached 3D sense of individual sounds.  Plus the sound ends near the speakers instead of what seems more like a 180 degree angle in real life with an emphasis on the forward 90 degrees. 

 

I may be fooling myself, but I do get a little sense of height in the x-y recording which is fleeting.  The ORTF seems to have no real height on display.  I get a narrow band that seems about a foot wide vertically going from left to right.  You can even tilt your head up or down until it has the more correct spectral balance with access to the real sound just out my front door.

[STC]

4 hours ago, esldude said:

a little sense of height in the x-y recording which is fleeting.  The ORTF seems to have no real height on display.  I get a narrow band that seems about a foot wide vertically going from left to right.  You can even tilt your head up or down until it has the more correct spectral balance with access to the real sound just out my front door.

 

 

The loudest insects were about 10 to 20 degrees elevated from the microphone or from my ear level. I could also sense there could be more insects above that plain.

 

 I cannot decipher the the exact location or direction of the road. In recording #1, the vehicle appears to be travelling along the your left side of your porch, while some vihecles seemed to be travelling from right to left in #2. Generally, from the recordings it appears your house is located close to more than one road.

 

I always believe without prior knowledge or visual cues, most of the so called placements and location heard over sound reproduction are more of imagination and mere approximation.