Extraordinary wind chimes trio — Twilight, Debussy Bells, bamboo
<b>Extraordinary-sounding Davis Blanchard wind chimes, together with a large and small set of cheap bamboo chimes, high up in the Teign Gorge. A bright rather steely timbre, combined with a challenging interaction of scales that are each pretty challenging for most people.</b>
<b>Chimes used:</b>
<b>1. Davis Blanchard Twilight</b> (left)
<b>2. Davis Blanchard Debussy Bells</b> (right)
<b>3. Bamboo chimes — cheap ones bought from a local store. These are a large and a small set, which I always used together as though they were one instrument.</b> (right)
This is one of the many fruits of my <i><b>Wind Chimes in the Wild</b></i> project. Perhaps perversely, I'm uploading my recordings in reverse chronological order — most recent first —, so the most 'advanced' sounds are tending to come earlier rather than later.
<b><a href="https://www.philipgoddard.com/shop/store-2-windchimes.htm" rel="nofollow">Detailed information about the Davis Blanchard chimes</a></b>
I recorded this on 24 February 2017, on the rough slope just below Hunting Gate, which latter marks the highest point of the Hunter's Path, high up on the north side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK.
The distinctive timbre of all the Davis Blanchard chimes is a result of their being made of <i><b>galvanized steel</b></i> instead of the usual aluminium alloy. They proved so heavy physically that I couldn't sensibly carry more than two sets of these to any session — i.e., in my rucksack, hitch-hiking out and back, and walking between road and recording spot.
However, as each set of DB chimes is 8-note, more than two sets of them would be overkill, creating an unworkably complex mass of pitches when hung up, so I probably wouldn't have gained anything useful by struggling to my recording spot with a third set of those — though later on I was to add a set of much lighter Woodstock chimes to two of these for some deliciously outlandish effects.
<b><a href="https://www.philipgoddard.com/shop/store-2-windchimes.htm" rel="nofollow">Detailed information about the Davis Blanchard chimes</a></b>
<img alt="Recording Davis Blanchard chimes just below Hunting Gate" src="https://www.broad-horizon-nature.co.uk/170224_recording_wind_chimes_high_up_in_teign_gorge.jpg">
<i>This recording taking place, with Twilight on left and Debussy Bells on right. The arrow points to the recorder, with its black furry windshield.</i>
<b>Techie stuff:</b>
The recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with two nested furry windshields — the inner being a Movo one <b>of rectangular box shape*</b>, and the outer a custom Windcut one —, and it was placed on a full-size Zipshot tripod.
* <i>Note that I <strong>WARN AGAINST</strong> use of windshields that are of any sort of box shape, for I soon found that they were inherently unsuitable for any decent-quality recording. While no doubt non-box-shaped windshields from Movo would be okay, the presence of relatively flat surfaces, edges and corners creates internal narrow resonance peaks in the treble, which give the latter an abrasive and rather 'screamy' quality, no matter who's made the particular windshields.  When I realized why my recordings had developed that nasty treble quality I had to go back through all recordings made with that dratted box-shaped windshield, and use Voxengo CurveEQ to enable me to precisely neutralize two narrow treble peaks and thus enable the recordings to sound wonderfully natural rather than bafflingly stressful.</i>
Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshields and correction for the D100's weakness in very low bass — and then, later on, the aforementioned remedial EQ measure using Voxengo CurveEQ to remove the two narrow treble peaks kindly added by that rogue model of furry windshield.
<b>Please remember to give this recording a rating — Thank you!</b>  <img src="https://www.broad-horizon-nature.co.uk/me-icon_wink.gif">
