My goal as Guy in the Woods is to share my enjoyment and love of nature through producing these soundscapes (sonic landscapes) of the woods of the Haliburton Highlands, central Ontario, Canada.

Unlike other nature-recording artists, I work with all natural sounds, with no instrumental arrangements added. Why? Because I often find that listening to another person's instrumental interpretation is similar to seeing the movie version after reading the book. The movie may be excellent, but somehow it lacks the same personal impact that the book achieved.

Another thing I stay away from is directional microphones. Although they do increase the S/N ratio (decreasing noise), their drawback is that they remove the soul and the spirit of the sound. In the wild, each sound reaches our ears via multiple paths, bouncing off countless things on the way to our ears. Directional mikes greatly reduce the number of paths recorded. But each of these paths has its own individual characteristics of time delay, frequency, and volume. These paths result from not only the particular place, but also the weather, the season, and the time of day. They speak of hills and cliffs, of lakes, of trees and branches, of dew on leaves, of moss covered rocks, - of everything present - and that is not something that can be reproduced with studio reverb and delays. By using a directional microphone, one might as well be recording in a zoo!

I choose my locations with care. I find those "special spots" which exude both individuality and spirituality. Then, within those spots, I choose my microphone placement to best capture not only the primary sounds of the place, but also the character of the place. I often mix and edit from similar sources, and I often edit to create or maintain a tempo within a soundscape.

So here is an oasis. A place to come and listen to the sounds of the wild, free from human-made or domestic animal sounds.

I hope you enjoy these offerings, and please let me know if you do.

Karl BFA

I have designed a microphone baffle on which to mount my mikes and attach to a camera tripod in the canoe. The goal was to record the small acoustical clues of frequency response, time delay, and volume differences that each ear receives as a result of their positioning, shape, and the shape of the head. These small, precise differences are what the brain uses to determine the direction of different sounds; so if these differences can be exactly recorded, then the result during playback is the perception of a three dimensional placement of sound, instead of the linear placement of sound (a straight line between two speakers) of a conventional stereo recording.

In the canoe, the baffle performed exactly as planned and the effects were literally stunning wearing headphones. All the audio clues as to front/back, left/right, and up/down are recorded.

At this point I am still recording raw material. No new soundscapes utilizing the baffle are available yet.

The people's choice has ALWAYS been "Thunderstorm", though I prefer "Thunderstorm in the Woods" which has a variety of moods - but is long.
Of the new songs, I would place "Raven's World" first.
For relaxation:
Summer Lake, Frog Mantra, Summer Island, one of the Brooks, Small Waterfalls, and (in Hi-Fi mode) Hot Summer Night (Remix).
For close listening to a soundscape "with a creative twist":
A Froggie went a Wooing (a longer song), Goldfinch Babble (a short song), Thunderstorm in the Woods, Raven Winds His Clock, and Winter Wingscape.