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Surrounded

Jatun Sacha (Kichwa: “Great Forest”)

Virgin rainforest can be found less than ten metres from the front door of the research centre and Botanic Garden at Jatun Sacha, .

 Fig 1.   Open air twelve channel studio connected to speakers over an area of approximately two acres.

Sound processing techniques and choice of sounds: Ultrasonic jungle

The original shows the full spectrogram of the forest and all sounds in it. The sounds selected in the green box and “isolated” show a sound on the very edge of human hearing, even isolated it is almost completely inaudible and is above the hearing range of most adult humans (16,000hz). It would certainly have been inaudible in the forest masked by so many other sounds and many people cannot hear it even when isolated. “Noise reduced” shows the noise reduction process and, if attention is paid to the rulers around the sides of the diagrams, whilst the shape of the sound is maintained.  “Pitched down” simply plays it lower and slower.

Spectral Canopies

 Excerpt from spectogram of composition “El Bosque Encantado”. Sound: “Spectral Canopies”

Birdslowed ; This sound features the original speed at the beginning and is gradually pitched down

Here, an Ecuadorian bird (Thamnophilidae) slowed down sounds like the call of various owls, such as the mottled owl, when slowed down