2025 Hawaii & French Polynesia Expeditions
In Collaboration with Sennheiser
Into the deep: Thomas Rex Beverly records the songs of humpback whales
Wedemark, August 2026 — Nature sound recordist Thomas Rex Beverly has spent years chasing the sounds of the natural world, from Patagonian mountain ranges to glaciers of Greenland to the ancient redwood canopies of California. Now he has gone further than ever before, plunging beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean to capture the extraordinary songs of humpback whales. Armed with a trusted set of Sennheiser HD 300 PROtect headphones, his long-standing companions MKH 8020 microphones, and a bespoke 3D hydrophone array, Beverly undertook two expeditions, first to Hawaii and then to French Polynesia, in pursuit of high-definition, spatialised recordings that no researcher had previously been able to make.
From glaciers to the ocean floor
Beverly has followed three core themes in his field recording expeditions; glaciers, weather and ancient trees, and has now added a fourth, whales. He found that while the existing recordings were interesting, he felt he could do more to really capture their other-worldly songs and the essence of their habitat, specifically with a more accurate recording of the vast spatial nature of the underwater world. His adventure began in Hawaii, where he recorded the unique underwater world of the wildlife around the Big Island, and ended in French Polynesia where, with the help of Sennheiser, he listened to the enticing songs of humpback whales...
Typically, existing recordings of whale song have been recorded for research purposes and are optimised by scientists for ultra-long recordings of up to six months. This makes the results factually accurate, but not of high enough resolution to be suitable for spatialised sound or high-definition listening. As a field recordist, Beverly strives for perfection. His sound libraries are used by sound designers for film, TV, video games, and museums, with his clients including Oscar, Emmy, and Golden Globe-winning sound designers and sound editors...
That's an excerpt. Read the full article and watch all the behind the scenes videos on Sennheiser's website.
The Ruthless Edit
Curation is a major part of being a field recordist. Rick Rubin calls this the ruthless edit. People often ask me what I think about when cutting. My response: "absolutely nothing". After ten years of editing nature soundscapes, my intuition is strong. If it’s a "hell yeah" I keep it. Nothing else survives.