DESCRIPTION:
I'm sitting in the dark, rocking gently on a catamaran off the coast of an island that looks like Jurassic Park. I'm in French Polynesia and the humpbacks have all gone quiet. They're hiding to protect their calves from a pod of Orcas that have been hunting. It's been eerily quiet for almost an hour.
I start to hear a sound like distant machine guns firing constantly.
Then I hear a whistle.
I realize something magical is about to happen, so I start scanning the horizon.
I see the first spinner jump. They really spin as their whole body flys out of the water. So neat. The dolphin pod was curious about why we are floating out in the open ocean with hydrophones and decides to check us out. The giant cube of 8 hydrophones captures them swimming in 3 dimensions.
Some of their sounds are in the audible range, but I know there's a wild world of ultrasonics happening at the moment. I could feel my headphones screaming to reproduce them and got this weird ear fatigue all of a sudden...I think my headphones were blasting out clicks in the 18-25 kHZ range that I couldn't hear. It was a beautiful wildlife encounter that I'll remember when I'm 80.
That's a wrap on my 141st sound library from the natural world and I hope you enjoy listening.
KEY FEATURES:
- Ultrasonic echolocation clicks up to 96 kHZ
- Ultrasonic whistles
- Audible range echolation clicks
- Audible range whistles
- Other audible range marine animals: snapping shrimp, Humpback whales, Finn whales, and unknown coral reef animals.
- Note – Because of the echolocation clicks, there is an extremely wide dynamic range on these recordings. So you will need to do some EQing/Compression/Limiting when using these soundscapes. But I wanted to preserve these soundscapes in their RAW powerful form in the sound library.
SPECTROGRAM DEMO:
- A compilation of my favorite sounds from this collection.
- Recordings are pitched down 1 or 2 octaves in the demo. Sound library files are not pitched down (they are delivered at 192 kHZ sampling rate).
- High frequency clicks and whistles are the dolphins. View spectrogram photos for each track in file list below.
- Humpback whales are the lower frequencies throughout the demo
FILE LIST:
- Click "View larger version" in the bottom right corner of the File List below to open in a new tab for easier viewing. This works best on a desktop computer.
- View spectrograms for each track, search, and filter in the Airtable spreadsheet.
FILE TYPES:
- Stereo – AB (7 meter spacing)
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3D – these recordings were made with a 3D-Cube of 8 hydros:
- 3D-Cube: 7 meters by 7 meters by 7 meters (LxWxH)
- Channel Layout: L (1),R (2),Ls (3),Rs (4),Ltf (5),Rtf (6),LTr (7),Rtr (8)
- All 3D files are delivered as 8-channel WAVs that can be mixed into the 3D format of your choice, for example, a 7.1.4 Atmos mix.
LIBRARY INFO:
| Stereo Specs: 4.4 GB – 192 kHz / 24-bit – 29 stereo WAV files – Approx. 1.2 hours total |
| 3D Specs: 16.5 GB - 192 kHz / 24-bit – 29, 8-channel WAV files – 1.2 hours total |
| Stereo + 3D Specs: 20.1 GB – 1.2 hours total |
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Metadata: Universal Category System, CSV, Soundminer, BWAV |
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Categories: ANMLAqua, Spinner Dolphin, Cetacean
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Location: French Polynesia, Moorea, October 2025
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| Mastering: read my Field Recording Mastering Rules for more info. |
| Delivery: Instant - blazingly-fast - digital download |
| License type: Single user, royalty-free - for a multi-user license, click here |
| Sound Library Guarantee: If you're unhappy with my field recordings in any way, I'll give you store credit equal to the cost of the sound library. Read the full details – here. |
GEAR USED:
- Gladys Hydrophones x8
- Zoom F8n Pro