This is topic WTB - High-quality sounds in forum Calls and Gear forum at The New Huntmastersbbs!.
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Posted by Nahuatl (Member # 708) on November 03, 2005, 01:16 PM:
Wouldn't it be great if someone with a large selection of recorded predator and prey distress sounds offered them for sale to the consumer?
No one currently offers high-sampling rate high-bit rate digital sounds... not without packaging them in some "lossy" format or packaging them with some low-fidelity player. Why not?
No MP3's or WMA's or analog audio. No low-fidelity stuff. It's mathematically impossible to accurately reproduce a screaming rabbit with any of the current crop of commercially available electronic callers or the sounds you see for sale.
I'd love to buy some uncompressed waves, 41KHz or 48KHz sampling rates and 16-bit mono that could take full advantage of modern electronics and the caller on the truck. My ears may not be very good, but every coyote is an audiophile.
Actually, in an ideal world, I'd like to have a system that plays prey distress from 17KHz to 40KHz, sounds that humans can't hear, like an ultrasonic whistle that drives dogs wild. Oh what fun that would be! But if the hunter can't hear it, would he buy it? I doubt it. Beam me up, Scotty.
[ November 03, 2005, 01:17 PM: Message edited by: Nahuatl ]
Posted by Bill (Member # 49) on November 03, 2005, 04:25 PM:
No. It's my belief that the quality of the sound is much less importnat than being in the right place to call. I'm probalby one of the poorest callers I know but I still call coyote with enough frequencey that I keep doing it. The ability to place the electornic call away from my location has more value than sound quality. Coyotes respond to both good and bad sounding calls but I'm not convinced they would respond more frequently to a better quality of sound reproduction.
Bill
Posted by LionHo (Member # 233) on November 03, 2005, 06:12 PM:
Hold onto your hats boys, sounds like someone's trying to convince us to trade a perfectly good milk cow for some new magic bean! (Is that you, Bill Martz? ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
)
"It's mathematically impossible to accurately reproduce a screaming rabbit with any of the current crop of commercially available electronic callers or the sounds you see for sale."
Huh?
I've personally ripped numerous 320 Kbps 48bit MP3s (using LAME/Goldwave) using a decent quality laptop sound card, but nothing particularly special or expensive, and have preserved frequencies to 24kHz. Sonogrammed, my MP3s show nice rippling 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th order harmonics. I've had bobcats and fox stick their nose in the speaker trying to get at the mice...
But rabbits require nothing so high-pitched. I've yet to see an actual rabbit cry anywhere near 20kHz. They're much, much lower on the audio frequency scale--so much lower, they don't even exceed the limits of cassette tape. You might even get a reasonably accurate rabbit playback on a horn speaker that hits only 15kHz.
LionHo
[ November 03, 2005, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: LionHo ]
Posted by onecoyote (Member # 129) on November 03, 2005, 06:34 PM:
Bill, I can't agree more. All this modern day sound technology don't mean much to a coyote. It is a great selling point for all the hi-tech sales people who are trying to sell you something.
It's my contention that coyotes don't care much about hi- fidelity, stereo or any fancy sound system. If it sounds like an easy meal, that's good enough...Unless they are back east coyotes ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
.
Location has always been the big secert in predator calling, not the sound system.
Anybody that's ever won a big contest was in the right place calling coyotes. I'd be welling to bet all kinds of e-callers and hand calls have been used winning contest. This time it's just not my opinion, it's fact.
[ November 03, 2005, 06:37 PM: Message edited by: onecoyote ]
Posted by NASA (Member # 177) on November 03, 2005, 07:02 PM:
I called a red fox once using a blade of grass.(Of course it was studio quality grass) I bet my date I could make a fox appear just by blowing on some grass. She fell for it so I upped the anty, lol. We quietly got out of the car, and spread a blanket on the ground. First I blew, then it was her turn. One of the better bets I collected on in my youth.
Posted by UTcaller (Member # 8) on November 03, 2005, 07:07 PM:
Onecoyote,
I totally agree with you buddy.I only use my 10 dollar open reed calls at all my stands.And the coyotes don't seem to mind the cheap stuff.I also agree that location is key to success,along with persistance.GOOD HUNTING Chad
Posted by Rich Higgins (Member # 3) on November 03, 2005, 07:22 PM:
I agree with all of you. Each ingredient in the mix is of importance, including quality of sound.
I have a question for all of you.
Dr. Theberge and his wife have conducted research on wolves for decades. His wife has become adept at voice howling over the years and the wolves always answer her. When they broadcast recordings of her howling the wolves never answer. Any thoughts from you guys?
Posted by 2dogs (Member # 649) on November 03, 2005, 07:44 PM:
NASA,
You just reminded me of what us & the neighbor kids use to do. Back in the early 60's. We'd take a green Maple leaf or a small green oval leaf off of a bush.
Put it between our tongue & soft palate. To make shrill whistle noise's. One kid could make similiar noise's with a leaf between the palm's of his hands.
[ November 03, 2005, 07:44 PM: Message edited by: 2dogs ]
Posted by Melvin (Member # 634) on November 03, 2005, 08:16 PM:
Rich,I'm guessing it had something to do with the surroundings where her howling was recorded.
I know sound can be different in different surroundings...I think,most of us has called in areas where the sound seemed like a dead thud,so to speak,and in other locations the sound would be loud and clear...I know on a lot of videos the sound never sounds the same as it would have,had you been there.
I have no idea where sounds are recorded for e-callers,but it must be done in a quiet controlled enviroment?
Posted by LionHo (Member # 233) on November 03, 2005, 09:08 PM:
Be interesting to know what equipment they used for the lady's howl recordings, can you shed any light on this, Rich?
I gave up cassette tapes in the late 80's or early 90's when I started handcalling and lipsqueaking noticeably more critters, and calling them closer.
Curious of anyone else noticed in the news yesterday-- a scientific paper just published stating that mice serenade each other with love songs at ultrasonic frequencies? (Think I might have mentioned it here last Fall how nearby Hastings *********** Field Station/UC Berkeley was using an array of bat microphones to listen to mice doing this at 30kHz...but they weren't the ones publish this yesterday. )
Barring some predator-hearing study that confirms otherwise, I have a hunch that mice have evolved to do this serenading beyond Coyote, Wolf, and Owl hearing. Haven't heard of it, but if there's ever been any research into the audio range of various land-based predators, that'd sure make for an interesting read. Anyone?
Hey, but what's to stop any of us from dropping $50K on the 30-100kHz high-end analog equipment orca, mouse and bat researchers use for these sorts of studies? I'll offer that I'm just your guy, should any of you want to wanna step up to the plate with the deep pockets to compete with university funding for this sort of plucky enterprise ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Back down to earth, the 20 kHz+ audio frequency limits of what common mass produced ('cheap'consumer grade) portable players are already capable of, seem adequate for reproducing coaxer noises like mice, or a significant enough portion of their sounds to call predators, IMO. (Bobcat no care whether rodent sing like Pavarotti).
From a marketing standpoint, maybe the CD standard of 20-Hz to 20kHz isn't quite the hook or ne plus ultra for predator calling that it once was touted to be. For practical predator calling purposes, MP3 compression losses are a non-issue. Relatively easy to make a recording that has a 24kHz component to it, using either 48-kHz sampling MP3 or 48-(or even 96 kHz) sampling .wav formats, at least if you can find a sound so high pitched. To notice any improvement though over a run of the mill 20kHz CD, you'd also need to find the other field hardware components to play it back.
At some point (what point? can anyone yet tell me what frequencies bobcat hearing stops at?) you step into that area of diminishing returns for what is (and probably always will always remain) a rather esoteric part of the frequency spectrum. There's simply no mass market for such equipment that goes beyond the range of human hearing.
Considering that I've had bobcats and fox stick their nose in my remote speaker trying to get at the recorded mice, I'm not losing too much more sleep over the 20kHz bottleneck of my speaker, amp, and wireless mic link. At some point you let your quarry's feedback loop tell you whether it's "good 'nuf".
LionHo
[ November 20, 2005, 07:24 AM: Message edited by: LionHo ]
Posted by Rich Higgins (Member # 3) on November 03, 2005, 10:02 PM:
Lionho, someone once told me that coyotes eyes had evolved to detect movement in low light and their ears had evoved to detect mouse squeeks. Major Boddiker said that coyotes are most attracted to distress sounds that rise in frequency until we are unable to hear it. I know that that is the most effective coaxing that I use.
Posted by DAA (Member # 11) on November 04, 2005, 06:56 AM:
Melvin, you asked:
"I have no idea where sounds are recorded for e-callers,but it must be done in a quiet controlled enviroment?"
I recorded the most popular and I'm pretty sure most productive sound in Foxpro's library. I used a prosumer grade video camera microphone and recorded it on Mini DV tape at 48Khz, 16 bit settings. The environment WAS quiet, if not controlled... The recording was made standing on 10" of fresh snow with large fluffy snowflakes falling all around.
Turns out, that although we didn't notice it at the time, a pair of coyotes actually came in while the recording was being made. We made the recording before daylight. Afterwards, we sat in the truck waiting for the snow to let up to get out and blast some jacks. Sitting there, my partner noticed a pair of coyotes laying up on a ridge about 600 yards away. Later, we walked over and backtracked them in the fresh snow. They had been over within 200 yards of where we had been standing while recording our jackrabbit.
The sound has turned out to be extremely productive. Definitely, the most productive I've ever used. I've called in lots of coyotes and a few incidental bobcat and fox with it. I have a friend who used to make a substantial portion of his income by recording and selling predator calling sounds. He eventually sold out to JS and many of his sounds are still very popular under the JS label. This guy says my Utah Jack sound is by far the most productive he has ever used too.
I do NOT believe that it is particularly the equipment or recording conditions that make this sound work so well. I think it's the emotion and desperate struggle that this particular jackrabbit projected that makes it work so well. I think coyotes hear it and think "man, that sounds like FUN!". I think the emotions projected by that rabbit get coyotes excited, whether they are hungry or not, and that's why the sound works so well.
It might well work even better with higher grade playback equipment. Who knows? But I do know it dang sure works real well on my Foxpro!
- DAA
Posted by Nahuatl (Member # 708) on November 04, 2005, 09:37 AM:
It wasn't lost on me that no one said, "You can buy high-fidelity sounds at Wal-Mart (or anywhere else)." Maybe I missed a catalog page somewhere.
Posted by Melvin (Member # 634) on November 04, 2005, 11:36 AM:
DAA..I can't find the jackrabbit distress,labeled-"Utah jack" on the sounds list.
Is it the one labeled,jackrabbit distress?...I was checking Foxpro's sound list over at,APC
Posted by LionHo (Member # 233) on November 04, 2005, 11:46 AM:
Personally, I'd like nothing more than if certain of my favorite sounds had been recorded digitally and cleanly, with 320kbps bit rate at 48kHz, originally.
Not presently a favorite, but there's a new Burnham Bros. ML-in-heat-tape (CC#29) a foot away in a cassette recorder frome where I'm typing, that I was digitizing into the PC the other day but couldn't do much of anything with in my sound editor, to get rid of the BG noise and tape hum... rather useless low fidelity original.
But if it were a well-recorded clean tape? No problemo.
Posted by Joel Hughes (Member # 384) on November 04, 2005, 12:52 PM:
Melvin, I'm pretty sure DAA's jackrabbit distress is sound #233. That is my #1 go-to sound, too. I have heard people refer to it as the "Utah Jack".
Posted by Kokopelli (Member # 633) on November 04, 2005, 05:13 PM:
Sound quality is nice, although in my opinion, a far second to location. Some time ago, I assembled an e-caller from Radio Shack components. While the sound it puts out is somewhat less than 'studio quality' that caller has accounted for a pile of coyotes, some bobcats, and a couple of deer.
Posted by pup (Member # 90) on November 04, 2005, 05:13 PM:
DAA,
Is there a distinct diff, such as more rise and fall, quiver, raspy low to raspy high, etc. with the Utah Jack. Don't have access to the sequence. thanks
Rich,
Maybe with the wolves and the lady, the lady gives a lower tone either at the start of the breath out or end that was not picked up, with the equipment set to pick the high end?
And maybe I just let loose with some ignorance.
I do think that some of the search for quality of reproduction of sound, gets placed ahead of the Quality of the sound itself. Just because you have a high def. one million h whatever z recorded sound of fart, chances are it won't become your go to sound. Where as that old wore out, drug all over hell and back, meadowlark cassette , which had spots that would skip, scare me the player was eating it, would day in and day out call in an animal. I had a old wooden barrel closed reed mouth call, that would do some kind of awesome quiver if you got the spittle mixture right, and raised the air pressure. It would always raise the hair, and with regularity call in predators. I tore that call down the day it quit and could not get it to quiver like that again. Not for sure why, but did find a tiny rust spot on one side between the reeds, maybe that was it. Anyway, point being, I agree with DAA, in that it was just something about that particular emotion which ***** and closes the deal on the anguish and death being portrayed.
One more instance, Rich Higgins. When he calls, and several out there can attest, he calls so deep from his diaphram that a particular hollow thump can be heard. Kinda similar to the sound that you make when you tighten your stomach just in before your buddy gut shots you half speed. Nearly every stand and as I remember every productive stand I sat with him a pair of doves would swoop through the set just after this. Duties were shared and the doves didn't always fly by on other callers, productive stand or not.
Maybe the spittle and uneven breaths, and exhales with the sounds of the body bring a realism that is lost when somebody isolates and cleans up just the squeal of rabbit.
later pup
[ November 04, 2005, 05:20 PM: Message edited by: pup ]
Posted by DAA (Member # 11) on November 06, 2005, 03:04 PM:
Jim, shoot me an email when you get a chance. I'm dave at rmvh dot com.
- DAA
Posted by pup (Member # 90) on November 07, 2005, 01:35 PM:
Dave,
E-mail is on it's way.
later Jim
Posted by keekee (Member # 465) on November 09, 2005, 03:00 AM:
Pup! I haft to agree! Higgy has a very deep thump sound in his calling, it come from down in his guts. The thing that sticks out is it is full of emotion! Lots of emotion and feeling! To me thats the key.
I do the same thing, Im not as concerd at the exact sound as I am that the call has alot of emotion! I want that predator to be able to feel the death in the call as he comes in. Lots of waver and quiver in the calls, it has to just have that death and dispare sound!
I also put alot of pitch changes in my calling, high and low. Very fast drops and rises in the sounds. I also put out alot of sound I dont want them loosing interest on the way to the call if they haft to travel a long ways to get there.
DAA,
I will haft to say I like your Jack sound on the foxpro! Very good sound, I use it alot!
Brent
Posted by Rich (Member # 112) on November 09, 2005, 08:39 AM:
keekee,
I have noticed that a lot of old duck callers grunt into their predator calls. Higgy has called a lot of ducks, geese, owls and trains. He even called up a coyote once I think. Oh man, that ain't right------ Lord I apologize for that, please be with the starving pygmies in Africa--Amen.
Posted by Rich Higgins (Member # 3) on November 09, 2005, 11:45 AM:
Cronky, they cleaned out that big ol' artery that carries blood to your brain when they overhauled you this past year. You're sharper than you used to be. Just as ornery, though.
Posted by Nahuatl (Member # 708) on November 11, 2005, 05:54 PM:
I just ordered 3 coyote calling sound cd's by Dennis Kirk and APC.net.... Has anyone else tried out these sounds?
I'm looking for some growly house dogs, if any of you have recorded pet sounds. Angry or scared Barks/Growls from 10-20 pound canines. wave files at least 41.1KHz x 16bit.
Does anyone have any waterfowl distress they can share? Canadas, Snows, or Mallards?
Posted by Steve Craig (Member # 12) on November 12, 2005, 08:57 AM:
Try a bat distress sometime and see how critters respond. You and i cant even hear it, but the coyotes and fox sure do.
Posted by LionHo (Member # 233) on November 20, 2005, 08:35 AM:
Answered my own question by Googling around some more. Link mentions studies on vertebrate hearing, gives a table that includes cats, dogs, mice, rabbits (but no coyotes or bobcats):
http://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html
Even if a coyote could hear to 45kHz, you won't call very far them with frequencies that high. The higher the frequency, the less distance it travels. As I understand it, sound above 30kHz falls off within a few yards at volumes found naturally. (Helps to explain how bats echo-locate without getting confused by each others signals and crashing into one another mid-air).So the limited value of this probably means that for most predator callers, the cost of the specialized (non-human consumer) equipment that reaches above 24kHz just isn't going to provide much return.
On the other end of the scale, the infrasonic sounds (below human hearing limit of 64Hz, according to the chart), probably have a lot to do with long-distance communication. Everybody's probably seen some nature show with elephant studies demonstrating how they communicate over many miles of the plains, etc with low rumbles and stomps.
Which reminds me of something that Rich mentioned and an experience I nearly 30 years ago when I was a kid.
Back in the autumn of '76, a Wyoming local guided me to a remote spot in the Bridger-Teton NF (as I recall about 20 or so miles up a two-track starting somewhere in Natrona County, not too far from Brooks L) where I heard wolves howling in the wild for the first time. The sound got down into my bones, one of those things that's tough to describe in mere words. But that's how I felt it and how I've always described it ever since...
And now reading up on these recent studies about how humans and critters perceive sound in ways other than the audible, it starts to make more sense.
Wolves probably have a component to their howl that's in the infrasonic range, to better communicate long distance.
(Portable audio equipment that the researchers were using would not likely have enough bass to hit those low notes. )
LionHo
[ November 20, 2005, 08:41 AM: Message edited by: LionHo ]
Posted by Cal Taylor (Member # 199) on November 20, 2005, 08:43 AM:
Lion Ho, I'm not pickin on ya, but Natrona county is quite a ways from the Bridger-Teton. Like a couple hundred miles. Thats OK, I don't remember much about 76 either. LOL!
Posted by LionHo (Member # 233) on November 20, 2005, 11:34 AM:
Okay, recollection of the geography involved IS a little hazy, Cal. Sometimes even today find it difficult to remember how to find a place a second time, when someone else did the driving and I did all the talking
Now you've caused me to go look and dig out my "Wyoming 1978 Official Highway Map" (yes, yes, I know what you're thinking, but I also backpacked and hitch-hiked my way west from PA a couple of years later). Map is pretty large scale, not a tremendous help in narrowing it down further either, unfortunately. I'm thinking that earliest trip we were east of Pinedale in the Wind River Range which would make it Sublette Co., which was the only other county name that originally came to mind.
Sticking to my guns about hearing wolves in the backcountry, though.
You being a local and all... so where were they hiding out, back then?
LionHo
[ November 20, 2005, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: LionHo ]
Posted by Cal Taylor (Member # 199) on November 20, 2005, 06:07 PM:
Never heard many rumors until the mid to late 80s, that I can ever remember, but I was never in the western part of the state much. And in 76 I was only 12 or 13 years old so that may have something to do with it.
Posted by Tim Behle (Member # 209) on November 21, 2005, 05:34 AM:
For a Graduation gift, My parents sent me on a 10 day back packing trip into the Windriver rage, east of Pinedale.
That has to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth!
Posted by Locohead (Member # 15) on November 27, 2005, 12:09 AM:
Sheesh Tim, 5:34 a.m.????
Did you have to pee or what?
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