Immersive Creek: Ambisonic Recordings of Undisturbed Creeks in Vermont

If your Soundscape needs some gentle, flowing Water, look no further.

When my wife and I were taking a little vacation in the woods of Hardwick, Vermont, I was awestruck by just the utter absence of any anthropogenic noise around us. Whenever there was a car coming through, you’d hear it from miles away, and, with it being late November, there were no bird calls for the majority of the time.
In a small patch of forest near Nichols Pond lies a network of creeks and water runoffs that are ideal for capturing undisturbed, serene sounds of water flowing. Stable temperatures meant that there was very consistent snow melt and the flow of the water stayed steady throughout many hours of recording.

As a result, this single-purpose library contains long-form recordings of these creeks that will excel wherever the sounds of water flowing are desired with not even the slightest hint of looping. With the exception of two babbling brooks captured in stereo during a hike, all recordings are 10 minutes long and captured in AmbiX (Ambisonic B-Format) for the greatest possible flexibility when it comes to placing them in a virtual environment.

These recordings are free of edits and include stereo versions for dragging and dropping without the need for Ambisonic decoding. As a special treat, three long-form recordings are also accompanied by a Geofón track that captures the vibrations caused by the water in the nearby soil.

Recording Specs: 24 Bit / 96 kHz AmbiX & Stereo. 48 kHz Mono Geofón Recordings

Channel Formats: AmbiX (Ambisonic B-Format), Stereo, Mono

File Format: WAV

Size: 4.6 GB Stereo & Geofón, 8.3 GB AmbiX, 12.8 GB total

Gear used: RØDE NT-SF1 Ambisonic Mic, LOM Geofón, LOM Uši Pro, Zoom F6, Zoom F3

Processing: Level adjustment, Fade Ins/Outs, AmbiX to Stereo Conversion (perspective-optimized)

Note: Converting the included Ambisonic files to different channel formats requires a decoder plug-in like the SoundField by RØDE plug-in processor.