Soundscape Recordings

During the project’s first phase, soundscape recordings were made in three urban wetlands around the city of Valdivia, Chile: Parque Urbano El Bosque, Miraflores, and Angachilla. The first kind of recordings that were conducted were 5-minute recordings, made hourly, every day, during a full year. These recordings were made with a Wildlife SM4 monitoring unit by acoustic engineer Rodrigo Torres. The main goal of these recordings was to produce and optimize time-lapse applications. The second kind of recordings were continuous, large-scale sonic documentation of those soundscapes using three different recording techniques: stereo, binaural, and Ambisonics (figure 2). These recordings were made during different seasonal periods and at various locations in the wetlands, producing a multifaced picture of their evolving soundscapes. Recording schedules were designed in collaboration with ornithologist Jorge Tomasevic in order to highlight the wetlands’ wildlife.