Desolation Soundscapes contains 31 audio tracks of concentrated silence, recorded in High Definition 5.1 Surround, Stereo und MS Stereo. These recordings were made in some of the most remote areas of the world and are part of the Mountain Soundscapes collection. Although these recordings technically contain nothing, their timbre adds force and expression to to a scene. Nothingness is a powerful sound with many variations. When used properly, the Desolation Soundscapes convey infinity and vastness, yet at the same time they can also signify constriction and quietude. Desolation is the background colour of a scene, the basic colour of its acoustic image. Desolation is the sound horizon.
Desolation Soundscapes is an Avosound product.
5 8 Customer Reviews
I often used the set for "AGA", a film that ran in the competition of the Berlinale in 2018 and was shot in Yakutia / Siberia in the permafrost area. The different natural "timbres" in the Desolation Sounds helped me a lot dramaturgically, to create scene after scene with static atmospheres. The absence of birds in the Desolation Set is very helpful not only for extreme film situations. Thank you!
Sebastian Schmidt, Supervising Sound Editor, Sound Designer
Desolation Soundscapes contains 31 Atmosphere Tracks with a total running time of more than an hour. These 31 Atmospheres, however, are quite special, because they contain only static backgrounds. This compact collection of pure backgrounds is very different from the more 'active' recordings of the Mountain Collection, which focuses on the multi-layered sounds of nature (including those of animals and birds).
Desolation creates the opposite effect of an 'active' background, containing no other sounds other than the basic atmosphere. Used properly, these recordings can very effectively create the feeling of space and vastness - or, alternatively, constriction and oppression.
Atmospheric backgrounds differ widely, even though they do not really consist of anything. On a desolate mountain ridge you might find infinite layers of individual sounds combined into an entirely new one. These recordings were made over a period of time in various locations around the world. Desolation Soundscapes contains a multitude of new recordings of atmospheric noise, both typical and atypical, carefully edited and balanced.
All tracks in the Desolation Soundscapes sound archive are also individually available for download. You can preview all the tracks in mp3 quality in the Avosound Online Sound Archive and then order and download them instantly.
In addition to the mp3 preview, all sounds in the Avosound Online Sound Archive feature a waveform and spectrum monitor that provide visual information about the recording. Please click here to browse the Archive.
The following three sounds from the Desolation Soundscapes sound archive demonstrate how different the atmospheric quality of silence can be. Silence is, of course, almost inaudible. But in quiet scenes, the atmospheres contained in Desolation Soundscapes can be used to add depth, calmness, vastness and silence.
The following recording was made on the mist-shrouded lake Albigna in Switzerland (at an altitude of 2,300 metres above sea level). Water elements are a big part of the recording.
Ideally, the Desolation Soundscapes recordings should be free of any 'interference' (e.g. no birds, airplanes or other presences - just pure nothingness). Many of these recordings were made in the Swiss mountains. As it has become increasingly hard to find total isolation in Switzerland, we traveled around the world for several years to make these recordings possible, setting up camp (and microphones) in remote places such as Iceland, Tibet and New Zealand. Thanks to some truly intricate sound editing, we eventually managed to eliminate every imaginable interference in the finished tracks. These files are now 'pure' backgrounds, ready to be used for professional Sound Design and Editing.
All the Desolation Soundscapes tracks are original recordings made in different parts of the world. In other words, these recordings have, quite literally, come a long way. Each recording is made up of pure 'nothingness', but with enough 'dirt' to preserve the sound's original character. This adds colour and expression to the 'nothingness'. When used skilfully, the Desolation Soundscapes can mould a scene, create a mood or give comfort in the shape of beautiful silence. The Desolation Soundscapes are not boring tracks made up of digital noise - they are pure, nature-sourced energy. Real Sounds for Real People!
Isolation is, unfortunately, not a guarantee for quietness. Our world has become a terribly noisy place - and it is becoming increasingly hard to capture the sound and the vastness of the mountains. Many of the recordings were made in the Swiss mountains. But since Switzerland is densely populated and used as a fly-over zone for many countries, we ultimately had to go to Iceland, where isolation is still a reality. The weather in Iceland, however, is quite tempestuous and often changes at moment's notice. Be ready to encounter mist, pouring horizontal rain and freak storms!
There are other places in the world too where you wish you were back in your cosy studio. But sometimes you just have to wait for the whims of nature to subside. Tibet is one such place, where gods and demons meet on the roof of the world. Anything can happen there, but the sounds you can record at the end of the world more than make up for flaring tempers.
The recordings in the Desolation Soundscapes Library are specially collected background atmospheres culled from the comprehensive Mountain Collection. The latter collection contains recordings from all over the world. All of these places have one thing in common: they are very isolated. Take, for example, the western fjords of Iceland, an area depopulated in the 1950s after the herring swarms disappeared: after only a few years, nature wiped every remnant of human civilisation from the face of that region. Nowadays it is an untouched natural paradise at the northern end of the world. For more infos, please see the Mountain Soundscapes Library (coming soon).
The Desolation Soundscapes tracks require intricate editing due to 'interferences' caused by the hyper-sensitive nature of the latest recording equipment we use (state-of-the-art Neumann and DPA microphones). Even the close rustle of a shrub or a tuft of grass can become a problem in these recordings. Hence all the tracks need to be carefully edited to eliminate such extraneous noise. Sometimes even the sound of our gear crackling in the cold is too much of a 'polluting' factor! All of these 'interferences' have been eliminated in the recordings, in order for the atmospheres to be as neutral, natural and unobtrusive as possible.
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