Issue #4 - September 2007

We're Download Friendly!

Finally, we're open for business - the new Listening Earth Nature Shop is online and ready for you to explore.

It has taken us a little longer than anticipated to get it right, but the extra time has given us the opportunity to create a more enjoyable site.

The most significant development is that we are now able to offer downloads of our recordings - both complete albums and a selection of newly released tracks. Of course you can still mail order CDs as usual, or combine them with download purchases.

To be honest with you, for us it is more than just a new shop. We feel that it opens up a whole new future for Listening Earth. Downloadable recordings allow us the creative freedom to publish new recordings without having to invest in CD production and storage. Plus it gives us some independence from the retail market, allowing us better financial returns on our work, a more direct relationship with our customers, and the opportunity to create recordings that appeal to listeners not shopkeepers.

Having our own download shop also allows us to offer better value than iTunes and other online music stores.

Firstly, we've set our prices lower, with downloadable albums at AU$12, and tracks at either AU$2.50 for 10min or AU$5 for 20min duration. (Regular customers will notice that we are no longer offering free postage; this is due to the challenges of setting correct postage quotes prior to online debiting of credit cards. Whilst postage is now billed, we've dropped the cost per CD, so we can continue to offer good value. And our monthly CD special remains!)

Secondly (and we think more importantly), we can offer significantly better audio quality. All our downloadable audio will be encoded with variable bit rate (VBR) at 160kps. The bottom line is that this really improves the sharpness and depth of the sound - very important for nature recordings like ours with a wealth of fine acoustic detail.

One thing we are not offering is downloads of tracks from our albums. Unlike normal music CDs, which are often a collection of discreet tracks, our albums flow as one soundscape. To cut it up into tracks would spoil the flow of the original album. So for track-length listening, we shall be releasing a series of totally new recordings, with playing times long enough for you to fully immerse yourself in the sounds. In addition to offering feature tracks of 10 minutes duration, we are also beginning a series of recordings entitled 'Naturescapes' - 20 minute natural soundscapes, each from a single location and time of day.

New Website

And there's more good news - not only do we have a new shop, but you'll find the Listening Earth website has been totally redesigned. Browsing each of our albums now allows you to listen to single, longer sound sample, while viewing a gallery of nature images representative of the theme of the album. The rest of the site has been updated and simplified, and all recordings are linked directly to our shop.

New Album

To celebrate the launch of the shop, we are offering a new album for download: 'Australia - A Timeless Land".

This album is a sound journey around Australia, and features recordings from The Daintree to the Outback, from the Kimberley to the Blue Mountains, from tropical woodlands to the great Karri and Jarrah forests of the southwest... This album is only available for download. Audition it here.

Because we would like you to try out our shop (and help us check that the downloads are working properly), for the next two months only, we're offering this album for the price of a single track: AU$2.50. So log on, have some fun, buy the album, and let us know what you think.

New Tracks

We've also created a collection of new tracks featuring some rather well-known songbirds. You can check out samples of 10 minute tracks featuring the voices of; Superb Lyrebird, Laughing Kookaburras, Australian Magpies, Bellbirds and the sublime Pied Butcherbird.

We've also released the first of our Naturescapes Series, a recording of a dawn chorus from the rainforests of tropical Queensland; Atherton Tablelands Dawn.

New Images

While all this redesigning has been going on, we have been scanning many of the slides from our earlier field work, creating a digital archive of our photography. Most recently we've been going through the images we captured in the rainforests of north Queensland in 1996. And as we have the album from that field work (A Walk in the Rainforest) on special this coming month, we thought a gallery of deep green images for your desktop would be a nice compliment.

Tropical Queensland Rainforest Image Gallery:
Download these as a zip file, for either regular screen (1024x768) or widescreen (1680x1050) format. (Use a decompression program like Stuffit Expander to decompress the file into a folder of jpeg images.)
Rainforest1024x768.zip
Rainforest1680x1050.zip

Field Trip

Whilst September may be Rainforest Month for you folks, it won't be for us. We will be on the road for 6 weeks, travelling to the arid outback of Queensland to record the spring birdsong at Currawinya National park.

From there we go on to Mount Walsh in SE Qld, for a gathering of the Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group in early October. The AWSRG is a small group of recordists, most of whom are amateur, with a wide range of interests in nature's sounds. The group publishes a journal and CD for members, and gathers every two years for a workshop. For us it will be a nice opportunity to catch up with friends, colleagues and new members. (Incidentally, if you are interested in the AWSRG or this upcoming gathering, which is open to new or prospective members, email us directly).

While we are away, Alison Parrish will be looking after our office, dispatching CD orders and assisting your enquiries. We'd like to have the shop well run-in for her before we depart - so hop online in the next few days and purchase a download or two.

Hopefully the weather will be calm and the birds in good voice for us while we're away, and we'll return with some beautiful recordings and images for you!

Till then, all the best,

Andrew & Sarah