Wildlife Technologies Sound Tutorial

 
Why is quality sound important in wildlife calling? Baby Rabbit Vocalization- Duration .76 of a second
   This sound tutorial is intended to provide the basic fundamentals on the subject of sound. This basic information will be all that you will need to know to become a better wildlife caller and make better choices when buying wildlife calling equipment.

   First notice the time length of this sound. It is only about 3/4 of a second long. Next look near the bottom left hand corner of the picture and you will see the number 2.5K. K stands for thousand, so 2.5K means 2500 cycles (vibrations) per second. 5.0K means 5 thousand cycles per second and so on. As you can see by looking at the number 20.0K located near the top left hand corner of the picture this rabbit sound has a bandwidth (frequency span between lowest frequency and highest frequency) of 2500 cycles per second to almost 20 thousand cycles per second which is higher than the vast majority of humans can hear. A lot of animals including coyotes can hear up to 45 thousand cycles per second which is approx. 3 times higher than humans. Beavers are thought to hear sounds as high as 60 thousand cycles per second. The bandwidth of an animal is a very important statistic to know. If you buy a wildlife caller that can only reproduce sound up to 8.0K and play this rabbit sound thru it you will only be able to reproduce 40% of the original rabbit sound which would not sound nearly as real as the original rabbit.

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The next issue also deals with the fidelity (true to the original) of a sound. If you look near the bottom center of the picture you will see the words "fundamental frequency". The fundamental frequency is the part of a sound that identifies who or what made the sound. In the case of the rabbit sound pictured to the left this turns out to be about 2500 cycles per second. The harmonics of a sound give character, richness and presence to a sound. Animals determine distance and presence by volume and professional recordings that captured all of the sound. Remember that animals not only can hear much higher frequencies than humans can but also can hear the details in a sound such as the harmonics far better then humans can.

Another issue is what sounds (frequencies) animal ears are most sensitive to. Most predators hear high and low frequencies at least 5 times better than humans do. Human ears are most sensitive to and actually amplify mid-range sound which is about the frequency range of human voice (approx. 500 to 3500 cycles per second). Any sound in that frequency range when played thru a speaker appears loud to human ears. On the other hand if the sound being played thru the speaker is high or very low in frequency the human ear hears much less of the sound. Remember that animals are much more sensitive to the higher and very low frequencies than humans are. Now you can see why it is important to use the highest quality recordings and equipment when calling wildlife. Poor sound recordings don't attract animals as consistently as studio-grade recordings do.
 
Every animal produces a distinct sound pattern Whitetail Fawn Blats-Duration .49 of a second 
   For comparison purposes take a look at the sound picture directly to the right. This sound was made by a whitetail fawn calling its' mother. Notice that in this sound the fundamental frequency is approximately 1400 cycles per second. Also take notice of the number of harmonics in this sound. If you compare the rabbit spectrogram to the fawns, you will see that the fawn produces many more harmonics than the rabbit. As you can see from just these two spectrograms no two animal sounds are exactly alike. All of our recordings are the same quality, studio grade. If sounds were rated on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best and 1 the worst all of our sounds would rate a 9.5. We listened to and analyzed most of our competitors tapes and so called digital sounds. Most of them would be rated at 5 or less.

Remember, you can have the best recorded sounds in the world, but if the playback system you are using is inferior, the sound coming out of the speaker will also be inferior. The opposite also holds true. If the recorded sound is of poor quality and the playback system is of high quality, the end result will still be poor sound. There is an old saying, "The proof is in the pudding". To verify that what we are stating is correct give us a call and ask us to play some sounds for you. After hearing our sounds, call up some or all of our competitors and ask them to play the same sounds for you. 
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