Sea dramatics at cliffs by Shag Rock, Perranporth (5) (Improved)

(Improved version of https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/173207/ , with much better stereo imaging.)

A real corker!
This recording was made on 5th January 2013, yet again on the very steep and rather precarious grassy slope below the rather exposed coast path a bit south-west of Perranporth, Cornwall, which contours the main cliff slope from near Cligga Head to Droskyn Point, at which latter point you are in Perranporth proper — but with a crucial difference this time, and let me say right away that, at least for me, this one is the highest in the 'wow!' stakes of all my recordings so far.

I had an earlier start for my hike this time as compared with my previous hikes when I got Shag Rock recordings, owing to a more favourable hitch-hike from Exeter to Portreath, and I was aiming to squeeze in a full hour's Shag Rock recording this time before it got too dark for it to be sensible for me to continue. However, it worked out a bit differently, because once I'd got my recording under way, at my usual spot on a very low drystone wall, this time I wandered down a rather vague narrow exposed and quite precarious little track descending obliquely to the left as one faces the sea, to see if I could find a yet more interesting spot to make a recording.

In particular I'd noticed that very often the heaviest and most thundering breaking of waves tended to be a bit to the left of where my regular recording position was facing. Anyway, I concluded that it was worth terminating the currently running recording and then to commence another in that other position, some way down there to the left, much closer to the actual cliff top and altogether closer and more exposed to the 'action'.

The action around Shag Rock (to right), although still audible, is therefore somewhat more distant, BUT not only is the recorder now altogether closer to the thundering 'action' of the waves, often with tremendous eruptions of spray as powerful rebound waves meet the bigger incoming waves, but also now it is getting significant whoomphs from another spot on the cliff a bit further to the left, where plumes of spray frequently shoot up to as high as the recorder (though, thanks to an undercut immediately below the recorder, nothing came up quite that high at the recording position, otherwise I'd have retreated a bit for the sake of the recorder).

Curiously, what seemed to be the loudest wallop of them all was not caused by a wave hitting the cliff at all, but by two breaking sections of a particularly big wave coalescing and evidently trapping a large volume of air under a fair weight of water, causing effectively a mild explosion.

What is really striking about this soundscape is that it feels so powerful and indeed menacing not just through brute force of sound but through the graceful and elegant movements of the water, as though this were some gargantuan ballet performance.

Advisory

Please note that only very good speakers / headphones with a very extended bass response could do this recording real justice. Also, it may sound unpleasantly boomy on speakers that have any sort of boominess (like my computer speakers!).

In this case the sound may display phasey effects (including phase cancellation points) from some speaker systems, but that doesn't occur at all when listening through headphones. High-grade headphones strongly recommended anyway, and volume best turned up 3dB above a normal sensible listening level.

(This is the viewpoint of previous Shag Rock recordings. This time, as described further above, the recorder was off to left / rear of this view, part-way down a narrow precarious track following a sewage pipe, and facing straight out to sea, so, what you see in this photo would be well off to the right.)

Techie stuff

This recording made with a Sony PCM-M10 on a Hama mini-tripod, using the built-in microphones covered with a Rode Deadkitten (original, superior, version). There was a force 3-4 breeze coming from the left, but it appears that the Deadkitten has been fully effective in eliminating any noticeable wind noise.

Post-recording processing:

Compensation for muffling caused by the furry windshield, and stereo widening / optimizing using the A1StereoControl VST plugin (160% widening), and compensatory 3dB tilt away from treble to offset the treble lift caused by the widening process.

Please remember to give this recording a rating!