Gas Lantern

This rare Mt. Hermon June Beetle kept trying to mate with our propane gas lantern. Randy fellow!

(I’m on a bit of an nature recording roll since my last post about recording rutting Tule Elk…)

As much as I love backpacking, car camping can be pretty cushy. You can bring as many “luxury items” as you want. One such item is a propane-powered gas lantern. It’s such a staple of camping that I never thought to record it until a recent trip, when the forest went almost dead silent one morning. With the significant other still asleep in the tent, out came the battered Zoom H2.

This recording has just a couple of distant bird calls, but otherwise turned out pretty clean. It’s a simple hissy drone, but as a layer for other sound design purposes, I’m sure I’ll find a use for it someday (like shortening a piece of it for wind effects from airlocks, sci-fi helmets, or the like).

Gas Lantern by noisejockey
[Zoom H2 recorder, 120°-spread rear stereo pair]