Voice of a Place
This coastal field recording captures the voice of the beach at Massengale Park on St Simons Island, GA, near The King and Prince. A liminal space, between land and ocean. At sunset/dusk, a liminal time, between day and night. Listen to the recording or visit us over at BandCamp. This is Liminal Intervals, a series of work that strives to capture the voice of places in-between. This session was the first in the series. If you find this interesting, read about the second session in this series, recorded at Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island.
Sea Oats near the King and Prince and Massengale Park, St. Simons Island, GA. January 20, 2026 at 6:22pm Eastern. Taken during setup for the first Liminal Intervals recording session.
Session Details
This session took place from approximately 7-9pm eastern time on January 20th, 2026. It was recorded in three 30-35 minute segments and then overlapped during post-production to create a realistic environment.
Listening Notes
This was the first Perception Archives recording session. I have a love of listening to ocean waves, especially during sleep. However, I have not found a recording that did not have too much variance in loudness AND the ability to seamlessly loop. The inspiration for Perception Archives was simply that. I wanted to listen to waves while I slept and not have the track(s) wake me up. So I spent some funds on equipment and software and started learning. When a trip to the east coast happened to come up, I was ready for this first attempt.
Walking out onto the beach from Massengale Park, seeing the King and Prince shining in the distance JUST as the sun began to set, was majestic. I have always loved the beach and was fortunate enough to visit Jekyll multiple times during my childhood. While this was not my first visit to St Simons, it was my first to Massengale Park and its beach. It was also my first visit at night on St Simons and my first winter visit to the island.
The conditions were almost perfect. Winds were slight, the waves were the perfect mix of variation and consistency. Temps were in the low 40s (much better than the below 0 temps we had temporarily left in South Dakota a few days earlier). It was just after 6pm and as my wife, Tammy, and I carried my gear out to the beach. We stopped to admire the beauty of the sunset and grab a few photos prior to setting up. Perspective Archives did not have a name at this time and this specific series of projects that I call Liminal Intervals was not even a thought.
I opted for three 30 minute recordings that I hoped could be overlapped during post-production to create a fully immersive environment. For technical details, please see below.
Field Recording Methods Used
For these recordings, I used Rode m5 matched pair of stereo mics with “deadcat” wind filters into a Steinberg UR22C into my MacBook. For DAW, I used Logic Pro (v11.2.2). There were three 30 minute sessions at various layers in various configurations.
The first session was at approximately 20 feet from the surf and intended as the primary audio and stereo space within the recording. I used ORTF mic positioning at a height of about 5 feet to capture the stereo presence of the waves and attempted to keep to a -6dB maximum.
The second session was at approximately 10 feet from the surf and intended as the “punch” for the recording. I was a bit concerned about the spray, but the equipment faired wonderfully. I used a single m5 at 3 feet angled down at approximately 45 degrees to better pick up the up close feel of the waves and kept to a -2dB maximum (I had to reduce this in mixing, of course).
The third session was at approximately 30 feet from the surf and intended as the atmospheric background for the recording. I used XY mic positioning at a height of about 6.5 feet to capture the openness of the beach for the recording and kept to a -12dB maximum.
The three sessions blende together, in my opinion, wonderfully. Balancing the three tracks was a minimal effort of gain staging. There were no wind issues.