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“Noise” has three common definitions in the world of bioacoustics, depending on context.

Most often it describes unwanted sounds or electrical signals that can obscure the sounds that you are trying to record. For example, a busy highway will produce a lot of low-frequency noise that can obscure low-frequency calls from owls and anurans vocalizing nearby. This makes recording those animals more difficult.

Recording systems also produce electronic noise that can obscure sounds being picked up by the microphones. This noise can’t be heard if you put your ear up to the recorder - instead it’s just random electrical activity that gets mixed in with the signals coming from the microphones and can be heard when you play back the finished recording. Older or cheaper electronics tend to produce higher levels of noise, meaning sounds need to be louder to be discernible above the noise of the electronics.

Noise can also be used to describe ultrasonic recordings that do not contain bats (also called false triggers).

In contexts where measuring the general levels of anthropophony (human-generated sound) or biophony (animal-generated sound) is the goal, rather than the analysis of single vocalisations, “noise” is used to describe this aggregated sound. See also: Soundscape

In the spirit of reconciliation, Faunatech acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.