Chapter 21 Chapter Six

Fukuchi Karoku's house has already prepared breakfast.The four of them sat in the room where they rested when they first arrived yesterday. On the table were miso soup, grilled fish, boiled eggs, pickles and so on. "Guys, I probably eat toast every morning, but I think I got hungry after staying up all night yesterday, so I prepared more." Greetings from Fukuji Karoku. "No, I already had the snacks prepared by the family yesterday, so I didn't feel hungry at night; on the contrary, I want to eat more this morning." Wife and I answer on behalf of everyone. "There is nothing delicious, please eat as much as possible. After eating, play the recording, and I will tell you the names of the wild birds."

Everyone picked up the chopsticks together, drank the hot miso soup, and then ate.Outside the window, the light has increased.Shinto coughed again and again. "Oh! Mr. Shindo sneezed just now, probably because he caught a cold." Fukuchi Karoku was very concerned and asked immediately. "No, it's okay. Speaking of which, Karui's temperature is a bit cold after all!" "Do you want to close the window?" "please do not." Having said that, Shinto's face turned pale.The other three people also talked about the difference in climate between Tokyo and Karuizawa for a while, and Fukuchi Karoku also put forward the exact temperature figures.He said that when recording wild birds, he always went hiking with a thermometer.

"Okay, now, replay the recording!" Yue Shui put down his chopsticks and said.Fukuji Yoshiroku seemed to have been waiting for this sentence for a long time, so she also put down her chopsticks. "I really want to listen to it once. This is your first recording!" When he said that, he drank the tea in one gulp. After breakfast, everyone sat around the tape recorder.Yuhara Ze played the tapes one by one in the order of the tape numbers. The tape began to rotate, and first there was the cry of a cuckoo bird. "This cry, needless to say, everyone knows." Fukuji Karoku said with a smile.The sharp cry was intermittent.

"Please listen carefully, the cuckoo's call is actually different from what most people say." "No, it's not like what most people say." Yue Shui said. "I was born in Asakusa, and as soon as I heard this call, I immediately thought of a famous sentence from the Edo period." Shinto said while wiping his nose. "Did cuckoos still live in Asakusa during the Edo period?" asked Fukuji Yoshiroku. "Not only in the Edo period. Until the end of the Meiji period, it seemed that cuckoos could be heard in Tokyo. Think about it, at the end of the Shogunate period, there were still wolves haunting the mountains and valleys!" Wife and I talked about the old days talk.

The hooting of the owl began. "The hooting of the owl reveals that the surrounding area is particularly quiet. When I first heard it, it was like 'falling into a trance'." Yue Shui listened carefully and said.Near the end of the tape, there was another cuckoo cry. Hara Ze took off the tape and replaced it with the second volume. "President, this is the volume, there are people whispering in it." Yuan Ze said when he turned on the switch. "Really?" Fukuji Karoku's expression seemed to be okay if there was such a noise, so he didn't bother to answer.

Not long after, mixed with the birdsong, a deep human voice appeared.All four pricked up their ears.It looked exactly the same as when I heard the conversation for the first time at the villa last night. I could hear the conversation of a couple, but I couldn't make out the content of the conversation.Male voices and female voices appeared alternately. If you listen carefully, there are more female voices than male voices. "Amplify the volume a bit, and try." Shinto said to Harasawa.After Yuan Ze complied, the whole room was filled with the sound of birds chirping.Although the voice of the speech has also increased, it is still unclear what the words are.Talking non-stop.

"President, this conversation lasted for about three minutes." Yuan Ze looked at the turntable of the tape and said. "The owl hooted again. This time the recording was clear." Karoku Fukuchi seemed to pay no attention to the sound of conversation. "So, Harasawa Ginmi's haiku is like this..." As soon as Yue Shui said this, Shinto continued: "Whispering, the owl hoots one after another as deep as the sound of a drum... I think I changed this word, which is better. How about it?" "Well, both words are good." Hara Ze did not object to Shindo's statement.

"Listen, the voice of conversation appeared again." Shinto listened to the voice in the tape. "I still can't make out what it was talking about. The woman's voice was a little higher... probably a rather young woman." He made such a judgment. The conversation on the tape stopped again. "Wait a minute, the conversation can be heard again. In the meantime, we have had a lot of speculation." Hara Ze said to Fukuchi Karoku. The third tape began to play, and immediately there were several short and connected bird calls. "This is Nightingale." Fukuji Karoku explained.

"Is this really a nightingale? I didn't guess it at all," my wife said. "Yes. A nightingale and an owl sound roughly the same." While Fukujika was listening carefully, the sound of conversation came from the tape again.Jialiu frowned. "The voice of the speech is still far away." Yue Shui said. "Why don't you come near the sound collector? According to the sound now, it's at least a hundred meters away. We all saw that place this morning. It was very quiet. The two of them were doing something there. What's the matter? Could it be suicide..."

"The woman's voice is a little different!" "I'm afraid not. Your ears are deaf." This time it was Harasawa who spoke. "This time, it's still the man who talks less. However, as soon as the woman's voice stops, he immediately continues." Shinto said while coughing. The tape was halfway through, and the conversation had stopped. "From now on, it will be the sound of birds chirping." When my wife and I said this, Fukuji Karoku made a relieved expression. From here, Fukuchi Karoku told everyone the names of the wild birds according to the sounds of the birds that were recorded before dawn.

After listening to everything, Fukuchi Yoshiroku said. "Generally speaking, the recording is very good. If you edit the tapes into two volumes, you can monitor them at any time. The first recording, it can be said that it is very successful.... When you edit, you can cancel the noise of the conversation. This job , You don’t need an expert, as long as someone who is used to the tape recorder uses a filter, the sound can be eliminated, it’s very simple.” Shinto, Harasawa, and Koshimizu looked at each other and made an expression of "Aiya". "It's a pity that it ends here. After that, there are dozens of wild birds to call. That's all until five o'clock." Fukuchi Karoku said. "Yeah, I'm so tired that I can't bear to sleep." Wife and I replied with a wry smile. On the return trip, Fukuchi Karoku kept sending the four of them to Karuizawa Station.His son Kaichiro never appeared. "Please come and play again." Fukuchi Yoshiroku's head of white hair bowed deeply and waved his hands in greeting.He was wearing a very elegant cold shirt and blue trousers, and he looked like President Karuizawa. Inside the train, the four of them continued to exchange opinions on whether they should amplify the voice of Qianlu's conversation in the tape and listen to its content in detail.Koshimizu and Tsugaga were negative, while Shinto and Harasawa thought that if they could hear it clearly, it must be very interesting, so they advocated listening to it. "Anyway, we are amateurs, so it's okay to treat it as a hobby." Yuan Ze said. "I think it's a little out of the ordinary. Mr. Fudi said the same thing..." My wife and I expressed our disapproval. "Maybe it's a bit out of the ordinary. But this is our first time recording. Besides, the voice of the conversation is clearly the title of our couplet!" Shinto, who had a cold wind, urged with a nasal voice. "This train arrives in Tokyo at five o'clock. Take the tape to the radio station right away. The four of you can listen to the tape again. If you listen to it on another day, you don't know when you can get together." Hara Ze said.He has a friend who works in the technical department of a folk radio station.The tape can be given to that person for disposal.Moreover, last night, he also said to my wife: "Although the voice of the conversation is low, it can be replayed afterward. It can be handled like this, Mr. Wife!" My wife and I shook their heads and replied: "There is such a thing. When I bought this sound collector in the store, it didn't tell me." The four of them slept on the train seats until the train arrived at Ueno Station.This is to make up for the lack of sleep last night.Except for Yuan Ze, who was thirty-two years old, the other three were all in their fifties. At Ueno Station, three clerks from my wife's confectionery shop came to pick up the car and removed the sound collector. This was informed by a long-distance call from my wife's home in Karoku, Fukuji, Karuizawa. Yuan Ze took five tapes, and the four of them got into a taxi together and went to the folk radio station.The concierge greeted them to the reception room. The reception room of the folk radio station is a very special place; actors and singers come in and out, all dressed up very gorgeously. Qingliu who came out to greet them was a tall man, and he couldn't help laughing after hearing Yuan Ze's words. "Okay, I'll give it a try." He picked up the tape. Aoyagi, a member of the technical department of the radio station, picked up the tape. "How long will it take?" Hara Ze asked him. "This... It will take an hour to finish listening to and processing the tapes, and you can roughly hear them." Qingliu replied. "The sound of the conversation is only in the second and third tapes. The rest are birdsong." Yuan Ze said. "Okay, I understand... Then, everyone, please wait as long as possible." Qingliu ordered coffee and snacks for them from the small shop. The four of them ate and drank and watched TV for an hour. Qing Liu reappeared and came to Yuan Ze. "Hey, I almost heard it." "Really? Did you hear the conversation clearly?" Yuan Ze looked up at him. "Well, I can hear it more clearly. All in all, I can only hear the higher part of the voice. Everyone, please come inside!" Aoyagi led Harasawa, Koshimizu, Shinto, and my wife and I out of the reception room of the radio station, into the corridor, and immediately stepped up the stairs in front of us. I don't know which floor it is, but there is also a long corridor there.Qingliu stopped halfway, and pushed open the thick door of a room.There is a sign above the door, which says "Associate Adjustment Room No. 5".Until then, the corridors were lined with the same doors on both sides as in the hotel, and some of them had red lights on them and the words "on the air" were written on them. Everyone walked in, and there was a long and horizontal room inside, with a large glass window like a window cabinet on the front.Looking out of the glass window, I saw lighting fixtures hanging from the ceiling and a performance stage below.In fact, what the four people saw was like a stage, a place for TV performances. There is a long cabinet in front of the glass window, with countless equipment on it, a tape recorder on the left and a record player on the right.On the glass window in the middle, there is an amplifier hanging, and there are five or six small TVs lined up side by side. This is for broadcasters to choose the most suitable one from five or six angles, change the picture at any time, and broadcast it to the audience.Now, there are no performances on the stage, and five or six small TVs are not turned on.Needless to say, everyone knows that this room is the place to communicate with and control the stage. "This room is an auxiliary adjustment room. It is completely soundproof, and the sound of the performance outside the glass window cannot be heard at all. The operator can only wear earphones to communicate with the performance stage. Looking from the opposite side, the people here are surrounded by large glass windows. work in it, hence the name 'goldfish bowl'." Aoyagi explained to everyone. Qing Liu said to Yuan Ze: "The tape you brought is already on here." He pointed to the tape recorder on the left.There was a plate of tapes on it, and the other end of the tape was already wound on the empty reel. "The radio station uses single-track tapes for professionals, and you use double-track tapes for amateurs. It doesn't work well, so another tape recorder was brought in." He was referring to another small tape recorder. "I listened to your second and third volumes of tapes, and there were indeed people's conversations. Regarding this point, I must explain in advance that you request to amplify the content of the conversations and ask for them to be heard clearly. In this case, I am When you play it, you have to sacrifice the bird call. In other words, the sound of the bird call is eliminated.” "So the birdsong is completely inaudible. I feel that if the conversation is amplified so that it can be heard clearly, the birdsong will also be more clearly heard at the same time." When Harasawa said this, Shindo who was sitting behind interrupted: "Ah, I see. That's because the sound of the bird chirping is too loud. On the contrary, at that time, the two people stood far away, so the voice was very small. So, if the speech is amplified, then, away from the condenser Birds that are closer are louder." Qingliu smiled. "That's right. After the conversation is amplified, the bird's call will be louder, which also disturbs the hearing. So, we need to cancel that part of the bird's call." "Several sounds are recorded at the same time, and only the bird's call is eliminated, okay?" Hara Ze asked. "It can be eliminated. To eliminate noise, use this method. Simply put, use a filter. Look, this is it." Qingliu pointed to the utensils in the middle of the long platform. "It's called a bass filter. It removes the treble and leaves just the bass." When speaking, Qingliu's tone seemed to be in class. "The principle of this thing is roughly like this....The main components of the human voice are mostly sounds between 200-300,000 cycles to 1,000 cycles. Therefore, as long as the sound waves with this number of cycles, And cancel the calls of cuckoo and nightingale recorded at the same time. The number of cycles of the calls of cuckoo and nightingale is relatively high, and the main components are all above 1,000 cycles. Therefore, use a filter to filter out more than 1,000 cycles By canceling the sound wave, the sound of birds can be eliminated, and only the human voice remains." "I see." "However, the annoying thing is that the owl's call is a low voice with less than 500000 cycles. It is lower than the number of cycles of the human voice. So, no matter what, there is nothing to do about it. After the volume is enlarged, the owl's voice is still low. There will be; and, because the sound collector catches the owl's call so well, it will be louder." "So that's the reason. Then, there is still a part of the bird's cry!" Hara Ze nodded and said: "In order to listen to the calls of wild birds, I specially used a sound collector to record the sound; however, until now, I have to remove the calls. The voices of two people speaking together twice, at best, are ten Minutes. The calls of wild birds have been recorded in many other tapes, so it doesn’t matter if you sacrifice some of them.” he said to his companion. "No, it wouldn't be like that with your tapes, and you'd be able to keep the conversations and the birds." Qing Liu said to Yuan Ze. "Oh, is it? That's even better. So when you play it to us, you're using the original tape, plus something else?" "That's right. It's enough to just put on the filter. So, after listening to the sound that passed through the filter this time, if you want to continue listening to it in the future, then I can transcribe it for you on another tape. In this way Come on, you can listen to the sound of the original tape and the sound after passing through the filter for comparison.” "Then please." This time it was Yue Shui who spoke. "Yeah, it's much more convenient. Please tell us while transcribing it to another tape." My wife said.The cold has not healed, and Shinto keeps cleaning his nose. Qingliu brought another tape recorder and put in a new tape.This one is also a tape recorder for everyday use. "Okay, that's it for now. Start with the second tape you made, and play it from the beginning." After speaking, Aoyagi flipped the switch.At the same time, adjust the installed filter with your fingers. The tape began to spin slowly.The sound should have flowed from the loudspeaker on the glass window; however, after playing the tape for a long time, there was no sound. "On the original tape, cuckoos and nightingales were singing, but now I can't hear them at all. This is because their calls have a high frequency and are filtered out by the bass filter. Only a little sound remains. "Qing Liu said with a smile. "I see." Yuan Ze nodded. "Under normal circumstances, our ears can hear all kinds of loud sounds, but we can't hear very high frequency waves. This is the reason." He said tentatively. "You are right. Because I am very interested in electronic music, I often change the number of cycles of the sound, which is very interesting. I often hear unexpected sound effects....Okay, I don't want to say more, everyone listen carefully Bar." Just as Qingliu finished speaking, suddenly, the room was filled with strange voices.The faces of the four people were as if they heard thunder above their heads. "It's the hooting of an owl." Qingliu said with a smile. The thunder continued intermittently for a long time. "Amazing." When Yuan Ze said, even his eyes widened.The other three people also looked dumbfounded. "Now, the conversation is about to begin." Qingliu put her finger to her lips.Sure enough, the human voice was broadcast from the loudspeaker. "It's so quiet here..." "Yes, very quiet." "I won't do it, this place is too desolate." "Don't be afraid, I'm here!" "But, I'm always a little scared... Hey, what kind of bird is this?" "It's Nightingale!" "Nightingale? Is that the sound? I've only heard the name of this bird." Having said this, the conversation stopped.The four looked at each other.It can be heard from the conversation that one of them is a woman, but her voice is somewhat male.As for the man's voice, it was even rougher. "Hey, what should we do in the future? We must have a long-term plan!" The owl hooted again.Exactly like thunder or the rumble of an electric train.At this time, the woman's voice was covered, and it was impossible to hear what she said.Once the owl's cry deteriorates, it is like the sound of material collisions, and people's speech can only be heard intermittently.However, between a few cries, only a few words of a sentence can be heard.Can't understand the meaning. "It's pointless to talk like that." This time it was a man's rough voice.The thunder that was meeting the owl stopped suddenly. "But, I can't help it! Besides, I didn't expect that you would say such a thing. I thought that you had been seriously considering our affairs. You really don't treat people as human beings." "How could I not treat you as a human being? I have always been passionate about you." "Don't put it too nicely. Don't I know? You've slowly cooled off. Since you're like this, what can I do? Hey, what can I do?" "No, I'm..." The thunderous hooting of the owls began again.The man's voice almost completely disappeared, and he could only hear it when the barking stopped for a while.