Nature sound recordist Thomas Rex Beverly has spent years chasing the sounds of the natural world, from Patagonian mountain ranges to glaciers of Greenland to the ancient redwood canopies of California. Now he has gone further than ever before, plunging beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean to capture the extraordinary songs of humpback whales. Armed with a trusted set of Sennheiser HD 300 PROtect headphones, his long-standing companions MKH 8020 microphones, and a bespoke 3D hydrophone array, Beverly undertook two expeditions, first to Hawaii and then to French Polynesia, in pursuit of high-definition, spatialized recordings that no researcher had previously been able to make.
Beverly has followed three core themes in his field recording expeditions; glaciers, weather and ancient trees, and has now added a fourth, whales. He found that while the existing recordings were interesting, he felt he could do more to really capture their other-worldly songs and the essence of their habitat, specifically with a more accurate recording of the vast spatial nature of the underwater world. His adventure began in Hawaii, where he recorded the unique underwater world of the wildlife around the Big Island, and ended in French Polynesia where, with the help of Sennheiser, he listened to the enticing songs of humpback whales.
Typically, existing recordings of whale song have been recorded for research purposes and are optimized by scientists for ultra-long recordings of up to six months. This makes the results factually accurate, but not of high enough resolution to be suitable for spatialised sound or high-definition listening. As a field recordist, Beverly strives for perfection. His sound libraries are used by sound designers for film, TV, video games, and museums, with his clients including Oscar, Emmy, and Golden Globe-winning sound designers and sound editors.
“I started recording whales in Hawaii during February 2025. This was my first whale project, and I did a huge amount of learning,” Beverly recalls. “I got some great recordings, but for my French Polynesia trip in October 2025, I was able to really improve on that experience, refining my techniques and immersive hydrophone arrays.”
Capturing the unique and almost alien environments of the sea requires robust and reliable equipment. For his latest adventure, Beverly relied on the accuracy and safety of his Sennheiser HD 300 PROtect headphones, alongside a complex and completely bespoke 3D-recording hydrophone rig. The HD 300 PROtect are fitted with Sennheiser’s ActiveGard™ technology, which protects the wearer’s hearing from sudden sound bursts without interrupting the audio signal – an added safety feature that differs from traditional acoustic shock clipping circuitry. The headphones proved critical for long overnight sessions spent immersed in some of the ocean’s loudest and most dynamic soundscapes.
Beverly recounts, “I’m sitting in the dark, rocking gently on a catamaran off the coast of an island that looks like Jurassic Park. I’m in French Polynesia and the humpbacks have all gone quiet. They’re hiding to protect their calves from a pod of Orcas that have been hunting. It’s been eerily quiet for almost an hour. I start to hear a sound like distant machine guns firing constantly. Then I hear a whistle. I realize something magical is about to happen, so I start scanning the horizon.
I see the first spinner jump. They really spin as their whole body flies out of the water. So neat. The dolphin pod was curious about why we are floating out in the open ocean with hydrophones and decided to check us out. The giant cube of 8 hydrophones captures them swimming in three dimensions. Some of their sounds are in the audible range, but I know there’s a wild world of ultrasonics happening at the moment. I could feel my headphones screaming to reproduce them and got this weird ear fatigue all of a sudden…but luckily the HD 300 PROtect headphones protected my hearing and let me enjoy the moment. It was a beautiful wildlife encounter that I’ll remember when I’m 80.”
