TEAM TURNS NATURE INTO SOUND OF MUSIC.

Byline: VICTORIA GIRAUD

Randy Petersen and Robb Klein turned their love of nature and music into a unique nature audio series for U.S. National Parks.

They've produced ``The Sounds of,'' which visits Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, the Canadian Rockies, Yellowstone, the Rocky Mountains, Hawaii, the Great Smoky Mountains, Monterey Bay, Sea World and others.

Each album combines the natural sounds of the area and appropriate music, and also contains a short descriptive text on the parks and the natural sounds that will be heard.

Klein and Petersen, both Agoura Hills residents, met while producing an album for singer Roberta Flack.

``I was a composer, Robb was the studio owner,'' Petersen said.

Both shared a love of wilderness backpacking, and when Klein pointed out Yosemite National Park had no audio recordings to represent its true spirit, an idea was born. The two decided to hike into the area, record the natural sounds of the wildlife and the natural habitat, and then combine it with music.

During the summer of 1992, they took a special binaural microphone (shaped like a human head with microphones in the ears to create a three-dimensional effect) that Klein had constructed and hiked into Yosemite.

As the two were walking into the woods at night carrying their strange microphone head, which they nicknamed ``Fritz,'' they were stopped.

``A ranger pulled us over. He hit us with his spotlight,'' Petersen recalled with a grin. ``He had his hand on his gun, and said, `State your intentions.' ''

They explained that they were only recording and he let them go.

To avoid man-made noise, the pair record mostly at night and off the beaten path.

``Pristine sound is disappearing,'' Petersen said.

Recording presents its challenges as they've found through the many albums they've done since 1992. Wind and rain aren't easy to record.

``Wind is nothing until it hits something,'' Klein said. ``A (large) waterfall sounds like a white noise. But rain sounds are wonderful as they hit leaves, and small waterfalls and streams sound better than large ones.''

To ensure they've got the right information and know the best places to record, Klein and Petersen work with the interpretive divisions at each national park.

``They tell us where to go and review our text for accuracy,'' Klein said.

Sometimes recording can even be a bit dangerous, such as the time they were recording the bugling elk in the Rocky Mountains during the fall rutting season. One elk trotted up to the microphone, bellowing his challenge. When he got no response, he ignored it and went back to gathering up his harem of females, but Klein and Petersen were glad they had their running shoes on, just in case.

When they first proposed their recording idea, Petersen's wife, Jhana, who now does graphics for their albums, was skeptical. She thought Petersen was just using an excuse to get out of the house.

``She told us we were crazy and just wasting our time,'' Petersen recalled. But, he added, she toasted them at a party they held to celebrate their success.

Both Klein and Petersen grew up in California. Klein's a San Fernando Valley native who pursued music as a career.

``I built, worked and owned music studios for 17-18 years,'' he said.

Along the way, in studios like his 41-B Studios in Westlake Village, he recorded groups like Brazil '66, Bobby Vinton, Pete Townsend and Little Feet, among many others.

Petersen is a native of Sacramento who put himself through Berkeley College of Music. He played bass in a band when he was younger, but found that composing and producing music was more to his liking. Besides the National Park series, he's been the music director for Paula Abdul and Sheena Easton and does work for Disney Studios. He has worked on composing songs, both music and lyrics, for a Goofy movie and a video for Robin Williams in connection with the ``Aladdin'' film, and he is writing songs for a spin-off from ``Hercules.''

Petersen's sons, Cody and Ryan, are his best review board critics for his Disney songs.

Coming projects for Petersen and Klein in their nature series include recording at the Everglades and at Denali Park in Alaska. They are also planning international recordings, and Petersen has recently been to Mount Fuji in Japan for some preliminary recording.

Their albums sound peaceful and meditative, and they have received many letters of praise from people all over the world.

A nun wrote them saying that she used the music for her hospice patients and told them that their albums were often the last sounds her dying patients heard in this world.

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Photo

Photo: Rob Klein, left, and Randy Petersen use ``Fritz,'' a head-shaped recording device with microphones, to create 3-D sounds.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News