Ambience Nature Continental Divide Southwest is a new multitrack nature sound collection that captures the sonic essence of a 1,000 km thru-hike along the Continental Divide Trail, exploring the diverse ecosystems of New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and Utah.

This library takes you into the desert-mountain soundscape, from the dawn wind and distant coyotes, to trickling water in canyons, birdcalls carried from higher elevations, and sweeping gusts across mesa ridges.

About Biquette Studio / Fabien Noël

Biquette Studio, founded by Montreal-based sound designer Fabien Noël, a veteran of the video game industry, who specializes now in immersive, high-fidelity field recordings in ambisonics format for games, documentaries, VR, and museum installations. 

Introducing Ambience Nature Continental Divide Southwest 

I’m delighted to announce the release of Ambience Nature Continental Divide Southwest, a new sound collection created in collaboration with Audiokinetic.

This project is the meeting point of two lifelong passions: capturing the voice of nature through sound, and walking long, self-supported journeys across mountains and wild landscapes.

The nomadic approach brought both challenge and inspiration. Each day meant carrying only the lightest professional sound gear across nearly 30 kilometers of rugged terrain. There was little time to linger—recordings were made opportunistically, whenever an intriguing sound or atmosphere revealed itself, in a constant dialogue with the land. Most often, this meant listening in silence, waiting for nature to speak, and being ready to capture fleeting moments that would otherwise vanish. 

The Continental Divide Trail is part of the legendary “Triple Crown” of American long-distance hikes, spanning almost 4,000 km. Of the three, it is by far the wildest and most demanding. Our own journey began at the Mexican border at Crazy Cook and ended at the threshold of Colorado, where deep snow finally halted our path.

From this experience emerged a collection that reflects the region’s iconic ecosystems—deserts, canyons, pine forests—captured both as pure ambiences and as dedicated wildlife tracks, recorded by day and by night.

Each habitat is reconstructed in multitrack REAPER projects, offering creative freedom to balance birdsong, animal presence, and the textures of wind or silence. Recordings are delivered in native Ambisonics A-format, converted to Ambix 1^st order, enabling immersive 3D soundscapes that move seamlessly from intimate binaural experiences to expansive surround formats.

Technically, the journey relied on the ZOOM F6 portable recorder and the Reynolds A-Type4 ambisonics microphone—a setup that proved remarkably light, resilient, and faithful to the delicate subtleties of the natural world.

Yet behind the microphones lie the memories that shaped the soundscapes: pressing “record” at dawn in the desert, guided only by instinct, moments before three packs of coyotes called to each other across the vast emptiness; standing still at sunrise by the San Juan River, overwhelmed by a chorus of birds, when a startled skunk broke the stillness; or feeling the rush of air as a red-tailed hawk dove toward us, screaming as it defended its territory.

This collection is more than a library of sounds—it is an invitation to journey into the wild, to rediscover the fragile, hidden voices of nature, and to bring them alive in your own creations.

Closing

Ambience Nature Continental Divide Southwest offers a detailed and versatile audio journey along one of North America’s most iconic trails in a very remote location. It provides a clear, adaptable toolkit for professionals in games requiring authentic environmental sound.

This is the sound of the Divide—captured with precision, organized for flexibility, and ready to be used in your creative work.