Author: richard

Going beyond field recording

Nikita from soundtrip has a great mini-series of articles on the philosophy of sound recording different cities and locations. He goes beyond field recording, putting together his recording shot with a 10 minute mini-programme in mind. I’ve listed his four articles here as some of the links end up in Russian

  1. soundtrips – reasons, aims, ways
  2. practice of silence
  3. Sounds around
  4. creating a soundtrip

I’ve never done any combined recordings. I’ve attempted to be an observer, nether adding or taking away, with only editing and volume control, the equivalent of foundview in photography. That’s largely because I don’t feel I currently have any talent for that side of things. Nikita’s posts gave me some pointers. Like the point about not using an ipod but listening to the word around you.

I have a short commute so I don’t do that, indeed I don’t have an iPod, or listen to music on the move after getting off a plane and firing up my MD player with some music on. It was horrifying to hear how loud it was set to overcome the sound of the engines.

You have to be more careful as you get older to minimise loud sounds, because the middle ear loses the ability to tighten the eardrum using the tensor muscle and to separate the stirrup from the oval window via the stapedial muscle, so a valuable automatic gain control mechanism becomes less effective at reducing the transmission of loud sounds to the inner ear.

So I’ve managed to avoid the isolation due to music, perhaps more by luck than judgement.

I may get the opportunity to do more recording in a few months, and perhaps I need to move beyond the limitations of my thinking about the recording process.

Another landmark article was Des Coulam’s concept of the sound map when making recordings

  1. soundlandscapes’ street recording tips
  2. soundlandscapes on the concept of the sound map

These are my favourite articles about the art and vision of field recording. I’m generally okay on the technical stuff, but it’s the art of field recording that I haven’t yet got right, and these made me think. It’s easy for some people writing about sounds to go all luvvie and float off into fluffy clouds of art-school speak, it’s good to avoid that and get real ideas from real people out there doing it!

 

New Year 2012 Felixstowe Ship Horns

Even in Ipswich you get to hear the boat horns sounding on New Year’s day, so this time I went to Shotley Peninsula, between the large container port at Felixstowe and another port at Harwich to record the ship horns sounding the New Year in.

A nice touch was the Shotley residents have a sense of timing. Unlike in Ipswich, where people start releasing fireworks all the time as soon as it gets dark, in Shotley (and Felixstowe and Harwich by the looks of it) they wait for the New Year. In the foreground are the sounds of some Shotley residents celebrating at the pub, but it is the ship foghorns that make this for me.

Note the fireworks are quite loud after the horns 🙂

St Paul’s Cathedral Bells and massive reverb from glass-fronted financial district buildings

St Paul’s Cathedral is only a stone’s throw from the tall glass-faced buildings of London’s financial district. I was sitting in the gardens ot the cathedral, and the bells sounded really odd, as if there was an organist following on after then about 2 seconds late. This must be the echo coming from the glass-fronted buildings about 0,5km away, it does nothing for the tone

Spinney Birdlife

There’s a spinney nearby, so over the holidays I got myself into the tree and rigged a pair of omnis, and stood really still. The first thing I heard was the mournful repeated tone of the collared dove, a steady counterpoint to the recording, with its mournful ho-HOO-hoo, with the stress on the first syllable. Later on the woodpigeon appears, with its ho-hoo-HOO-HOO-ho-hoo, and there are various other birds flitting around in the undergrowth.

It was a very windy day, so there is a lot of wind noise in the trees, which adds atmosphere for me, reminding me of a special moment with the birds

Nightingale on the heath

My bike ride to work takes me past open fields and for a short stretch over some sandy heathland. I was surprised to hear a nightingale in the distance – I had to stop and listen to the lovely sound

this was recorded using an omni MP3 recorder so it’s not a fantastic species recording, but it captures the moment for me 🙂 The singing males have come all the way from Africa, and they have scouted their territories. They are hoping to call the females down from the sky as they arrive a couple of weeks later. It feels surprisingly early to hear nightingale song at the moment.

Campsea Ash Auction Rooms

Auction in progress, classic auction patter

The livestock and game auctions at Campsea Ashe bring out a whole much of characters, full of good old Suffolk boys with strong accents. And a few loud cocks too

Loud cocks

Under The Pier show soundmark

Tim Hunkin’s madcap creations at the Under the Pier show at Southwold have their own soundmarks, but this rhythmic squeak from the animated sign is the one that most reminds me of this attraction.

A Vee of Geese overflying Southwold Pier at dusk

I was recording the waves at Southwold pier as darkness started to fall. The air was still enough to give it a go without being taken down by the sea winds.

Suddenly, in the distance I hear the sound of geese, and a massive vee of geese pass overhead, possibly a hundred birds in all