A Mountain Lion "Field" Recording- Topeka Zoo

-----Mountain Lion at the Topeka Zoo- Jan 2011 .wav-----

I went to the Topeka Zoo with a stereo mic on my mini-DV cam, and captured a mountain lion.  He didn't roar, but he walked about 6 feet from me, and as he was walking he was breathing heavy.  It sounded creepy.

Henrietta Yurchenco- The Ethnic Music Alan Lomax

This lady did some cool field recordings in various places.  The recordings from the 40's in Latin America caught my interest as I am researching some native indigenous music from Central America for a music project I am working on.   Her interview with Down Home Radio is a great source of information on both Latin American indigenous music as well as portable recording techniques from the 1940's.  Below are some links that I found while looking into this fabulous lady a little more.

NY Times Obituary-
Wikipedia Link-
Down Home Radio Tribute to her- includes a good blog post and mp3 of the show.  She co-founded this radio program.
Down Home Radio Interview on Pre-Columbian Music-  Focusing on Mexico and Guatemala, this is mad dope, and is the avenue I found out about this wonderful lady. This interview included musical samples she recorded and the experiences around them. She used a Presto Model K Aluminum Disk Recorder to make her recordings in the 40's.  This lady was hardcore.
Smithsonian Folkways Collection "Music of the Maya-Quiches of Guatemala"- has preview tracks and was recorded by Henrietta in 1978.

A Field Recording of a Bell Tower in North Atlanta

I used my video camera with a DI/Phantom Rig to get a small condenser mic into the input (I used an AT Pro 37). It was the only thing worth recording in about a 10 mile radius from where I was at. Long live tha suburbs. Below is a mono wav file of the above file.  A nice tilted video shot as well.

----ATL Bell Tower Mono .wav file----

Drum Track in a Parking Garage Recording

I recorded a drum track with my Arkestra buddy Nathan a while back.  Tudikas Wayne Hunnicutt (whose Mutant Boobies 12" is bomb) had this idea of recording a played back drum track in a parking garage.  I recorded this drum track with the intention of doing this.  Parking Garages don't have power outlets, so I broke out a shitty USB audio interface with phantom power, a large diaphragm condenser, a laptop.  I then opened the doors on my car and cranked my blown out 6x9's as loud as I could.  The pres on my USB interface suck and there isn't much gain and my car doesn't have much junk in the trunk, so I got shitty recording levels ( like -50 db).  I limited the shit out of the live recording and rolled the high end off to get rid of the noise floor from the mic pres out (it didn't matter cause most of the sound was in the mud range).  Below is a stream and a download link.  It was strange music experiment, I thought I was going to have the police come up and ask me what the hell I was doing.

----Drum in a Parking Garage mp3----

Cicada Field Recording plus a Tweaked Out Ambient Version

I just moved into a new house and the evening cicada drone near my new pad is amazing.  For hours each night, these bugs crescendo and decrescendo in this heat of summer in Lawrence.  These bugs are looking for love, and their are lots of them doing so.  It is like the booty club in college towns on a Friday after midnight.  I recorded about 12 minutes of this the other evening and then did a tweaked out ambient drone mix of it.  Below is playback and download links to the dry and EFXd 12 minute version, and a download link to a 1 min hi-res wav sample of the dry recording.  Signal chain- NT1A->MOTU 828 ver01.  Remix Signal Chain, I can't remember, but there were lots of flangers.

----A 1 minute wav file of the Cicada Crescendo----

----The 12 min mp3 of the Cicada Crescendo Original Recording----

----The 12 min mp3 of the Cicada Crescendo Tweaked Out Ambient Drone Mix----

Alan Lomax Links

Alan Lomax- a guy who took mics, went around various countries, and recorded people's folk music.  Below are a few links to some bio information, and a little Alan Lomax Television after the jump.
-AB Concerts with lots of links-
-A PDF Bibliography-

Field Recording- Fireworks

I was laying down some drum tracks in my living room floor and the crazy crackheads that live in my apartment started setting off fireworks (a week late).  I had my mic up, so I opened a window and got a quick recording.  I guess it isn't really field recording if you record in your house . . .

----Sound Sample of Legal Kansas Fireworks-----

Field Recording- Music Department Practice Rooms

-----Murphy hall fifth floor 4-29-10 part 01-----
-----Murphy hall fifth floor 4-29-10 part 02-----
-----Murphy hall fifth floor 4-29-10 part 03-----

So many instruments playing at the same time in Murphy Hall's practice rooms at Kansas Univerity (5th floor), it was like multi-poly-rhythmic and a-z tonal.  I have 3 videos (below) and 3 mono wav files (above).  I mainly like the audio, but my camera does record video while I am getting the recording (I used a 48 volt phantom and AT Pro 37 small diaphragm condenser mic), so I point it at random things.

Field Recording- Kansas Univeristy- Band Practice Hall

------Field Recording- Murphy Hall part 01.wav-----

aka Murphy Hall, on 4-29-10.  Signal Chain= Audio Technica Pro 37, phantom power box, passive DI used in reverse, Canon ZR-800 MiniDV camcorder (click here for the video of this recording, the tape transfer messed up . . . ).  This was taken near an article posted on a bulletin board with a title of "Electronic Music is a failed adventure."  Of course the article wasn't as cool as the title and dealt with band geeks complaining about not getting to play enough at the basketballs games and instead of the krunk CD's banging.  But there is a horn of some sort and some percussions in the 2 minutes.

Field Recording Trains, Overpasses, and Frogs 04-08-2010

Using the field recording setup described below, I went out on 04-08-2010 and tried out an AT Pro37 and an SM57 in various conditions to see how my reverse DI box theory works (it does).  So I went to the levee/ train track area on the north side of Lawrence and started walking.

Field Recording Set up sin Laptop

I like doing the field recordings, but I don't like to have to carry around a laptop and sound card to get high quality digital recordings.  I have a Canon ZR800 miniDV video camera that has a 3.5mm mic input on it which I bought specifically for the external audio input.

Bell Tower Information aka Campanology aka Campanile

I like this idea of field recording bell towers, sounds like a good way to kill time with microphones. It may be helpful to know about some bell tower history and why they roll the way they roll.  it would be cool to document at various distances from the epicenter as well.

KU Noon Bell Tower Recording

I was under the impression that the KU Bell Tower did a special ring at noon. I was on campus on Saturday, and I thought it did a long chime deal at the height of the sun. Today is Sunday, so I got up near it and set up my little laptop based field recording rig and waited for the noon toll. It did it's regular ring, with 12 strikes afterwards. I even hung out until 12:15 pm to make sure that wasn't the special ring (which it wasn't). I left the recording running during the 15 minutes and got a dog running in front of the mic (which you can also hear during the noon recording chimes).

The Noon Toll- 2-28-10

The 12:15pm Toll- 2-28-10

The dog running in front of my mic, with a train whistle prelude

Field Recording of Western Kansas

I am going to pull out the John Cage card. . .

I had to attend a work related endevor to a part of Kansas that is less than an hour away from both Colorado and Oklahoma. The drive out there looked like this from the windshield of the car-


I had brought my laptop field recoding rig along in case our hotel in this small (but very nice and friendly) town of Ulysses was near a bell tower (google said something about a catholic church near by).

My Dream (Realistically) Portable Field Recording Rig

After doing a post on the Broken Fader Review about a strange field recording of a pig being slaughtered, I began to dream of my own field recording rig so I can record bell towers and other random daily events of life I find worth while. Dude in this recording use the following signal chain- Sennheiser ME66 ($200ish shotgun mic capsule, about $450 for the whole device) + MKH30 (a $1300 shotgun mic) , Shure FP24 preamp ($850 battery powered pre), Edirol R09 recorder ($400).

Currently, my field recording set up is a laptop running it's battery, a Lexicon Lambda USB interface (it has phantom power) and a Audio Technica Pro 37. I really would like a portable hard disk recorder and a battery operated preamp, and as always a better mic (I probably will focus on getting a good studio condenser since I am addicted to many things and thus don't have much cabbage.)

Recorder Options

I want XLR ins (or minimum of 1/4"), phantom power would be nice. Both of these make the price jump like $200, so if I had a preamp that went into an 1/8" connecter, that would work (the pig slaughter ran an 1/8" into the recorder itself). So, maybe an 1/8" in may be the deal. Most have build in mics, but I like using outboard mics, cause that is how I roll.



Tascam DR-1- $250 New-

Edirol R-09HR- $300 New- this what was used in the slaughter recording

Marantz PMD620- $400 New-

PreAmp Options

The main features I would need would be battery powered, with phantom, low noise, a relatively light, cause I will carry it around.

Sound Devices MP-1- $300 new- just a gain knob, which is what I like.

Whirlwind MD-1- $340 new- this has head phone monitoring and such

Denecke AD-20- $290 new- this one has a A/D converter with SPDIF out

Microphones

I doubt I will get a typical shotgun type video mic, but instead get a Neumann or something of that nature that I can use in my "typical" recording sessions (if you call noisey feedback electonrics discomboulations, or the random whacked out musicians that I take my rig over to "typical"). I will probably expand on this section at another time (it would take me 3 work days to list mics I want to buy for any reason). Or, if I really get into the field recording stuff, I will break down and get a stereo mic. Note- I will need a fake bird type wind screen!

The Vermont Folklife Centers Guide to Field Recording- it has some honest reviews and tips for non audio people collecting field recording samples for research.

F7 Sound- Also has some good info from a guy using the Rode stereo mics-

A article on Ludwig Koch- he was an pioneer in animal and nature field recordings, and has Ludwig in his name, like the drum god and the mastering god.

KU Bell Tower Recording

I am thinking about making a collection of field recordings of Bell Towers. When I lived in Sevilla, I always thought it would be cool to do that with the Giralda, but I didn't have the gear to do it proper. KU's bell tower is one of the most notable buildings on campus, and it rings, and I have my gear. I also was smoking in Kansas City the other day on a my friends deck and heard anothe ring in the distance (near Westport)and I thought it would be a good project to work on. Below is a link to my first try on this.


Signal Path= Audio Technica Pro 37, Lexicon Lambda, Cubase SE. I did limit the recording, but did not reduce any gain (I mainly used a limiter to normalize the track). In mono. I was about 100ft or so from the bell tower on a cold ass day, 01-10-2010 at 6pm (dusk this time of year) with the mic on the trunk of my car. At around 16 secs in to the recording, you can hear a car drive by on this sandy snow mush that is on the ground right now.

KU Bell Tower Field Recording- 01-10-2010 6pm