THE LONDON SOUND SURVEY BLOG | COMMENTS
Occasional posts on subjects like field recording, London sounds past and present, other websites worth looking at, articles in the press, and news of sound-related events.
Small is beautiful (but big is useful)
Posted by IMR on 02 September 2009
APOLOGIES FOR A slight dearth of blog posts lately. In the background London Sound Survey has been furtively growing, meaning larger text and wider pages. Here’s the Sound actions page in its new form, and you can click on the Deptford Car Auction recording link to see the player loaded.
The player will be stretched a little to fit the new column width, but that has to be left until the very last. Hope you like the new format, and it should all be ready some time next week. Any feedback is very welcome.
I have pretty good eyesight so the current has been fine for me. However that said I do prefer the new version, it’s easier on the eye and folk with vision issues will be able to read it better - looks great!
Posted by Martin Paling on 03 September 2009
just been listening to your feature on Radio 4 and it sounds fantastic. If the British Library are able to take this idea forward in other cities, as they would like to, we’d love to contribute for Gloucester, especially from our allotment in the city (http://www.nipitinthebud.co.uk)
Posted by nic@nipitinthebud on 06 September 2009
I wonder if other areas of the UK will get their own repositories for sounds?
Posted by Morseman on 06 September 2009
@ Moreseman,
I wouldn’t be surprised if they do. I know a few friends and I are thinking of doing so for our local areas!
Posted by Martin Paling on 06 September 2009
Hi there.. Nic: I ought to point out that London Sound Survey isn’t connected with the British Library, so I can’t really second-guess any of their plans.
Funny you mention allotments. Hearing one of my neighbours digging his back garden the other morning, it seemed a pleasant sound: the spade going sssshhhhunk into the earth at not-quite regular intervals. Why not just begin recording the sounds round your allotments now, and put them up on your website?
Morseman: on a related note, and like Martin says, it’s good if people just go ahead and do their own local sound projects. It’s easy to make a blog or website and upload sounds to it, no more difficult than sharing photos. That doesn’t rule out forwarding them to national repositories like the British Library Sound Archive as well. IMO it’s good if sound recordings have more than one home on the internet. That way they can keep their local context and ensure indefinite storage at the same time, as well as reaching more people.
Posted by IMR on 07 September 2009
After visiting this site and rooting around the internet, I came across this http://aporee.org/maps/
So, I’ve started to make recordings and upload audio files to it.
Some of which I am recording ‘off air’ from VHF and UHF signals, things like beacons and people I make contact with.
Other recordings I’m taking by standing on a street corner and just recording the sounds I hear.
Mostly mono recordings as yet - I did look at some stereo recorders but cost and reports of various issues put me off them, so my trusty Fujifilm camera is being pressed into service and the audio stripped off using VirtualDub.
Dave (AKA Morseman)
Posted by Morseman on 07 September 2009
I was at the allotment while listening to the Radio 4 programme and it’s funny how your ears become more attuned when the seed of suggestion is sown - the clunk of the padlock on the gate, all obvious sounds of birds in the tree, the sporadic expletives of the weekend footballers in the field next door ;o) My husband works with audio so we have the gadgets to do it. Just need to catch up on the backlog of all photos and stories already waiting to be posted…
Posted by nic@nipitinthebud on 07 September 2009
I’d be interested to learn about audio, if nic could get her husband to pen a few suggestions?
I have done photography, and do some audio recording ‘off air’, and remember seeing long distance audio recording with a microphone at the focal point of a dish at the Lucas Anual Sports Day in Birmingham, which relates well to putting an RF feed at the focal point of a dish.
However, stereo and the art of noise reduction is something that I don’t know much about, other than seeing the word ‘Dolby’ on old tape recorders…
Posted by Morseman on 07 September 2009
Nic: My father had an allotment and thinking back, I do recall the sounds . . .
Clattering of improvised bird-scarers made from aluminium printers’ plates which someone regularly got hold of and distributed.
The heavy watering can bumping against the side of the water tank.
Gentle sounds of activity all around, hoes scraping on buried stones, snatches of faint conversation. Bird song. Geese flying overhead and calling.
What’s your allotment policy on powered tools like rotovators? I don’t remember such things being used as a kid, but they seem to be around now on some allotment holdings.
Posted by IMR on 07 September 2009
@ Morseman
Don’t be put off by jargon and technicalities. I really don’t know much about the maths/science/theory of sound recording. It’s true that I have worked in theatre all my life (though not in sound)
These days it’s so easy to get into recording, you don’t need state of the art equipment or editing software. Audacity (Free!) will probably do all you want and more
Much better to record than not record no matter what the specs of your kit!
Posted by Martin Paling on 07 September 2009
He can do all sorts of musical wizardry himself but when it comes to capturing sounds he’d agree with Martin that to keep it simple and appropriate to your level of skill, budget if wanting to purchase equipment and time available. He has used his Edirol portable recorder (http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=744) for capturing all sorts of things - interviews, choirs, bands, a sound map of a primary school… He worked with the artist in residence at Gloucester Cathedral recently to record the voices of choristers and birdsong in nearby woods. (http://elpihv.co.uk/work/exhibitions/motectum/) For something like this he uses additional microphones but the internal mic on most portable recorders is pretty good these days for simple capturing. Personally I’ve used the audio setting on a mobile phone before now when it’s more important to me to get a snatch of a special sound than worry about the quality. Or even the video setting on a decent digital camera. Anyway, George very sensibly is in bed already so I’ll invite him to pick up the conversation tomorrow.
IMR - as for allotment policy on rotivators… there isn’t one I don’t think; petrol powered strimmers are more common. When one starts up your brain says ‘tsk’ but it’s amazing how quickly your ears tune it out and it becomes a faint buzz in the background of all those lovely sounds you mentioned :o)
Posted by nic@nipitinthebud on 07 September 2009
When it comes to recording audio keeping it simple is probably the best rule of thumb. Nic’s been using our new Panasonic Lumix TZ7 digital camera to take photos for her blog and I’ve used it to create films for workshops and projects I’ve been involved with recently and I have to say that the audio recording quality is extremely good considering it’s a camera.
The Edirol recorder is exceptionally good as well - it’s battery powered and you can choose a variety of digital formats (wav and mp3 files at different levels of quality) in stereo.
The important thing is to get close to the subject matter as location recordings will normally have a lot of ambient background noise going on. Audacity is free and useful for editing and you can use itunes (which is free) to convert wav files to mp3 too. I guess you could use audio compression and eq to try to focus in on sounds that you have recorded and try to exclude background sounds but its best if you start with a clear recording really as audio can start to sound unnatural when you start messing around with it.
Posted by George (Nic's husband) on 09 September 2009
Yes, I have Audacity and one or two other audio programs, which I use to manipulate off air recordings of people I work and radio beacons (one of my other hobbies is Amateur Radio - hence the user name - and I record beacons that are either rare, far away or heard via different propagation modes like aircraft reflection or rain scatter on the 1296MHz and 10GHz bands.
It’s certainly a very useful program.
Posted by Morseman on 09 September 2009
I read up on some more reviews and decided against the Zoom H2, but went for the Tascam DR07 instead. I think it will probably be delivered tomorrow, so that leaves the weekend to test it out.
I’ve been wanting a portable recorder to interface to my Bat detector as well, so the Line In should come in handy for that next year as well.
Posted by Morseman on 10 September 2009
Hope you have fun with it. If you ever find wind noise a problem outdoors, do have a look at the DIY windshield page on Martin’s website.
Posted by IMR on 10 September 2009
Thanks for the windshield idea, I may well have a go at doing something similar as the DR-07 has a foam windshield, but stronger gusts of wind do get through. I’m starting to get the hang of using it, but having to press ‘record’ twice fooled me to begin with, and I had read the manual as well!
Posted by Morseman on 13 September 2009
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