sounddetritus

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A phonograph that “reads” and transforms a rock’s rough surface into music | source                          

[sounddetritus]

Valerie Singletone

Here's a drone I created under the monicker 'Valerie Singletone' (that's her in the picture, as imagined by Midjourney. As you can see she worked in an experimental sound studio in the 1960s) It's from her fictional album "14 Monotonous Drones" which is not available anywhere on account of not actually existing.

#drone #ambient #experimental music #synth #fictional band #monotone #SoundCloud

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Starting off 2024 same as most of 2023 - raining. A lot. This is a quick walk around the block in Trowbridge at night in light rain. It's been raining all day so you can hear water rushing underground under manhole covers, dripping into drains and from roofs. Cars splash through endless puddles. The photograph is the Mercy in Action shop window, which I passed by while recording. I took the photo 10 minutes earlier as I was out posting a letter and took in the soundscape of the rainy streets on the way home. I rushed in and grabbed my H6 recorder and headed down the stairs. I then turned back again and went back to put some batteries in and the memory card. THEN I headed out into the rain. I just used the x/y mounted mics that come as standard, but I was using a JJC case to keep the rain off and some dead cat wind protection. The recorder was held in my hand with a very small tripod used as a pistol grip, there's some noise from that, but hopefully not too intrusive.

#field recording #stereo recording #sound recording #soundscapes #rainy #water

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Lovely space flute sounds from these 'dead satellites' that can come back to life given certain conditions, even though their batteries are technically dead.

need to fall down this rabbit hole immediately.

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I agree!

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I was saddened to hear that my stepmother's friend and former lodger, Christine, had died a couple of weeks ago. She was a harp player, performing at events and weddings. I remember as a teenager playing on the harp at my stepmother's house while Christine lodged there. In August 2021, my Stepmother and I went to hear her play in the open air at The Richard Jefferies Museum in Swindon. I'd only just got hold of the iQ6 microphone set for the iPhone, so I took a couple of very short recordings of Christine playing some well-known music pieces from her wedding repertoire. The first was in mono and the second stereo. I've segued them together here. As I hadn't yet worked out how to use the iQ6, the recordings were a bit muffled and quiet, so I've boosted them a little and added reverb to give the harp more presence. In both you can hear the traffic in the background and a police siren going past. The photo accompanying this post is actually a grab from a low-def video from the day, published to the Richard Jefferies Museum facebook page, as I didn't take a picture of the harp playing myself.

#field recording #zoom iq6 #zoom handyrecorder app #Swindon #Harp

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#field recording #sound recording #Bernie Krause #ecology

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It's been a year since I started this sound blog, and Chippenham Folk Festival 2022 was one of the first things I posted. Here's a couple of recordings from Chippenham Folk Festival 2023. It was too windy to get a decent recording of the parade this year, so I went for something different; some harmony singing in Monkton Park and later a snippet of the Irish Music Jam that happens every year up at The Old Road pub. The Irish music jam isn't a gig, the musicians drop in and out - showing each other jigs and reels, and it takes place at the same table in one of the small bar rooms of the pub. The Old Road has a large beer garden and on a warm bank holiday that's where most of the patrons are. Recorded blind on the Zoom iQ6 plugged into my phone (no monitoring)

#field recording #sound recording #stereo recording #zoom iq6 #wiltshire #chippenham folk festival #folk singing #irish music #pub

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I'm currently working on the visuals to accompany the sound collage I've been putting together for Gwyl Ffynnon Garon in Tregaron (March 3-5th 2023). The piece evolved as I was assembling it, and I restarted it several times as a narrative of sorts began to emerge from what seemed very abstract at the beginning. It's a piece linking Wales and Wiltshire, both culturally (via the Stonehenge bluestones) but also personally via my relatives and ancestors. The field recordings were made in Powys, Ceredigion and Wiltshire and most of the images were too, although a couple of Somerset longbarrows can be spotted. Recurring themes are water, sacred springs, stones, trees, earth and pylons. Megalithic sites feature heavily. The sounds are bookended by a combination of Stonehenge Winter Solstice and the Amesbury lantern walk, both recorded in 2022. Tickets for the festival can be found here

#Gwyl Ffynnon Garon #field recording #sound recording #experimental film #experimental music

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A recording made in Holt, Wiltshire using the Zoom iQ6 plugged directly into the phone and using a dead cat wind protector. It was a very windy day on Friday 3rd Feb and opposite where I work there are some tennis courts. To keep the gulls off, there's a kite in the shape of a hawk attached to a pole. I've seen similar set-ups on the lines of car sales forecourts on the Canal Road Industrial estate and they've been on my list to record for a while. I took the opportunity to nip out at lunch time and try and get a recording of the one in Holt. Needless to say, the strong wind was a problem and the small dead cat didn't quite cut it without the Rycote cage that my more advanced set-up has. It took a few attempts to get a recording which didn't have the mic blown out by the breezes, but even so there was a lot of buffeting sound, which in combination with the quite subtle sounds of the plastic kite vibrating, made for a quite challenging recording. In the mix I've pushed up the low cut and dropped some of the lower frequencies, then upped the gain. The result is a slightly 'zoomed in' effect on the hawk kite which I quite like. There's still enough stereo ambiance to give the recording depth and although the wind is still present, there's more of a hiss from the gusts as well. I don't think it sounds tinny though. Mixing is an area of sound production and recording I would like to learn more about.

#sound recording #field recording #stereo recording #kite #wiltshire #zoom handyrecorder app #zoom iq6 #wind #Holt #mixing

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I've been invited to contribute a sound collage to the Listen To The Voice of Fire, experimental/psych music event for March 3rd-5th in Tregaron, Wales. I'll use some of the field recordings I made at last year's event as a starting point. Mostly streams and wind on the walk up to a denuded Bronze Age cairn just outside Tregaron, Garn Fawr. Earlybird tickets for the weekend are available from: https://listentothevoiceoffire.bandcamp.com/merch/gwyl-ffynnon-garon-early-bird-ticket-for-3-5th-march-2023

#listen to the voice of fire #field recording #sound recording #sound art #experimental music #wales #Tregaron #music festival #welsh

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I collected a series of recordings around Amesbury and Stonehenge for the Winter Solstice, starting with the Amesbury Lantern Walk on the evening before the longest night; then onto Stonehenge itself for the rising of the sun. I had some issues with disparity between the two tracks feeding off the XY mics but I think I've fixed it in the mix. I've started a project of gathering sounds from around Stonehenge and the area and I've a couple of hours of recordings already. This is but a small snippet towards the end of my session at the Stonehenge Winter Solstice. Every year the red-clad Shakti Sings Choir gather in the centre after the sun comes up and sing a series of songs, surrounded by the revellers who often join in. In this recording they're singing a poignant song about Mother Earth. As they were singing I walked out of the circle, still holding the boom and mic up and moved slowly in an easterly direction towards the A303. The recording ends with the sound of the drums barely audible over the traffic. I used the Zoom H6 and an AUDIO TECHNICA BP4025 XY microphone mounted on a boom pole.

#sound recording #stereo recording #field recording #audio recording #stonehenge #winter solstice #winter solstice 2022 #shakti sings choir #wiltshire #zoom H6 #audio technica

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At my biz partner's house and due to the punishing cold the UK was going through, she lit the log fire. The fire started making strange honking noises, a bit like a slowed down talking porcupine . I used the iQ6 mounted directly on the phone to get the stereo. In the background you can hear a dog jump down from the sofa, resonating through the floorboards, then scrabble after a cat on the wooden floor of the hallway. In the background is the sound of the road outside coming down the chimney.

#field recording #sound recording #fire sounds #stereo recording #domestic sounds #zoom iq6 #zoom handyrecorder app

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It snowed last night; not too much, but enough. I got out the Zoom H6 with the built in XY mics set up and headed to the park to get some good crunchy snow walking sounds. It took me a couple of goes to lock everything down - an annoying tinging noise turned out to be my coat zip swinging about. There are still a few knocks from the wire of the in-ear earphones I was using (I didn't want to be too obvious about recording so I didn't use my over ear headphones). That's the trouble with holding the H6 with the XYs on - there's a lot to be knocked and tapped. Using the Manfrotto PIXI Tripod with the legs together as a pistol grip works really well for keeping the clicks and pull noises that I used to get from handling the H6 directly. On the recording we have me walking about on grass, pavement and over drifts of frosted up leaves. We can hear distant train horns, the rumble of the traffic on County Way, people passing by (a child complains that their tummy hurts) and a child in a pushchair crying while the parent's dog yaps (nice echo on that). I tried another recording without the wind protection, but even moving created some thrum and blow as the XY mics are quite prominent on the H6.

#sound recording #walking #snowsounds #field recording #zoom H6 #wiltshire #stereo recording #Manfrotto #PIXI Tripod #snow #Trowbridge

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A recording of one of my favourite sounds - The Amesbury Buzzbox (my naming) - This is some sort of telecommunications box and it makes a very loud buzz; has done for years. As the recording starts you can hear a lady who passed by in a mobility scooter asking if I'm from the council - she finds the buzzing scary and says it's about time someone looked at it. I said I was recording it off my own back. I assume she thinks I'm recording it to complain about the noise it's making, but in truth I love it and wouldn't want it stopped. The first few seconds are just the X/Y mics on the Zoom H6 which is on a stand on the pavement with some wind shielding, but I've also got a LOM Geofon attached to the box itself and this recording is a mix of the XY tracks and the Geofon. The seismic microphone picks up a lot more of the variation in the buzz, and the X/Y mics pick up the passing traffic as well. I've boosted some of the lower range before exporting to mp3 for Tumblr.

#LOM #geofon #field recording #urban sounds #sound recording #stereo recording #Amesbury Buzzbox #Zoom H6 #street recording

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I love this audio POV evening walk recorded by rabbitsquirrel.

An evening walk

Field recording of a walk during a light rain, with occasional cars, bikes, and some random guy asking about a party.

Split into three to play nice with tumblr. I recommend headphones for the full experience (it is a binaural recording, so with headphones it is basically an audio first person POV)

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A couple of weeks ago I went back to the pedestrian rail crossing on the outskirts of Trowbridge, where the industrial estate meets the fields. I'd tried to record here before but it was too windy, so I came back with wind protection and crossed to the other side of the line, so I could put the iQ6 on the phone down below the ridge of the embankment out of the wind. In its raw form this is a much longer recording but I had to chop a lot down to get to the 10MB Tumblr allows. The stereo favours the left ear as that's the direction of the busy road where the West Ashton bypass meets the Hawkridge roundabout and the Westbury road. The little Sprinter train that shoots past was a two carriage passenger train coming from Westbury to Trowbridge. We can hear the horn as it comes along the straight before passing in less than 3 seconds. I'm using the iQ6 plugged directly in the phone here.

#field recording #sound recording #train sounds #zoom iq6 #stereo recording #wiltshire #zoom handyrecorder app