I recorded the sound walk the following day and the outcomes were different. When recording at first I realised how much the binaural headphones changed my listening. I would say in a bad way, they made it difficult to hear anything at all, to be honest. If the headphone gain was pushed even any sort of audible volume it started feeding back into the microphone part of it. So I had to balance the levels and make sure they were around -12 dBFS.
I found myself less engaged with the environment when recording and more getting worried when something loud would walk past me, and if it was peaking on the recorder. I also walked much faster this time, doing the route in 30 minutes instead of one hour. Perhaps the fact I did the same walk impacted my enjoyment of it as I knew what to expect.
Logic Pro X file of the sound walk
I later then put the recording into Logic and listened through the thirty-minute recording and found it enjoyable, but it didn’t strike me as anything greatly interesting. Perhaps I’m not listening enough?
Following on from this I want to attempt another field recording practice and see. I’ve been doing research into Annea Lockwoods project sound mapping the Hudson River and I had an idea to do the same for the Thames. Perhaps shorter as the length is huge, but a small section. From Richmond park around to where the river opens up. A 3hr or so cycle. I’ve been interested in minimalism when recording as well recently. I feel the last term I was obsessed with recording with 32 bit and very quiet preamps, and now I’m more interested in portability and using what I have. A small zoom H5 and the new Hydrophones we have at LCC.
I’ve loaned out a Zoom H5 alongside the Roland Binaural microphones. I’ve decided to use the Zoom H5 as I felt that the sound devices would be too big to carry. I’m interested in doing the same sound walk as I did last Thursday and recording it to hear things that I heard last time as an experiment.
I will update later with the recording and my experience of it.
I attended a sound walk on Thursday the 19th of May 2022, it was run by Katrinem and she created a route for us to take, I was attending this as Peter Cusack whose work I have been studying and researching was also going to be there alongside Cathy Lane. I wanted to finally do a proper sound walk and potentially have time to discuss this.
We began by meeting upstairs at the Crisap Headquarters and began speaking about the rules of this sound walk. No talking, everyone must remain silent for the entire walk, we follow the leader and walk spread out not in single file. If there is an issue you are to touch the leader.
Sound Walk Map
We began walking around LCC into the garden near Pret, crossing the road into an estate, and crossed the road into Elephant Park. Go around and follow up until near the police station and walk along with the main round back to the building. The walk was around an hour or so and was very interesting to me. I found myself entirely concentrated so much on the sounds around me. At times during the walk, it felt almost set up as if the sounds were put there at a specific time. Now obviously it wasn’t but it did bring a reminder of how much happens sonically around us that we don’t listen to. I also noticed an abundance of nature amongst the noise of the machine that is London city, so many birds and other animals were prominent amongst us in our sound walk. As well as the multicultural aspect of the city, when we changed roads it was different languages being spoken and music from different countries being played in the parks. Also at times I would close my eyes when the road became straight and I felt the stereo and proximity effects of sound be so prominent, I concentrated on the footsteps of my fellow walker and how we engaged with the environment.
When we returned we sat down and had a chat, Katrinem explained she wears different shoes on her sound walks to become part of the environment, she even has shoemakers help tune her heels to fit within the soundscape. Peter Cusack asked an important question that we didn’t have time to discuss as time ran out but it did make me think. He asked if anyone had an opinion about whether or not we should have walked in certain places or out effect on the soundscape. I felt at times we were invasive as a mass mob walking around silently and I did find that our objective to just observe the world silently walking as a group at times did the opposite. When we entered council estates people looked and became silent when they saw us all walking silently, perhaps the opposite of our intentions and us being silent actually disturbed the peace of the environment more than if we walked by speaking.
I want to redo this walk and record it through binaural microphones that I will take out to see if it felt as set up as last time. Perhaps as well on a second listen I can hear different aspects of it that I didn’t the first time. I’m still a tad confused about my piece or practical element. As my essay continues and I read more and more. I notice how wide the field of recording practices is in sound arts and how undocumented some are. It’s an art form or practise that isn’t as well written about. I want to perhaps attempt to copy fellow practitioners and learn from their practice and then from all of them hopefully find something for myself within it.
As I’ve been doing my essay, I’ve been learning more about different field recording practices and sort of deciding how I should do my own piece. As I’m currently unsure where I stand with it, I’m keen to use old analogue equipment but the eBay listings are very expensive and I’m not sure how I want to do this, so it kind of feels like I’m back at the drawing board.
When doing research for my essay which is around field recording practice I came across Peter Cusack and his work Sounds From Dangerous Places. His book simply asks the question “What can we learn by listening to the sounds of dangerous places?” it touches on places in the world that are home to extreme and hostile conditions, pollution, social injustice, military or geopolitical. I read his book alongside the two CDs of audio.
The Cd when loaded came with photos of the locations and the sounds. Peter speaks in the first section about Chornobyl and his experience visiting and understanding the disaster. He speaks on the damage it caused people, and that society should be worried about powerful technology such as nuclear reactors in case an accident happens like this one, how do gauge the positives to negatives? He speaks on the politics of the area, the comparisons with other nuclear disasters such as Fukushima, and the idea that a nuclear future isn’t safe for us. He also finishes his essay with a clear and beautiful quote, he coins the term sonic journalism. The idea of sonic journalism for Cusack is.
“Sonic Journalism is based on the idea that all sound, including non-speech, gives information about places and events and that careful listening provides valuable insights different from, but complementary to, visual images and language. This does not exclude speech but readdresses the balance towards the relevance of other sounds. In practice, field recordings become the means to achieve this. Recordings can, of course, be used in many ways. In my view, sonic journalism occurs when field recordings are allowed adequate space and time to be heard in their own right when the focus is on their original factual and emotional content, and when they are valued for what they are rather than as source material for further work as is often the case in around art or music. Sonic journalism can be specifically created or can refer to these qualities in recordings originally made for other purposes.”
Peter Cusack, Sounds from Dangerous Places
I found this whole idea of sonic journalism and using sound alongside other mediums really interesting as an artist myself. I’m curious about how I can potentially use sonic journalism in a piece of work, and how other mediums can benefit the use of sound in some way? I then went along with the book and started listening to the CD alongside the photography and explanation of the places.
The CD companies texts and photos in the book, some of my favourite sounds within it were.
2. Ferris Wheel, Pripyat, the sound of the Ferris wheel creaking and standing in the wind, recorded with a contact mic attached to the frame.
3. Power cable crackle, recording the energy going into the exclusion zone to still run the old nuclear reactor, showcasing how this area isn’t as absent as some think.
6. Cuckoo and radiometer, I found this juxtaposition between nature and the radiometer so powerful, the idea that death is being measured to see how dangerous the area is, alongside nature always prevailing in these circumstances.
8. People, where should I look for you? In a poem recorded of a local in the area, she speaks about her love for the area, nature and the sadness of leaving.
The second part of the book is titled Caspian Oil and Uk Sites, he speaks that his trip to Bibi Heybat in Azerbaijan sparked his idea for this project and lead him to look at current UK sites as well as Chornobyl. He says something that strikes me as important “I also visited UK sites where, on a smaller but still significant scale, sound indicates not only environmental dynamics but, sometimes, the responses of people involved.”
It also continues to other Uk sites such as Sellafield a huge nuclear plant. Cusack speaks on how he was searched twice while recording for these sounds and makes a comparison with the sound of nuclear power plants as the sound of authority in our society. “constantly present-unchanging, featureless, soulless, utterly authoritarian and rarely touched by the small sounds of life.
I’ve found his work so powerful in understanding specific issues, I’m interested perhaps if I could do sonic journalism for my practical element as well. I think his ideas of recording these places really touched me and my mentality with sound and political stance. Some of these recordings have really spoken to me, and the power that sound can transmit through them. I also admire his idea of letting the sounds do the work, that sonic journalism isn’t perhaps the idea to record sounds to use for another piece of art but for the sounds themselves to be listened to and understood as recordings themselves. I want to look a bit more into other works of Peter Cusack If possible. I also perhaps want to visit the same sites in the UK, maybe not all but the closest sites and experience it for myself, see if the locations have changed and see if I can create an updated version. I do however speculate that this will take a lot of time and i only have two weeks and a few days until the hand in.
I’ve carried on researching more recorders and recording equipment. As it currently stands my idea is to take a day trip to a forest close by (unsure of the location where yet) and record the environment using an analogue recorder. I’m interested in how equipment can dictate or perhaps influence our usage of it and how we record and interact with our sonic environment. I wanted to film a short nature film with Super 8, 2-3 minutes, as there is no sound recorded through it, and continue to record the environment with sound and create a beautiful short film. Something so meditative about the sounds of nature and the combination of sound and film can really take off from each other. As even political groups such as Ultra Red when recording protests on to CDs add a short text to explain the situation as it needs context sometimes for the audio to really shape and have meaning I believe it can be the same with visuals attached.
The first recorder I looked into was the Sony TCD5M
First released in 1979 it’s still one of the best cassette field recorders to this date, its sturdy made of high lasting materials and records in multiple tape types, and has Dolby b noise reduction. I was interested in how field recordists used condenser microphones in the past, as this machine didn’t include it. I’ve come to find out a lot of older microphones had batteries inside you could change and replace such as the Sony ECM-MS907 which is a stereo condenser microphone. The only downside of this machine is the rarity and stupid prices of £1000+, I’m hoping to find one around £200-250 price point if possible.
The next thing I did was start googling field recording cassette, and other key terms as I knew at this point the best place to find guidance was old forums where people are still discussing these things. I managed to find one where everyone started giving advice to this user asking about using a cassette field recorder in new york for sound effects and a lot of people were dismissing him. One recommended a Marantz PMD430 – CP430 one was used for USA other for Europe. He said he used to use them on set back in the day when he worked in the film industry. He spoke bout the handy 3 heads this machine has which allows you to hear the recording while it’s recording. Very handy for monitoring the actual tape instead of the input when field recording, a lot of machines don’t have this which makes the Marantz CP430 very useful. The only downside is that there isnt an XLR input just 1/4 Inch. Although converters could work, and i could use external mics with there own power source.
Marantz CP430
I tried finding a few on Ebay and i’m unsucessful for finding one around my price range. Which lead me to read on further and research more into it.
The Uher 4000 was BBC stock recorders for years and it’s very trustworth for what i need it for, Except no 1/4 inch inputs, just DIN inputs which is annoying unless i find the correct mics. Again i want to record to tape for the fact i cant record hours and hours of recordings, i want the limited recording abilities to push me to listen more to my enviroment than to record anything just because i have an SD card loaded in. I decided that any reel to reel recorders would be out of the question as they’re incredibly heavy and perhaps to inconvinient for me.
This is the first post towards my practical element explaining where I currently stand with this second section. I initially and still am doing research towards my essay which I have written 2000 words. I have established after a tutorial that perhaps it’s a vague essay speaking about a lot of field recording practices. I should instead focus on the two practices that really talk to me.
There has been a lot of research on my practical element which I wish to discuss here. Initially when being told about the two-part hand in I decided that field recordings were a practice I was into a lot, the aural cultures hand in my audio paper spoke around field recordings and sound designing cities and the possibilities that lay within this. I thought it would be interesting to research field recording practice and then let the essay dictate the practical element. I am now finding myself at a crossroads where I feel they should grow together instead of one dictating the other.
My initial ideas came from reading In The FieldThe Art of Field Recording and reading about all the varied practices amongst these practitioners. One that stood out the most was Annea Lockwood and the interview curated by Cathy Lane. She speaks on her project A Sound Map Of the Hudson River where she travelled along this river recording the river and all its beauty. I then listened to her work on youtube and I was fascinated by the differences in the river and the context explained by her. I was also interested in her use of equipment, something I hadn’t really thought about. I have been using Sound Devices Mix Pre 10 recorder and high tech microphones such as the Sennheiser 416 from the university for my own recordings.
I typically use more vintage or analogue equipment for my own practice in music outside of university and when Annea spoke about her using an Uher tape machine and wishing for a Nagra tape machine, which I’d used in the composition lab and heard many others using it for the first field recordings in films. I was curious about the use of whether analogue equipment or obsolete equipment is still relevant in this day and age. Annea spoke on using a Nakamichi Cassette deck and a Sony TCD5M. So I wanted to carry on my research into obsolete/vintage field recorders and what they offered.
The article begins by speaking on music’s power to influence us, by changing moods and inducing feelings of nostalgia, fear, or excitement. Retailers have used music to drive shoppers to higher price points and casinos play music to encourage gambling. I wasn’t aware that these things actually operated like this, next time I go shopping I want to look out for this music and maybe understand what about the music makes you want to spend more money?
It also speaks on changing music’s role from being background music as it is far more important than just that, it has more uses than simply being the background for the experience. It can actively be part of the experience and help convey messages and themes, it’s important for this to be understood if we are going to figure out its place in VR content.
The challenges mainly are the creators, as the technology for this in games is already there. It’s the mentality that music isn’t that important which holds back creators to use it in ways to influence or enhance emotions in a situation. I think this is perhaps a waste of music in this context, to always use it in the same context.
I started by loading up FMOD and creating an asset library folder of sounds I recorded previously on the modular setup at LCC. I then created an extra parameter of distance, going from 0 to 50 meters. Even though the video game I am working on is 2d and doesn’t allow much room for movement and attenuation I thought it would be good practice to understand FMOD a little further after the previous lectures.
I then thought about what sort of experience and characteristics I would want this sound effect to have, this one, in particular, is more factory electronic sounds and I thought it would be interesting to emulate a 3d environment and have the sounds slowly filter and get quieter after a distance. I read in (Stevens and Raybould, 2017) that a typical error most novice sound designers have with implementing attenuation is that they assume volume is enough to propose distance to the listen/player. When in actuality our environment handles and effects sound over distance in a very specific way. The first is the atmosphere muffles higher frequencies significantly more than lower frequencies and that over distance the higher frequencies cut off allowing us to hear conversations and sounds but for them to be unintelligible. I decided to create an automated parameter with the multiband EQ effect on FMOD and make the EQ slowly allow fewer frequencies over time until it’s completely silent by fifty meters or so. Essentially a low pass filter.
I then began to want to include effects within this practice FMOD session. I decided to incorporate reverb for practice. I first thought about positionality within this imaginary game I’m doing this for, as mine is 2d. Where the player would stand and what the environment looks like, what are the walls made of? Are there any walls? I wanted to create an imaginary unreal environment where when the player went close to the wall the audio was dry and had little reverb, then slowly as they went further it increased to a huge amount. I did this by automating the dry level of the reverb and making it automate to 0 when at 50 meters and increasing the reverb time to the maximum at 50 metres and starting at 0 on the reverb time at 0 meters.
I then started using the pan and degree plugin and automating that, alongside the 3d preview to move the sound.
Overall I feel like FMOD has a lot of uses within a game and it’s interesting to see the middleware software and how it can be used in context. I want to try and use this for my hand in if possible and create the songs as an event and have them randomise rather than playing the same song. Also for the atmospheric sounds, layer up a few and make the work in random selection so it’s not the same every time. Perhaps even put a few empty sounds into the randomiser.
I’ve written a rough first draft introduction that will definitely change, i wanted to write this as when i stated a few posts earlier. I really want the essay to feed into my practical element and i find the more i reflect on it the more i can create ideas for my sound piece.
Historically our way of understanding our environment and the issues in our society have been largely through sight, facts and statistics. Some scholars have even gone on to say our society is ocular-centric. The Sound Arts field is constantly pushing the ideas that sound and listening is critical to understanding our environment from a different perspective. “Our ears don’t have eyelids” An idea spoken by “insert name here” that unlike sight we are constantly processing sound without at times being aware. Our ears are always waiting for cues to respond to. Field recording as a practice has also largely increased throughout the years, where as in the past recording outside of a studio context was bulky, heavy, and very inconvenient with equipment such as the Nagra tape reel to reel machine it wasn’t viable for the common person to afford such equipment as it was terribly expensive. This made the privilege of recording very high and people didn’t have a lot of access to them. Moving on towards the modern day, 2022. We now have phones that can record better than the past equipment could, longer battery life on our recorders, even new equipment such as Sound devices mix pre 6 and Zoom F8N that now record up to 32 bit 192khz means that there is huge accessibility for recordings. This has meant many sound artists now use this for capturing audio to understand our environment, for political messages, to understand the ecology of our environments and other aspects. This essay will begin by speaking on the idea of why field recordings are even important? How is listening different to other senses and why is worth using our ears to understand our environment separately and combined with other senses. Then it will lead into Sound walks / Sound mapping, speaking on how artists use field recordings as a way of situating themselves in their environments, how sound walks and mapping can help us understand and learn from environments when we are just able to listen to, what are the strengths and weaknesses? Further more an analysis of Red a political group who uses field recordings to expose political issues within our society facing discrimination, racism and sexism and how sound can expose that. Chapter four will focus on science and how we can use field recordings as a tool to learn, with equipment such as the hydrophone. Chapter five ecological sound arts and field recording uses in this field. And finally chapter six sonic journalism. Then this essay will conclude on why field recording practices are important for us to have a different perspective on our environment
The next book I’ve chosen that I’ve read through is titled On Listening by Angus Carlyle and Cathy Lane. On listening is a collection of essays speaking about listening as a practice and how it can be used in context. The important part that this book tries to communicate is the connection between the scholarly activity of research and writing with the experimental practical element that sound has.
The essays contained in this book all bring together opinions and research into areas that combine both elements. Concentrating on listening and field recordings as a practice and how they can connect us with the environment is a strong element in these short essays. The book has four sections, the first being listening perspectives, which touches on the idea that listening is an active experience and that simply changing our awareness of what we are hearing can alter our perspective on what we hear. In the second section, listening places. Speaks on the idea of the different experiences we can have within spaces, and that spaces are just as important as the sound itself, one essay even argues that the space is the sound as without space sound cannot exist. Thirdly listening to self and others, a combination of the both can create a unified idea of our surroundings and each other.
