What's your favourite location / source for field recordings?

[Charlie Grant]

Even if they are both entirely different. It would still be good to know. Thanks.

[QuiltSuns]

[oootini]

i really like the turbine hall in the tate modern in london. such a big verby space...

[adamwilliams]

I'm visiting family in southern Spain at the moment and recently went to some salt mine tunnels which open onto the sea, the waves rush through these centuries old tunnels and come through to the entrance at great speed, the acoustics there are really something.

Also, there's a castle/abbey which joins onto the land behind my house in north Wales and in the grounds there's a grotto. You follow some low tunnels into the grotto and underground where it then opens onto a private graveyard for the Benedictine Nuns who were housed in the abbey back then. The whole area is great for nature noises and ambient sounds but there's also a stream which provided water for the castle and it sounds great.

Those are two recent favourite locations anyway, I'm used to spending time in rural areas and should probably try to focus more on city/town sounds.

[billygomberg]

well I just got back from a week in Costa Rica, so that's a good one.

and really, NYC/Brooklyn is full of great sound - I got a series of great takes from along the Gowanus Canal by my office and will probably do a couple more.

[haesslich]

it's maybe not my favorite location, BUT i had a great field-recording night when i once returned from a party (in the city i was studying back then). it was 3 at night and i was drunk. actually, i told myself, if i'd go home straight, i'd probably not sleep anyway, so i decided to turn on my recorder (which i have with me quite often) and search the city for sounds.
cities, especially the ones that DO sleep at night, sound absolutely different than during daytime. primary there's the absence of cars, that lets you hear sounds you'd not hear at day. harmonically vibrating air conditioning units for example. and i was lucky that church bells of the dome in that particular city are allowed be sound at night.

the bad thing is that i was unexperienced (and i still am) in recordings. how long to record, how to adjust the device etc. + i was easily distracted (because of the rest of alcohol in my blood). recordings were not perfect, but the happening and perception was great fun.

[SMW]

My first post:

Cape Cod

[Charlie Grant]

Thanks for all of your replies. A lot of interesting ideas that really make you consider the everyday environment in a different way. And sorry for taking so long to reply.

Adam Williams - The places that you mentioned sound quality. There's a couple of huge caves close to where I live in Northumberland, where the sea just rushes in and you can stand by. It could be promising for sound. When you're in the country, you want to record urban sounds, and vice versa.

Billy Gomberg - Costa Rica must have been incredible. Did you spend much time recording in the jungle? The sounds there must have been altogether different.

Haesslich - I live quite close to a reasonable sized city, but sometimes get there very early (6am or so). Your concept is a fascinating one. Hearing a city when it sleeps. Completely different from during the day, isn't it? I love to hear a city as it gradually wakes up. Going from relative quiet to becoming lively and rowdy.

Thanks again.

[billygomberg]

Billy Gomberg - Costa Rica must have been incredible. Did you spend much time recording in the jungle? The sounds there must have been altogether different.

yeah i was pretty much in the jungle the whole time.  then the beach, which occurs a couple feet between the jungle and the sea.  It was very, very loud there.  Every recording is laden with sound at rather precise frequencies...the insect hum can be isolated from birdsong, which can be isolated from the howler monkeys.

[haesslich]

Haesslich - I live quite close to a reasonable sized city, but sometimes get there very early (6am or so). Your concept is a fascinating one. Hearing a city when it sleeps. Completely different from during the day, isn't it? I love to hear a city as it gradually wakes up. Going from relative quiet to becoming lively and rowdy.

the difference of sound of a city at day and at night can be huge! but in the end it stays a city, with urban noises.

r. murray schafer had some diagrams in his "soundscape" book, where they measured sound pressure level at different day- and nighttimes. somehow this is like a temperature diagramm, where the temperature falls at night.
but it's more than the volume or loudness, it's also the mixture of sounds. it's simply less crowded so you can here more discrete sounds.

[oootini]

yeah i was pretty much in the jungle the whole time.  then the beach, which occurs a couple feet between the jungle and the sea.  It was very, very loud there.  Every recording is laden with sound at rather precise frequencies...the insect hum can be isolated from birdsong, which can be isolated from the howler monkeys.

interesting! i think i remember reading somewhere (or maybe it was a david attenborough documentary that rainforest jungle fauna that rely on sound for mating, marking territory etc, have evolved in such a way that each species takes up its own frequency spectrum so as not top disrupt other species in their day to day lives.

kind of like a nature's FM broadcast licensing system.

[Guy Birkin]

interesting! i think i remember reading somewhere (or maybe it was a david attenborough documentary that rainforest jungle fauna that rely on sound for mating, marking territory etc, have evolved in such a way that each species takes up its own frequency spectrum so as not top disrupt other species in their day to day lives.

kind of like a nature's FM broadcast licensing system.

I remember something like this too. The only reference I can find is Schafer's Soundscape (Chapter 16 / Rhythms in the Natural Soundscape, pp. 229-231), where he discusses the acoustic activity of birds and two species of frogs. The lower-frequency bullfrogs show a pattern that overlaps the other two, but the activity of the higher-frequency chirping frogs never overlaps with the similar-frequency bird calls. Schafer says:

"...as the voices of both sets of performers occupy a similar high-pitched range, they would, if sounded together, tend to mask one another, thus reducing the clarity obtained by vocalizing in rotation. The bullfrogs, on the other hand, with deep voices, offer no competition for either performer. They continued to croack intermittently through both day and night."

But I also vaguely recall some more general theory (maybe via Attenborough) which suggested that in densely-populated ecologies each species occupies a niche in the audio spectrum. Would love to track it down again - anyone else remember this?

[oootini]

not quite what you're looking for, but interesting none the less. attenborough in conversation with chris watson about sound in the rainforest at a recent talk.

would love to hear the whole thing.

http://vimeo.com/15599912

[Guy Birkin]

Sorry, we've drifted way off topic here, but thanks Aidan for reminding me about that Watson & Attenborough talk (seen it before, but glad to hear it again).

Getting back on topic:
I don't have field recording equipment yet, but as soon as I do I would like to record woodland, specifically Colwick woods, just up the road from here, and the woodland near Ladybower in the Peak District, Derbyshire. I love the sparse reverberation off large trees, the sounds of wildlife and farm animals, and the sound of the wind in the leaves. Without equipment, as yet, I've only been using my ears and memory to recreate these sounds.

[runningonair]

Interesting aside "natural selection".

Going back for a bit.   I've been sticking to urban sounds.  Automated announcements and prerecorded voices. For reasonable quality I use a mini disk, but more recently i've been using my iPhone .  Low quality isn't a problem if you plan to mangle the sound you're recording and I like the fact I can e-mail the recordings to myself with a note saying what they are.