The summer month long project I worked on.
FLOW
Friday, October 14, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
INITIAL IDEA : SONIC SNAPSHOT
Location
I have a couple of ideas for this. I like them all, and will decide very soon which direction to go in.
First, I'm thinking of the estuary of Milwaukee. So we have a confluence of the KK, the Menomonee, and the Milwaukee, all connecting with Lake Michigan. It's Milwaukee's namesake. This isn't a totally normal space, and does offer some exciting opportunities for field recording. However, this location is somewhat close to traffic. The Hoan Bridge is an issue, as are smaller streets where, really, hardly anyone ventures down. It's at the southern end of the Third Ward. I wont be recording while in a motorized boat, but I could record in a canoe or kayak. I could get access to one. The Marina offers such chances. I could paddle or float around a while. On a calm day, this would allow for sounds of water brushing against the canoe as it moves. Probably some seagulls, some louder waves, occasional people in the distance, other boat traffic. Traffic from the city would be in the background, the foreground would likely be the water running by the canoe - paddling n such, and in the middle would likely be seagulls, waves, paddling, some closer traffic, etc. It would be pretty quiet at times, except for when boats toot their horns. Unfortunately, wind would certainly be heard. This would create some challenges, and thus, I don't know if getting a canoe in the lake would be the best, but maybe just one of our rivers would work.
I am also thinking of going to a little brushy field along the Hank Aaron trail. It's close to 35th and St. Paul, but by the river. There's an old Milwaukee train track that still is in use along this river. There's a spot distant from train tracks, close to the river (I could sit on a rock-or canoe in this). Salmon love to jump here. I would get some splashes. There is a road that runs along the Hank Aaron bike trail, but it's not entirely busy for large portions of the day. If I recorded at this location, I would go early in the morning, let's say 4 or 5 am, before the morning rush of workin coffee drinkin drivers. In the foreground would be water of the river, along with some walking footsteps from land and then into water, in the middle ground would be some wind, trees, leaves blowing and falling, and in the background would be lightly heard traffic, occasional horns and maybe a train.
With both these locations, I am aiming to record the diversity and textural sounds of a peaceful, quiet, and natural setting across land and water. That brings me to my last option, because I would love to record far away from the city, and am thinking of going to a farm, or in my uncle's town of New London, WI, to record some sounds along the Wolf River. I think it would be a great space for recording, there are some rapids, but primarily just consistent lazy river rolling. So there are occasional fisherman. They would be in the background, unless they walk right up close to me. There is no traffic to note. It's in the woods and there certainly is more wildlife here, but mainly birds. It's pretty quiet and the dominant feature would be the river water. There is a farm near my uncles where I might go as well, it borders the woods and the water, which would offer all three things I want to record - water moving, woods wildlife and trees, and distant animal noises. That's where I am thinking of going. In the foreground would be whatever comes my way, be it wind, be it a rooster, be it a horse, or the water. The background would likely be everything from trees, to distant animals, to maybe the sound of waves. In the middle-ground would be the brushy bushes and their inhabitants. I am thinking this is spot I'm going to choose.
I have a couple of ideas for this. I like them all, and will decide very soon which direction to go in.
First, I'm thinking of the estuary of Milwaukee. So we have a confluence of the KK, the Menomonee, and the Milwaukee, all connecting with Lake Michigan. It's Milwaukee's namesake. This isn't a totally normal space, and does offer some exciting opportunities for field recording. However, this location is somewhat close to traffic. The Hoan Bridge is an issue, as are smaller streets where, really, hardly anyone ventures down. It's at the southern end of the Third Ward. I wont be recording while in a motorized boat, but I could record in a canoe or kayak. I could get access to one. The Marina offers such chances. I could paddle or float around a while. On a calm day, this would allow for sounds of water brushing against the canoe as it moves. Probably some seagulls, some louder waves, occasional people in the distance, other boat traffic. Traffic from the city would be in the background, the foreground would likely be the water running by the canoe - paddling n such, and in the middle would likely be seagulls, waves, paddling, some closer traffic, etc. It would be pretty quiet at times, except for when boats toot their horns. Unfortunately, wind would certainly be heard. This would create some challenges, and thus, I don't know if getting a canoe in the lake would be the best, but maybe just one of our rivers would work.
I am also thinking of going to a little brushy field along the Hank Aaron trail. It's close to 35th and St. Paul, but by the river. There's an old Milwaukee train track that still is in use along this river. There's a spot distant from train tracks, close to the river (I could sit on a rock-or canoe in this). Salmon love to jump here. I would get some splashes. There is a road that runs along the Hank Aaron bike trail, but it's not entirely busy for large portions of the day. If I recorded at this location, I would go early in the morning, let's say 4 or 5 am, before the morning rush of workin coffee drinkin drivers. In the foreground would be water of the river, along with some walking footsteps from land and then into water, in the middle ground would be some wind, trees, leaves blowing and falling, and in the background would be lightly heard traffic, occasional horns and maybe a train.
With both these locations, I am aiming to record the diversity and textural sounds of a peaceful, quiet, and natural setting across land and water. That brings me to my last option, because I would love to record far away from the city, and am thinking of going to a farm, or in my uncle's town of New London, WI, to record some sounds along the Wolf River. I think it would be a great space for recording, there are some rapids, but primarily just consistent lazy river rolling. So there are occasional fisherman. They would be in the background, unless they walk right up close to me. There is no traffic to note. It's in the woods and there certainly is more wildlife here, but mainly birds. It's pretty quiet and the dominant feature would be the river water. There is a farm near my uncles where I might go as well, it borders the woods and the water, which would offer all three things I want to record - water moving, woods wildlife and trees, and distant animal noises. That's where I am thinking of going. In the foreground would be whatever comes my way, be it wind, be it a rooster, be it a horse, or the water. The background would likely be everything from trees, to distant animals, to maybe the sound of waves. In the middle-ground would be the brushy bushes and their inhabitants. I am thinking this is spot I'm going to choose.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
SOUND ASSIGNMENT - DESCRIPTION
This was a good learning experience. I have much to more to learn, but I have a greater understanding of the importance of sound recording locations, settings, as well as how to work through problems. I only used Audacity for this, and will be using Soundtrack Pro as well in the future. Now onto the descriptions of my recordings, their edits, and what I was aiming to do with them. The LINK TO SOUND ASSIGNMENT FOLDER is updated and hopefully you have access to it.
Water Dripping, Shower On
LINK TO SOUND ASSIGNMENT FOLDER
I recorded this with an NT4, in stereo. This was recorded with the shower room's door closed, so there wasn't much conflicting outside buzz. I was trying to get rid of the room rumbling noise on this track. With the Graphic EQ, I tested 60 and below taken off, and then 100 & below. I then went to drawing curves on the EQ. I lowered everything from -22dB below 100Hz, then 200Hz, then upward ramping to 400Hz. At 400 Hz there was a little detail lost, but it ridded the rumbling. So I decided to have a gradual ramp from 100 to 200Hz from -22dB to 0dB. Then I lowered the high pitches at 10000Hz down to -22dB. Then I messed around with the compressor, but decided not to use it. I think it got rid of most of the reverberations of the bath tubs walls, while still sounding like a shower getting turned on and so forth.
Plane Traffic Bird
#2 from previous assignment
I was trying to rid the background noise to isolate the birds. There was a runner running past stomping down the hill. I thought I was enclosed from outsiders, standing in the woods, but he came running pretty far away (but close enough) for me to hear him hockin a lugee, or something was in his throat, I don't know, but I tried to get rid of that too. I normalized it to 0dB, tried equalization at 1,000 Hz, a slow gradual incline. This didn't work so well, it made it too thin. Then I tried noise removal, got the noise profile. At -24dB it sound weird, took down to -15dB noise reduction, rose the attack time to .41. This didn't do much. I then selected noise profile again on a better portion of the track. Noise reduced to 48dB, then 42 dB, with the sensitivity to 1.65, and 150 frequency smoothing. This worked better, it ridded most of the background buzz of distant traffic. I didn't yet compress it yet, tried to, but didn't think it sound right. I did a high (band) pass filter to remove the car sound @ 15 seconds. This made it complete to me.
Creek Closeup Lawnmower
#9 previous assignment
This was recorded with the NT4 stereo setting as a closeup (6 inches from the H20 source) on a little flowing stream surrounded by walls 6 feet away. I targeted the distant lawnmower in the background, to get rid of it. I went to the EQ drawing board and put it at -26Hz until 100Hz and then ramped it up to gradually to 1000Hz. I did a double EQ at that setting, this double EQ and decreased the noise of the right ear lawnmower noise, enough. I messed around with the compressor and compressed it. I brought the ration to 1.5:1, was less aggressive. This sounded right to me.
Squirrel
Walking slowly and moving mic recording, part of assignment for movement.
I recorded this when it was windy outside, trying to capture the wind, and then this squirrel started to interrupt, so I tried to get his/her sound. There was wind, some traffic, and the sound of trees and the leaves. I started messing around with the noise removal of the wind/tree/leaves, to isolate to the squirrel noise. But I chose removal and not isolate on the selection tab. I put the settings to, in order from top to bottom, 31, .15, 150, to .14. I tried but wind got in the way, so I decided to use the equalizer first. I got rid of everything (-25dB) below 200 Hz, slowly up to 0dB at 100Hz. Then did noise profile at the traffic and normal noise sound (trees and leaves buzz) to isolate the squirrel. I was having difficulty, so I then I normalized it. Then to noise removal again because there was more sound (louder) to capture for profile. I tried to compress it, messed with the threshold at -12dB, then set the ration to 1.5 to 1, then 3 to 1, noise floor at -80. I clicked/unmarked the Make up gain for 0dB, I didn't compress it, I decided against it, feeling like I had what I wanted. I moved around during this take, a little at least, and the mic was moving from the wind and trees to the squirrel on a specific branch.
Wind front yard
This was taken with the same recording as the squirrel, it's what I had intended to take initially, but the squirrel kept up. There were trees, a car driven in the distance, and leaves blowing. I equalized it at first, got it to just get leaves, it was pretty thin. Then I tried normalizing, but it was way too loud, started different equalization, a little less, before 100Hz at -24dB, -6dB at 300Hz, then 1000Hz at 0dB. Tried bass boosting at 1dB, didn't like it that much. I undid the equalization, lowering the high frequency too, liked it more, at 10000Hz to -24dB. I did a little noise removal of the trees, to try to get just the wind on the mic, not the leaves or the tree. I amplified one dB up, normalized at 0dB, did noise removal again of just the leaves, I tried bass boost after after this to 4dB. In the future, to record wind, I am going to need to find a place far away from anything at all. I felt this eventually sounded like only the wind on the NT4 mic, for the most part, which is what I was aiming for. I had all the windscreen gear on and everything, two layers of it in fact, oh but I may as well try and catch the wind.
Creek Closeup Plane
#12 from previous assignment
4 channel with the zoom on board and the NT4 this time. I liked this noise but tried to get rid of the plane noise. At the time of recording I liked the plane going on in the background, but now I tried to isolate only the closeup creek. I aimed to lower the rumbling plane and other noises, isolating the higher pitch creek. Tried equalization, didn't like it at 100Hz at -24dB, slow ramp up to OdB by 200Hz, tried normalizing, didn't like it. So went to equalization and tried a much more gradual ramp at 100Hz -24dB, slowly up to 1000Hz at 0dB. Now tried to boost the bass, but not to my liking. Think it's good without it, a little trouble in the beginning of the take, I can hear the plane but not much as it goes on. I tried another equalization, more gradual incline, in a circular arc shape toward 1000Hz. This worked. I finally normalized it at 0dB to get louder sounds. I decided that even though it's lighter there is hardly any, if any, sound of the plane in the background. It still sounds like a creek, and a lot different one from the other recording of the same creek, which is okay by me.
Bird Chirp, Steppin, Zip
#6 from previous assignment
I was in the woods, but apparently not deep enough as there was distant traffic, planes flying overhead, a runner running past, kids, etc. This was intended to be a hand held closeup of my feet stomping on the ground, this bird kept chirping as I did it, and thought it could sound all right next to said bird. I aimed to single out the steps on the brush and the bird chirping as one, without the distant buzz of traffic. I normalized it to 0dB to boost all the audio. I highlighted second 2 of just background traffic. I noised reduced this to 25 dB, 7.67 sensitivity, 290 smooth, and 0.00. I got rid of the kid noise using a fade in from 0 to 1 second. I was weary of using noise reduction on this part because there was a bird chirping within the second of the kid. The kid's voice can be heard, but it's a lot quieter after the fade. I amplified the track to 4.8dB. Then I tried to get even more background sound out. I amplified it a little bit more to get the chirp up. Tried bass boosting to 12dB at 200Hz, and used noise removal at the noisy moving of the hand held mic at 40 seconds. I started this as a closeup on my feet and then moved the mic around toward the bird chirping, then back down to my jacket zipper to record a zipping noise. I feel like there was some movement and track diversity here.
Shower Curtain, Door
This one I recorded after my initial assignment posting. I wanted to capture the shower at different rates and different equipment. I first did some EQ work with the drawing curve. At -25dB from 20 Hz to 61 Hz. Then 61 Hz to 400 Hz slowly ramps up to 10000 Hz, it stays up from 400Hz and up. It goes upward this time in the editing to 15dB to get that high pitch even higher. I once again was trying to get rid of the lower rumbling noises. I normalized it to bring up the the overall audio level, and liked what I had.
Water Dripping, Shower On
LINK TO SOUND ASSIGNMENT FOLDER
I recorded this with an NT4, in stereo. This was recorded with the shower room's door closed, so there wasn't much conflicting outside buzz. I was trying to get rid of the room rumbling noise on this track. With the Graphic EQ, I tested 60 and below taken off, and then 100 & below. I then went to drawing curves on the EQ. I lowered everything from -22dB below 100Hz, then 200Hz, then upward ramping to 400Hz. At 400 Hz there was a little detail lost, but it ridded the rumbling. So I decided to have a gradual ramp from 100 to 200Hz from -22dB to 0dB. Then I lowered the high pitches at 10000Hz down to -22dB. Then I messed around with the compressor, but decided not to use it. I think it got rid of most of the reverberations of the bath tubs walls, while still sounding like a shower getting turned on and so forth.
Plane Traffic Bird
#2 from previous assignment
I was trying to rid the background noise to isolate the birds. There was a runner running past stomping down the hill. I thought I was enclosed from outsiders, standing in the woods, but he came running pretty far away (but close enough) for me to hear him hockin a lugee, or something was in his throat, I don't know, but I tried to get rid of that too. I normalized it to 0dB, tried equalization at 1,000 Hz, a slow gradual incline. This didn't work so well, it made it too thin. Then I tried noise removal, got the noise profile. At -24dB it sound weird, took down to -15dB noise reduction, rose the attack time to .41. This didn't do much. I then selected noise profile again on a better portion of the track. Noise reduced to 48dB, then 42 dB, with the sensitivity to 1.65, and 150 frequency smoothing. This worked better, it ridded most of the background buzz of distant traffic. I didn't yet compress it yet, tried to, but didn't think it sound right. I did a high (band) pass filter to remove the car sound @ 15 seconds. This made it complete to me.
Creek Closeup Lawnmower
#9 previous assignment
This was recorded with the NT4 stereo setting as a closeup (6 inches from the H20 source) on a little flowing stream surrounded by walls 6 feet away. I targeted the distant lawnmower in the background, to get rid of it. I went to the EQ drawing board and put it at -26Hz until 100Hz and then ramped it up to gradually to 1000Hz. I did a double EQ at that setting, this double EQ and decreased the noise of the right ear lawnmower noise, enough. I messed around with the compressor and compressed it. I brought the ration to 1.5:1, was less aggressive. This sounded right to me.
Squirrel
Walking slowly and moving mic recording, part of assignment for movement.
I recorded this when it was windy outside, trying to capture the wind, and then this squirrel started to interrupt, so I tried to get his/her sound. There was wind, some traffic, and the sound of trees and the leaves. I started messing around with the noise removal of the wind/tree/leaves, to isolate to the squirrel noise. But I chose removal and not isolate on the selection tab. I put the settings to, in order from top to bottom, 31, .15, 150, to .14. I tried but wind got in the way, so I decided to use the equalizer first. I got rid of everything (-25dB) below 200 Hz, slowly up to 0dB at 100Hz. Then did noise profile at the traffic and normal noise sound (trees and leaves buzz) to isolate the squirrel. I was having difficulty, so I then I normalized it. Then to noise removal again because there was more sound (louder) to capture for profile. I tried to compress it, messed with the threshold at -12dB, then set the ration to 1.5 to 1, then 3 to 1, noise floor at -80. I clicked/unmarked the Make up gain for 0dB, I didn't compress it, I decided against it, feeling like I had what I wanted. I moved around during this take, a little at least, and the mic was moving from the wind and trees to the squirrel on a specific branch.
Wind front yard
This was taken with the same recording as the squirrel, it's what I had intended to take initially, but the squirrel kept up. There were trees, a car driven in the distance, and leaves blowing. I equalized it at first, got it to just get leaves, it was pretty thin. Then I tried normalizing, but it was way too loud, started different equalization, a little less, before 100Hz at -24dB, -6dB at 300Hz, then 1000Hz at 0dB. Tried bass boosting at 1dB, didn't like it that much. I undid the equalization, lowering the high frequency too, liked it more, at 10000Hz to -24dB. I did a little noise removal of the trees, to try to get just the wind on the mic, not the leaves or the tree. I amplified one dB up, normalized at 0dB, did noise removal again of just the leaves, I tried bass boost after after this to 4dB. In the future, to record wind, I am going to need to find a place far away from anything at all. I felt this eventually sounded like only the wind on the NT4 mic, for the most part, which is what I was aiming for. I had all the windscreen gear on and everything, two layers of it in fact, oh but I may as well try and catch the wind.
Creek Closeup Plane
#12 from previous assignment
4 channel with the zoom on board and the NT4 this time. I liked this noise but tried to get rid of the plane noise. At the time of recording I liked the plane going on in the background, but now I tried to isolate only the closeup creek. I aimed to lower the rumbling plane and other noises, isolating the higher pitch creek. Tried equalization, didn't like it at 100Hz at -24dB, slow ramp up to OdB by 200Hz, tried normalizing, didn't like it. So went to equalization and tried a much more gradual ramp at 100Hz -24dB, slowly up to 1000Hz at 0dB. Now tried to boost the bass, but not to my liking. Think it's good without it, a little trouble in the beginning of the take, I can hear the plane but not much as it goes on. I tried another equalization, more gradual incline, in a circular arc shape toward 1000Hz. This worked. I finally normalized it at 0dB to get louder sounds. I decided that even though it's lighter there is hardly any, if any, sound of the plane in the background. It still sounds like a creek, and a lot different one from the other recording of the same creek, which is okay by me.
Bird Chirp, Steppin, Zip
#6 from previous assignment
I was in the woods, but apparently not deep enough as there was distant traffic, planes flying overhead, a runner running past, kids, etc. This was intended to be a hand held closeup of my feet stomping on the ground, this bird kept chirping as I did it, and thought it could sound all right next to said bird. I aimed to single out the steps on the brush and the bird chirping as one, without the distant buzz of traffic. I normalized it to 0dB to boost all the audio. I highlighted second 2 of just background traffic. I noised reduced this to 25 dB, 7.67 sensitivity, 290 smooth, and 0.00. I got rid of the kid noise using a fade in from 0 to 1 second. I was weary of using noise reduction on this part because there was a bird chirping within the second of the kid. The kid's voice can be heard, but it's a lot quieter after the fade. I amplified the track to 4.8dB. Then I tried to get even more background sound out. I amplified it a little bit more to get the chirp up. Tried bass boosting to 12dB at 200Hz, and used noise removal at the noisy moving of the hand held mic at 40 seconds. I started this as a closeup on my feet and then moved the mic around toward the bird chirping, then back down to my jacket zipper to record a zipping noise. I feel like there was some movement and track diversity here.
Shower Curtain, Door
This one I recorded after my initial assignment posting. I wanted to capture the shower at different rates and different equipment. I first did some EQ work with the drawing curve. At -25dB from 20 Hz to 61 Hz. Then 61 Hz to 400 Hz slowly ramps up to 10000 Hz, it stays up from 400Hz and up. It goes upward this time in the editing to 15dB to get that high pitch even higher. I once again was trying to get rid of the lower rumbling noises. I normalized it to bring up the the overall audio level, and liked what I had.
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