Having fun on the day

Ross Lyall Blair / / Recording

On the day of recording, I booked out a Zoom H4N and a Marantz with a condenser microphone. Before leaving to catch the bus I checked that the equipment was working correctly. Dan and I arrived at Skegness earlier than the Declan and James. While we waited for them I did some test recordings, primarily to double check that the equipment was functioning correctly, but also to check the levels. While passing through the park on the way to meet the others I recorded the sound of the ducks in the pond. This wasn’t a sound we had planned on using but I thought it would be worth recording nonetheless, even if just for test purposes. I also briefly, recorded the sound of the waves and walking across sand. When they arrived I gave the Marantz recorder to Declan and James, while Dan and I held on to the Zoom. Despite checking the equipment thoroughly beforehand, the Marantz started displaying an error and would not record. We swapped the SD cards between machines to check if the problem lie in the storage but this did not solve the problem, which was obviously the machine itself. It was fortunate then that we had brought along with us two pieces of equipment because we ended up having to record everything using only the Zoom.

Upon arrival: recording process

Declan Bryan / / Uncategorized

To record the sounds for our soundscape, we took a day trip to Skegness. The equipment we took with us was a Zoom H4n recorder and a Mirantz recorder with external microphone. We chose to take both so we could get two people recording and the other two people within the team would create the noises. This would also be useful to get the perspective of the individual walking and collecting the external sounds.

Upon arrival we headed to the beach as it was the start of our soundscape and we wanted to capture the sounds in chronological order. When setting up the recorders for outside use (turning on and putting the outdoor, wind mufflers on) we tried doing some test recordings. To capture a stereo feel, we set the microphones built in the Zoom recorder to 120 degrees which would allow us to capture wider, ambient sounds.

Whilst setting up the Mirantz, We noticed that the Mirantz kept coming up with an error to do with the memory card so to try identify the problem, we switched the memory card form the zoom and put it in the Mirantz however, the error message kept appearing. We checked the memory cards had been formatted before use so this problem unfortunately eliminated the use of the Mirantz and external microphone. The main focus of our recording was to try to collect the footsteps as this was the main part of our soundscape which was going to be used for the transitions between each location.

To record the footsteps, Daniel held the zoom recorder pointing down at his feet to create a stereo feel whilst walking which would put the audience in the shoes of our character.

Testing microphones

Ross Lyall Blair / / Planning

This week I took out a Zoom H4n recorder and a SM58 to record some sounds. I learned that dynamic microphones lack the sensitivity required to record specific sounds at a distance. I had to have the record level of the machine as high as possible, and even then I struggled to get the desired -12 dB signal level, even with sounds as close as a metre away. This surprised me, because the microphone built in to the device did a much better job of picking up sounds. For the recording it would be best for us to use condenser microphones where possible, because of their superior ability to pick up quieter sounds with greater clarity than dynamic microphones.

Working on the presentation

Ross Lyall Blair / / Planning

We met up to discuss the matter of the presentation. To make the presentation more feasible, I suggested that we separate the components that needed to be in there and work on them individually. I decided to focus on the “Style, Mood and Genre” aspect of the presentation. The intention of the soundscape was to inculcate memories and thoughts within the listener, so I based my notes around this understanding. Drawing on my knowledge of Romantic program music, I realised that the soundscape would form a sort of Tone-Poem, but with found sounds rather than traditional notes on an instrument.

Making the Soundscape Presentation

Daniel Marnie / / Planning

We all arranged to meet up and talk about what we wanted to say in the presentation, and then divided up the workload. I went away and completed a rough draft of my slides, and uploaded it to Google Drive so other group members could add their own. Once this was done, I took their material and made bullet points for the slides, keeping their notes intact in the notes section below. I hoped this would give our presentation a bit more quality, as we wouldn’t just be reading off the screen. I then added some colour and scene transitions, and Dec sent over his slides, along with the test recordings we did on campus. We then reviewed the final presentation, to see if anyone had any differing opinions, before saving it ready for presenting to the group.