Category Archives: Field recording

Ambience Field recording

New Year’s Eve 2010

December 31, 2011 – 1:45 pm
Zoom H2 with Rode dead cat

Happy new year, everyone! I wish you all the best and hope that 2012 will be a peaceful and good year.

I was planning on setting up my recorder and capture some of the fireworks. Unfortunately, the weather is looking pretty bad today, so I don’t think I’ll be able to record anything. Still a couple of hours left of 2011 here in Norway. I’ll just have to wait and hope the weather gets better.

Instead of this year’s fireworks, I am posting a recording of the fireworks from 2010. New Year’s Eve 2010 was the first time I remembered to bring a recorder to where I spent the evening.. I set up my Zoom H2 at about 11:40 and let it roll for 40 minutes or so. It was a little bit windy, but the Rode deadcat I pulled over the foam windscreen worked pretty well. New Year’s Eve is the only time it’s legal to use fireworks in Norway without special permission, so I’m glad I was able to get a good 20 minutes of ambience.

Equipment: Zoom H2 with Rode dead cat. Location: Finnsnes, Norway

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Field recording

Toilet roll holder

September 30, 2011 – 4:51 pm

I’ve been travelling around a lot this month. One of the hotels I stayed at had a bathroom with a couple of interesting sounds. The ventilation system whistled when the wind blew outside, the shower drain made lots of noise and the toilet roll holder squeaked. Unfortunately, I didn’t get my recorder ready quick enough and the wind outside died down. No ventilation whistles for me.. I spent a little time recording the toilet roll holder instead. Hopefully, this can be used for a squeaky gate or an old street sign in a deserted town.

The bathroom was a little too noisy, so I had to use Izotope RX to clean up the recording a bit. There’s still a little noise left, but I’m sure I can get away with it in the mix.

Equipment: Zoom H4N

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Ambience Field recording

Oslo city rooftop

September 15, 2011 – 11:39 am

One of the companies I freelance for has an office building downtown. I brought my recording gear with me one day and set it up on the roof before work. I let the recorder roll for a while and got some good city ambience. There are some sirens in there, as well as birds and a helicopter. For some reason, I just love to record city ambiences. I usually record at street level, but it’s nice to get up high to avoid loud footsteps, talking and other disturbing sounds.

Rode NT-4 > Sound Devices 302 > Sound Devices 744T (Not sure why I used the 302. I think I was testing something, but I can’t remember what. Note to self: take more notes when recording..)

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Field recording

Bike sounds

August 4, 2011 – 12:20 pm

The last time I visited my parents, I had some free time on my hands. Inspired by Nathan’s post about bike sounds, I borrowed my brother’s racing bike and started recording. I grabbed some random stuff in our basement and tried to hold them against the bike wheel to create interesting sounds. If I had had more time to record, I could have gotten more and better sounds out of this session. At least this experiment gave me a couple of good sounds and more ideas to try at a later time.

Equipment: Rode NTG-3 -> Sound Devices 744T


The plastic flight of a dart made a screaming sound when held against the wheel at the correct angle:


The metal from a tealight:


I tried combining objects to get more interesting sounds. Cardboard and tealight metal in a metal pipe:


Cardboard from a milk carton:

A couple of more samples:

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Ambience Field recording

Airport ambience

May 5, 2011 – 10:51 am
Oslo airport

I really need to get better at bringing a small recorder when I’m going places. During the christmas holiday in 2010, I travelled back and forth a bit. I figured this would be a good opportunity to start bringing my recorder, so I did.. I set up my Zoom h2 when I was waiting at the different airports, and I got some useable ambience out of it. It’s nice to spend the waiting time “working” instead of just sitting around.

Below are some samples from Oslo airport.

Equipment used: Zoom h2

Oslo airport
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