Helicopter

Five flights of a toy remote-controlled helicopter.

The first flight has a close pass from the helicopter, resulting in the recorder picking up some wind noise through the midweight Sony wind screen. I had tried using the heavier Rode screen, but it cut out enough of the high frequencies to make a noticeable difference.

The second flight includes the distinct sound of the helicopter hitting the stippled ceiling in my condo, followed shortly after by the helicopter colliding with the wall and tumbling to the ground. I can't really tell if all of the stipple-ceiling scratches on the top rotor blades affect its flight – this isn't a precision machine.

Flight number three was going really well until a bookshelf got in the way.

The fourth flight starts with a couple of quick spins of the rotors, which helps prepare the helicopter for a natural takeoff. Most of the time I hand-launch, holding the helicopter by the tail until it's stable and generating sufficient lift. This flight ended with the toy going nose-first into a wall and then falling about seven feet, which is no rougher than average.

The fifth flight that I included in this set – I actually recorded many, many more – is just a short hop with a soft landing at the end, just to prove that I could still do it.

The recorder was in the middle of the room, about five feet off of the floor, with the mics in wide stereo position and pointing at where I launched each flight. I've edited out some wind noise from the fifth flight, and cut out all of the fumbling and retrieval time between each, but otherwise the audio is as-recorded. Gain was set around 6, which is higher than I usually go, and a fair bit of background noise shows up in the quiet moments. But to put it in perspective, I had to learn to hold my breath for a few seconds before and after each flight to avoid contaminating the recording. From seven feet away.

A longer review of the helicopter is coming, but the short version is that it's a lot of fun and remarkably resilient. Even better, despite how it sounds, it has yet to do any damage to innocent parties.

Walking: Snow

Walking on Queen Street in the snow.

Keep the volume at moderate levels for this one: there's a large peak in the middle.

Snow adds interesting squeaking and crunching sounds to footsteps, while giving a wet muffle to road noise. This was recorded while walking with the shockmounted recorder held around knee-level, facing away from me and toward the street. The initial results had me confused because the stereo image was flipped – then I remembered I was dangling the recorder upside-down. I've restored their proper orientation for the finished recording.

My favourite part of this recording comes around the 20-second mark: I saw a streetcar coming, so as soon as I was clear of a small side street I stopped walking to catch its pass-by. Then there's the tinkle of a bell as someone goes into a convenience store, and I move along. A fun little vignette.

I'm pleased to say that I'm learning from practice, and had presciently set the levels on the little Sony so that the streetcar didn't quite clip when it went by. I did normalize it to -2dB, but that was mostly to remove a slight stereo offset. It was recorded in wide stereo using the Rode Dead Kitten wind protector, which did an excellent job of protecting the mics from snow.

Cuisinart

 

A Cuisinart four-cup blender doing its thing.

Penny likes to make frozen banana concoctions that come away with the consistency of ice cream. The sounds of the blender change with the forward and reverse of the blade, which are marked "chop" and "grind" on the control buttons; how the machine runs indicates the consistency of the mix. There's also a quiet little moment at the very end (2:40) that makes me smile every time I listen to it.

I've wanted to record this process for quite some time, and I've come away with more ideas now that I've finally done it. The kitchen is a very interesting room.

Food Court

The food court lunch crowd at 10 Dundas East.

This location is notable for two things: its proximity to Ryerson University that has it dominated by students for most of the day, and the huge expanses of concrete and glass that accompanies absolutely no effort at sound abatement. It's loud. Very, very loud.

This recording is the first one that I've really edited. Chair scrapes and other sharp noises have been cut out, as have many of the recognizable words. A few still remain, stopping this from being a complete "walla" track, but catching the occasional snippet of conversation is more realistic for this location.

The mics were pointing upwards in order to avoid local sources and include more of the ceiling bounce. The low-cut filter was engaged at 75hz to deal with the overwhelming, but uninteresting, HVAC system. This resulted in an unoppressive and accessible recording, so I duplicated the audio, switched the stereo orientation, reversed it, and layered it back in. This second track had its levels compressed to create a more consistent sound and was then normalized to -6dB, while the main track was pulled up to -3dB.

The manipulated end results better reflect the scene as I experienced it – which is yet another way that phonography and photography are similar.

Concrete Pumper

Concrete pumping on Bloor street.

I spent some time recording this pumper and its attendant concrete trucks in different ways. I have a tremendous amount to learn, and part of that is how the placement of the recorder changes the results. In another recording I positioned it facing away to catch the reverb and surroundings, while for this one I stood at the side of the road and held the recorder above my head. Let me tell you: that's a great way to be popular at a construction site.

This recording was made with the mics in the XY stereo configuration in an effort to pull in more of the machinery and less of the ambient. I'm not sure exactly how much that helped with my goal, but it certainly makes a difference for the width of the stereo field.

Concrete Pumper

Concrete pumpers working at Yonge and Bloor.

Concrete trucks were lined up for blocks along Bloor street, and some down Bay street as well, waiting their turns to supply the pumpers that were on the three accessible sides of the One Bloor East construction site. I took several recordings; for this one I faced the little Sony away from the action to catch more of the reverb from the surrounding buildings and the sounds of the passers-by. The rhythmic sound of the pump, its motor, and the alarms of the concrete trucks manoeuvring through traffic dominate the audio.

The video-for-audio file includes three photos. The first two show the recorder's position, while the last is looking west on Bloor street at the queuing trucks. I can count a dozen, which is only about half of them. Two trucks feed the pumps at a time, but it takes a long time to empty each one, leaving a lot of equipment idling on the side of the road.

Subway

A fairly common sound: a T1 subway car running eastbound between Greenwood and Victoria Park stations.

I was sitting in the same position as in my previous subway car recording, except I was at the end of the second car instead of the fourth, and this time I faced the microphones toward the inter-car door to pick up more of the track and wheel noise. It's also a much longer run, five and a half minutes, as the train passes through Coxwell, Woodbine, and Main stations. I had planned on shutting the recorder down at Main, since I was only going to the next station, but the corrugations on the track were too hard to resist.

Since the recorder wasn't hand-held I was able to take a few photos to show the scene. The Sony is on its Rycote shock mount, which is on an Ikan grip bar, which is on my fifteen-year-old 'Ultrapod II' plastic tripod. The whole assembly is a fairly lightweight addition to my kit and folds down into a package that almost fits into the Crumpler Haven pouch that organizes my audio kit.

And I never think to remove the windscreen.

Subway

An increasingly rare sound: a T1 subway car running southbound on the Spadina line.

Recorded between St. Clair West and Dupont station, this section of track includes the curving descent down Russell Hill, location of the fatal 1995 subway crash, as the tunnel drops under the Davenport ridge. I was sitting in the last set of seats of the fourth (of six) cars, with the recorder roughly equally spaced between the side of the car and the cab. Recorded shortly after 10pm on a Wednesday night, the train was fairly quiet and uncrowded.

I've added a short fade at both ends of the audio track, being careful not to step on the sounds of the door mechanism, and normalized the audio as I had left more headroom than necessary when I set the recording level. It was also my first time using the Rycote suspension mount that they make for hand-held recorders, which seems to work very well.

Jackhammer

Construction and traffic at the intersection of Yonge and Gerrard streets.

A fairly typical afternoon with the addition of some jackhammers for ambiance. The crew digging up the eastbound lanes on Gerrard Street East were running a compressor and vacuum excavator, while traffic pass between them and the recorder causes their volume to peak and decline. This track has an overly abrupt fade out at the end but the volume increase at the beginning is how I found it. No other processing has been applied.

Included in this audio clip is a truck backing up, several buses driving past, a taxi's horn, people walking in heels, and snippets of conversation in at least a couple of different languages. To recreate the actual experience the volume should be set to be uncomfortably loud.

Dishwasher

My dishwasher late at night during the wash cycle.

This is an old GE model that's definitely not up to the current low-noise standards, but it still works, which is all we really ask of it. Recorded with the D50's mics in XY stereo configuration, without a windscreen, on the gorillapod. Run time 2:15, with a 1s fade at the start and 4s fade at the end, but otherwise unprocessed.

Regulator

The sound from a natural gas regulator diaphragm.

Recorded with the Sony PCM-D50's mics in the wide stereo setting. XY stereo might not have picked up the traces of traffic in the left channel. Handheld without a shockmount, using the Rode Dead Kitten in fairly high wind. From the Senator David A. Croll Apartments, née Rochdale College, 341 Bloor Street West. Run time 45s, with a short fade added at the start and longer fade at the end, but otherwise unprocessed.