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.