Fire Van

 Fire van southbound on Yonge, passing Gerrard.

It's not the cleanest recording, and doesn't catch the beginning of the siren. There's also something that sounds a bit like static, but I'm fairly certain that it's the sound of the wind-driven snow hitting the Rode windscreen. The conditions were bad enough that I didn't even catch the number on the van as it went by.

The recorder was hand-held without the suspension mount, which I only do when I'm in a hurry, but I can't say that I can hear any handling noise.

Friday Snow

Spadina Crescent in the snow.

Toronto recently had a modest snow storm, which started on a Thursday evening and went late into Friday. This  recording was captured on Friday afternoon, at a time when the city would normally be humming, but the snow is a physical as well as acoustical damper.

Fortunately payphones aren't extinct yet, since they provide a handy shelter from storms. The recorder was placed on top of the pay, pointing toward the missing door and the two missing panes of glass that were conveniently facing the traffic.

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.

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.

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.

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.