Martin Paling » Martin

London Sound Survey

Martin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:06:41 +0000

I had this great idea about a year ago: Wouldn’t it be great if there was an audio version of the geograph project. A visual map of the UK divided into grids with each grid offering a sound recording made from that location.

However having brilliant ideas is easy, realising them is something rather different. Professor Malcolm Griffiths (Director/Author/Academic) once said to me:

“Everyday on my way home I compose the worlds greatest rock music in my mind… but no-one will ever know!”

A few days ago I was contacted by Ian Rawes who must have had a similar idea to me, yet he took that extra long step and made it a reality : The London Sound Survey what he’s created is truly inspiring an almost complete catalogue of environmental sounds of contemporary London accompanied by an engaging compilation of written records of the sounds of historical London. The wealth of recordings on the site is overwhelming, even more remarkable is that Ian has recorded many of these himself – yet he is accepting contributions so if you have anything do contact him.

In addition to the sound map, the historical records, the sound actions pages and a comprehensive page of related links the site also includes a blog section that features news and features on the sounds of London and audio related events, you may read his first post here.

This really is a truly remarkable project – and definitely worth a Listen!

Cloud Hosting for Beginners

Martin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:27:59 +0000

Recently the time came for Scenography the Theatre Design website to move to a new server, we were a victim of our own success, increased visitor numbers and users meant increased bandwidth and storage bills, we’ve often considered moving to a VPS or even a server of our own, but at the moment that seemed like overkill – however there is an alternative to medium to large websites needing to stretch their arms: Cloud Hosting.

Everyone wants their website to be a success, but often it comes at a cost: increased hosting bills. Unless you run your own server, rent a server or use VPS chances are you’re on a shared hosting package. For most of us these are just great, you pay small sum of money for a modest amount of bandwidth and storage, but what happens when you get too big for your web hosting plan? Well most hosts will allow you to upgrade or add extra storage and bandwidth, usually that’s a system that works out very well… but is it the most cost effective?

The way shared hosting works is that your host buys/rents a server. They then “slice” that server into chunks of storage (Packages) and sell them on to clients. When a client needs more than their package allows the host has to charge extra because the client is using storage the host could sell on to a new customer… prices sometimes seem steep because it’s not a cost effective solution and ultimately the host can only sell on space if any exists on the server.

The introduction of Cloud Hosting from a range of hosting providers has changed things significantly. Cloud hosting benefits from utilising a number of servers to provide your hosting rather than just one, and because Cloud hosting is not based on one single server, extra storage may be added at a much lower price. For example 1GB of additional space a month on SiteHQ’s Cloud will only cost you £1.

For us at Scenography it was an obvious and easy choice, we were eating both bandwidth and storage fast and needed a cost effective solution. We’ve been on the Cloud for two weeks now and I have to say so far we are very happy with both the performance of the site, the hosting control panel and SiteHQ’s excellent support service. The migration was relatively painless, the only real difficulty we had was that our database was too large to be uploaded via phpMyAdmin, however SiteHQ were more than happy to do this for us. Although we’re paying roughly the same amount per annum we’re actually getting a much better service, with both more storage space and bandwidth as default than we had on our shared hosting plan, and of course if we should need to pay for additional resources they come at only a fraction of the price!

However it’s not all about storage space and bandwidth, another great benefit to be had from hosting your site on a Cloud is that you can use multiple platforms and technologies side by side: you can use Linux and Windows 2008 on the same site, as well as PHP, ASP, PERL, PYTHON.

If you’re running a site that’s getting big, or setting up a site that you expect to expand rapidly or perhaps you have a site that often gets sudden spikes in traffic then Cloud Hosting may well be the ideal solution for you.

There are a number of Hosts offering Cloud Hosting, though I can happily recommend SiteHQ with whom i’ve hosted both a number personal and work sites off for over five years.

Cheaper Cloud Hosting

SiteHQ’s cloud hosting just got cheaper

Premium WordPress Themes and Laziness

Martin — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:55:17 +0000

I admit it I was far to lazy do create my own wordpress theme for this site, I seem to have spent the last 2 months working on code, wordpress themes and web site designs… the truth is I’d much rather be doing something else. So the prospect of designing and coding my own wordpress theme was just one step too far. I’d never bought a premium wordpress theme before and hadn’t really intended on doing so. What I needed for my site was something that dealt with video embedding nicely I first looked at the free Videographer theme by Zoomstart. It worked fairly well, but perhaps wasn’t pretty enough and would have required a bit of extra work. My hunt around the web and the wordpress theme repositories didn’t pull up anything useful or even that useable for my needs.

Then I happened across the Tubular theme by Brian Gardner and available from Studiopress. Video embedding is dealt with very well, and it’s attractive out of the box, the code is nicely laid out and the css is easy to edit – all in all it’s a very nice package and as you would expect (you hope) from a premium wordpress theme there’s good support available in the support forums.

I know some people would reel at the thought of paying for a premium theme when there are so many good free themes out there… but I’m just happy to have something that works and if that means spending a little money so be it.

From Gallery2 to WordPress

Martin — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:20:27 +0000

After over a year using Gallery2 to display my audio recordings i’ve decided to give it the axe. Part of my decision was the need to move the audio files off of my hosting account and save myself some bandwidth but also because I’ve grown a little unhappy with Gallery2. Ultimately it is designed as an image gallery - but even so I’ve found it to be a complicated, over designed resources hog. Gallery3 is currently in development and maybe that will be better. But I don’t think it’s an environment that’s going to work displaying audio recordings. Also I can’t help but think that a WordPress installation with the right plugins can produce something just as effective as Gallery2 and possibly even Gallery3.

DSA Media made us a great gallery/album system for Scenography – The Theatre Design Website, it’s simplicity is genius compared to a Gallery2 installation it’s a real dream and so easy to maintain and use.

I’ve now converted my audio files to movie files and hosted them on Vimeo. They’re all in here and you may browse through them using the categories link on the right.

More about using Vimeo later!

Railway Ballast Tamping Machine

Martin — Sun, 17 May 2009 19:09:50 +0000

Late night recording of a railway ballast tamping machine. I was just heading off to bed when I heard an incredible noise coming from the railway line that passes through our village, having decided to record the sounds I made for the bridge over the line by St Anne’s Church hoping to ctach it before it moved underneath it. Unfortunately by the time I got my gear together and found a torch it had passed the bridge… if I’d got there earlier this would have been a much more exciting recording as I could have captured it as it passed by me.

Still it’s a pretty impressive sound all the same… and might come in useful for some kind Alien machine from War of the Worlds.

Tamping Machines:

Tamping machines are used to “pack” the ballast underneath the rails/sleepers, they basically give it a good wack and jiggle all the ballast around to close up gaps and holes.

Recorded with my ZoomH4 a SUPERLUX E523/D microphone and Homemade Microphone Windshield System.

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me

Spitfire Sound Clip

Martin — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:35:26 +0000

Spitfire Sounds : Recording of a Spitfire Fighter Aircraft made at the WW2 Day at the Great Central Railway.

Recorded with my ZoomH4 a SUPERLUX E523/D microphone and Homemade Microphone Windshield System.

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me

Earl of Merioneth departs Tan-y-Bwlch

Martin — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:29:33 +0000

Earl of Merioneth departs Tan-y-Bwlch station on the Ffestiniog Railway in Wales. Recorded from the forest just along the path from the stream… which you can hear in the background.

Recorded with the ZOOMH4′s internal stereo mic (handheld) and a home made wind gag.

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me

Photo Credits

I’d like to thank the following for allowing me to use their fantastic images in this post(Also in movie)

Rob Phillips (OldMiwi) : http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldmiwl/
MartianMarvin : http://www.flickr.com/photos/50067461@N00/
Forest Pines : http://www.flickr.com/photos/forest_pines/
Matt Buck : mattbuck.irongalaxy.com

Earl of Merioneth departs Tan-y-Bwlch in rain

Martin — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:25:50 +0000

On board recording of The Earl of Merioneth pulling a heavily loaded passenger train out of Tan-y-Bwlch in wet conditions. Lots of hissing and slipping.

Recorded with a RØDE NT2 held in a pistol-grip and covered with a deadcat windgag.

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me

Photo Credits

I’d like to thank the following for allowing me to use their fantastic images in this post(Also in movie)

Rob Phillips (OldMiwi) : http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldmiwl/
MartianMarvin : http://www.flickr.com/photos/50067461@N00/
Forest Pines : http://www.flickr.com/photos/forest_pines/
Matt Buck : mattbuck.irongalaxy.com

778 Baldwin Departs Page’s Park

Martin — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:22:26 +0000

Unlike any other railway in the UK the LBR runs through the suburbs of Leighton Buzzard making for a “polluted” recording environment. Personally I find the noise and goings on of the suburbs: the car alarms and children playing a charming backdrop to the noise of this small steam engine trundling through Page’s Park.

Recorded with my ZoomH4 a SUPERLUX E523/D microphone and Homemade Microphone Windshield System.

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me

Black 5 Departs Quorn

Martin — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:18:45 +0000

Black Five departs from Quorn at a WW2 day at the Great Central Railway.

Recorded with my ZoomH4 a SUPERLUX E523/D microphone and Homemade Microphone Windshield System.

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me