Martin Paling » Audio Recording

London Sound Survey : Wildlife Sounds

Martin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:31:59 +0000

Many of you will know about the excellent London Sound Survey, the website that aims to document contemporary and historic sounds from the UK’s capital. I’m an avid reader of the site and the great work that Ian Rawes (its creator) is doing there. Recently Ian opened a new Wildlife section featuring the sounds of London’s wildlife. One of the great things about our capital are it’s many parks and wildlife reserves – many of which have sprung up almost organically and been curated by local people.

Wildlife recording is one area i’d like to concentrate more on but it takes a huge amount of patience, in that sense it’s not too dissimilar to Railway audio recording: in that you hunt out a good spot, set up and wait… hoping for that moment when you “catch” the sound you want. And of course it also suffers from nay of the same problems of railway recording, unwanted environmental noises like cars, tractors, people and planes can ruin an otherwise perfect recording.

Pop over to the London Sound Survey and lose yourself in the sounds of the capital – you might be surprised at what you find!

Gresley N2 Tank

Martin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:46:49 +0000

This is a beautiful little (Big) engine. I just love the colour and the lining. This recording was made at the Great Central Railway. Just before my partner and I went for an evening meal on the train.

We’d wandered down to the Loughborough shed from Loughborough central station and the engine was just having its fill of water for the trip. Sadly I had to edit out the filling because a) it takes way too long and b) there was a car in the background.

One to listen to with headphones… it makes a great “chugging” noise as it rolls off towards the station.

If you have not been for a meal on the Great Central Railway I recommend you do, its not cheap but well worth the experience. My only criticism would be is that they need to clean the carriage windows a little more throughly and that some of the table fittings are lacking in quality. The meal and ambience however is great!

Recorded with the ZOOMH4’s internal stereo mic (handheld) with a handmade windgag

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

*For commercial use-age please contact me

LNER Class O4 Departs Quorn

Martin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:29:28 +0000

LNER Class O4 63601 Departs Quorn

I love this engine… it makes a great noise. At the start of this recording you can almost hear it saying “I can do it, I can do it” as as if from a Thomas the Tank Engine story… it then struggles, hisses and pants up the incline from Quorn with a full train finally celebrating with an exhausted “whistle” somewhere past the Rushey Lane bridge.

As much as I love the GCR it’s a real pain to record from with more environmental noise than you’d think: Apart from all of the nearby roads East Midlands Airport have ruined also many a recording – My girlfriend think’s it’s hugely entertaining to watch me sitting quietly in a field making a recording to suddenly stop and start shouting obscenities at EasyJet.

This was recorded south of Quorn not far from the Rushey Lane bridge and about 400 metres from the lineside. That distance means the mics are set to a very high gain… so a windshield is essential even in the great weather we had that day. This has been edited to kill a lot of the mics own self noise (I really need to get better mics and have my eye on a pair of matched Rode NT1, although a studio mic they’re popular with field recording folk because they have very low self noise… I’m constantly watching Ebay for deals!!!)

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

Name that Train!

Martin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:07:35 +0000

Sometimes I make a recording that for some reason or other (usually because I forget to take pen and paper – or because the sound of me writing is too noisy) I can’t identify. If you have an ear for recognising steam or diesel locomotives and fancy a game of “Name that Train” the head on over to the Name that Train page where you can hear the files I can’t identify.

Thunder, Rain and Planes

Martin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:59:13 +0000

Summer rain – it’s the best type of rain, especially when your water butt is getting low! I’d just returned from a walk in the countryside when the heavens opened with a crack of thunder and lightning, the rain soon started to tap away on our aluminum garden patio furniture set.

Listen closely and you should hear aircraft flying in to land at East Midlands Airport.

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

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!