Location Sound Final Report/Portfolio
Introduction
When first starting out, the understanding of this module was that we would be recording sound on/in different locations; primarily focused on recording on film sets. Once it had been established that the focus was not on film set recording, a variety of interesting possibilities were presented. These various areas of study included producing Soundscapes, Soundscape Compositions, Musique Concrete pieces, Binaural recordings, Sound Walks, Narrative based recordings, Radio and Documentary (sound) recording, as well as recording sound on film sets.
Initially, the area of work that interested me most was producing Soundscapes. This came after listening to Chris Watson’s Soundscape for the painting ‘The Cornfield’ (The National Gallery, 2017). For further information, refer to post [Location Sound 1/10/17].
With that being said, producing high quality recordings in different locations was always the focus, regardless of how they were to be presented. As ideas developed/changed throughout the semester, it was decided to present only one of the project ideas as a final product. There were originally 3 main ideas to be put forward with research being carried out for each project. Although only one of these is being presented as a final product, there is a section dedicated to analysing the other two projects.
Semester Work Overview
Evolution Of My Project Ideas
Over the course of twelve weeks my project ideas changed and evolved, frequently. The following posts detail this, with the timeframe corresponding to the date in the title of each post:
Location Sound 1/10/17
Location Sound 2/10/17
Location Sound 13/10/17
Location Sound 1/11/17
Location Sound 29/11/17
Location Sound 30/11/17
Location Sound 4/12/17
Location Sound 6/12/17
Although my initial ideas were fairly basic, a lot of interest lay in documentary and Soundscapes. As previously mentioned, the interest in Soundscapes stemmed from Chris Watson’s work for ‘The Cornfield’ (The National Gallery, 2017); this interest was amplified after attending his lecture at Leeds Beckett University on Wednesday 4th October (2017). Soundscaping was a common project idea throughout the semester never being removed from each evolution, bar my final decision. Other ideas I explored along the line include:
Mic Familiarisation - Testing microphones for situational suitability [see Location Sound 2/10/17].
Radio Documentary - Interviewing people in churches [see Location Sound 13/10/17].
Binaural Recordings - A more personal approach to producing a set of organised recordings [see Location Sound 1/11/17].
Voice/Podcast Recording - Recording speech in different acoustic/sonic environments [see Location Sound 30/11/17].
Painting a Sonic Picture for Leeds Beckett’s Headingly Campus Buildings - Another more personal approach to producing a set of organised recordings [see Location Sound 30/11/17, 4/12/17].
Further developed ideas towards the painting a Sonic Picture [see Location Sound 6/12/17].
After thought and consultations with tutors, it was decided that my final portfolio project would be to produce 4 Musique Concrete/Soundscape Compositions, derivative of one of the project ideas with ongoing development.
Mic Experimentation
As one of the earliest project ideas, mic experimentation and familiarisation was key to obtaining personal developments in this subject/area. Throughout the semester the following microphones were used:
DPA Lavalier - Small, powerful and incredibly versatile (in terms of both manoeuvring and picking up sound), primarily offering great ambience recording capabilities. This mic was heavily used for an array of recordings [can be seen/referenced in; Binaural Test using DPA Mic’s, Location Sound 16/11/17, 30/11/17, 4/12/17, 7/12/17].
Contact Mic - Only experimented with and not utilised throughout [see Sound Library, Folder 1].
(Electric) 3 Coil Pickup Mic - Great for obtaining interesting electronic sounds; can be used to produce experimental sound recordings.
Rode NTG2 - Fairly standard shotgun mic producing adequate sound recordings when used efficiently [briefly mentioned in Location Sound 7/12/17].
Sennheiser MKH416 - High powered, industry standard shotgun mic that offers high quality recordings; especially when used with the SD664 Field Production Mixer [see Location Sound 23/10/17].
Parabolic Mic - Great for isolating far away sounds; very useful when field recording distant sound sources such as birds [see Location Sound 30/11/17 & 4/12/17].
Hydrophone - A very useful mic for recording under water; however not as practical as first imagined [see Location Sound 4/12/17].
These were used with the following recorders and mixer:
H6 Zoom Handheld Recorder - Heavily used handheld recorder offering the capability of creating high quality recordings in the field [heavily referenced with DPA Lavalier mic]
Tascam DR-100 Handheld Recorder - Good handheld field recorder with slightly above average recording quality capabilities [see Binaural Test using DPA Mic’s].
SD664 Field Production Mixer - [see Location Sound 23/10/17 for brief detailed evaluation]. Further to the referenced post, it is evident that this is industry standard equipment. The amount of outputs alongside the many functions this equipment has, makes in unparalleled to other mixers. The pre-amps also offer phenomenal sound magnification (especially when used with the Sennheiser MKH416).
Learning Experiences
There were various learning experiences that aided my development throughout this first semester, briefly elaborated on in posts throughout this blog. Two of the most significant experiences came when tasked to capture sound around Leeds City Centre, and when on the set of the MA Film student production, ‘Trashbag’ (both using the SD664 & Sennheiser MKH416). It was in these sessions that I discovered not only the power of the equipment used, but the contrast in recording techniques between field recording (for Soundscapes, ambience etc.) and recording on a film set. Slightly more detailed reflections of each experience can be found in posts, [Location Sound 23/10/17] (City Walk) and [Location Sound 25/10/17] (Trashbag set). To briefly summarise, these were two experiences that kickstarted my interest in field recording as a whole.
The walk through Leeds City Centre had more impact of the two, helping me formulate one of the earliest and most commonly reoccurring project ideas; Soundscapes/Soundscaping.
An experiment that was carried out that also aided my development was trying to create binaural recordings using a handheld field recorder and 2 DPA Lavalier microphones. Although not unsuccessful, the power of the DPA mics distorted the binaural effect which led me to believe that the experiment was not particularly successful. Further detail has been noted in posts [Location Sound 27/10/17 & 6/11/17]. The two posts contrast in developmental ideologies with regards to obtaining good quality binaural recordings in this way; further experimentation may have provided a breakthrough but constant change in project ideas led my attention away from this.
Another key learning experience unfolded when recording sounds in the forest area of Meanwood Park and editing those sounds; all being tailored for a forest orientated Soundscape. Information that details my development in this activity can be found in posts [Location Sound 16/11/17 & 24/1/17]. This experience came prior to using the Parabolic mic but still offered a large amount of development value. The session turned out to be a success, but within the recordings there was some noise pollution, making some takes unusable [see Sound Library, Folder 2 for an example]. The peculiar thing that occurred to me when listening back to these recordings was that I heard and eliminated prevalent noise pollution when present, but due to a slight bit of habituation with wind being picked up, I managed to oversee (not hear) low and underlying noise pollution such as distant airplanes [see Sound Library, Folder 3]. However on reflection, this could have possibly been my own error of over-amplifying the DPA microphones.
Going into this recording I adopted an ideology of Annie Lockwood’s, obtained via her interview in the book ‘In The Field’ (Lane & Carlyle, 2013). The quote taken from the book and my thoughts on the quote can be found in the post [Location Sound 4/10/17]. It was after this session that I started to really think critically about the recording process in the field; particularly for Soundscapes [see bottom of post Location Sound 16/11/17].
Developed, Unused Projects
There were two projects that I worked towards but have not chosen to explicitly include in my portfolio; a podcast style recording and an EP of Soundscapes. The process of constructing and researching these projects was important to my development; planting a seed to take both of these project ideas further outside of University. Further planning details can be found in post [Location Sound 30/11/17].
Soundscape EP
As previously mentioned, my affinity for Soundscapes stemmed from Chris Watson’s work and lecture. Another body of work that initially influenced my liking of Soundscapes was the ‘Energy Field’ album (Winderen, 2011). Although there is a compositional element to the tracks on this album, there is also a lot of field recording included; some processed and most seemingly unprocessed. The final piece of the influential puzzle was our City Walk.
After carrying out the City Walk exercise and hearing all of the intricacies we usually miss, I wanted to continue capturing these sounds in order to present to people what they could be aurally missing. The City Walk recordings led me to create my first Soundscape. The final product flowed nicely as the walk led me to different parts of Leeds City Centre, populated with differing sounds. This helped craft an underlying narrative to the piece, creating a more structured listening experience.
When listening through and finalising this first Soundscape I decided to listen to ‘The Missing Voice (Case Study B)’ by Janet Cardiff (Cardiff, 1999). Via listening to this I came to the decision that I would create a narrative of my own and record it to apply over the top of the Soundscape (based on how Janet Cardiff had created hers). After various failed attempts I decided my voice would not fit, writing out and developing my narrative in the form of a supporting word document. This narrative dictated giving the EP more sense of direction instead of just outright Soundscapes. A supportive document was also written out for the Forest Soundscape on the proposed EP. Both these documents can be found in folder [Development Project 1].
Something that influenced rationalising the written narrative, as well as the production of these Soundscapes, was the ‘Slow Movement’ [see Location Sound 11/11/17]. The BBC also air a podcast on BBC Radio 3 called ‘Slow Radio’, which first aired 17th October 2017. The principles of this podcast are those of the ‘Slow Movement’, displaying there is a place for Soundscapes to be aired and listened to (BBC Radio 3, 2017).
The themed idea behind producing this EP was to ask people the question of whether they really listen to a perceived sound of beauty (in my opinion). Also to make them aware of what they could potentially be missing out on. Below are the drafted names for the EP:
“The Unopened Ears”
“The Ears That May Not Be Open”
“Social Soundscapes: The Opening Of Our Ears”
“Listening Further”
Of the four proposed tracks for this EP [see Location Sound 30/11/17] only three were recorded and produced; the City Centre, Forest & Water Soundscapes. Permission was not obtained in time to include a Pub Soundscape; yet it was later deemed an unimportant element of the EP and its message/theme. These can also be found in folder [Development Project 1].
Upon analysis the EP did not suffice as a respectable body of work. All of the recordings and production is in Mono, a minor mistake never rectified. Had this have been started/treated with the mixes being stereo, the EP would have been more stimulating, truer to genuine listening experiences and an all round better set of mixes. Going forward, all Soundscapes will be recorded with the intention of being stereo, effecting my approach to the recording process as well as the mixing process. Due to time restraints I was unable to remix these Soundscapes in time to present as stereo tracks; other work commitments took priority unfortunately.
There are two significant posts with regards to the development of these Soundscapes [see Location Sound 23/10/17 & 16/11/17].
Podcast Recording/Production
The second project to be excluded from the presented portfolio was a recording made between me and two other Sound Design students. The recording was carried out in the Student Union of the Leeds Beckett Headingly Campus. This initially spawned when thinking of different ideas for recording around Headingly Campus (painting a sonic picture for Leeds Beckett). This linked in with having played pool regularly as an undergraduate Music Technology student. It wasn’t until after recording 2 games of pool (one after the other consecutively, equating to a 42 minute recording) that it was established that this could be a separate project altogether.
To hear and see notes on the full recording, please see [Location Sound 17/11/17].
After reflecting on the full recording it was then determined that 42 minutes of distorted conversation may not be the best way to present this piece of work. As this was between three MA Sound Design students, I decided to extract interesting conversation that related to the/our University course/experiences. This condensed the recording to 12 minutes of audio. Please see [Location Sound 30/11/17].
Once the separate topics had been extracted (at different times in the recording), it was then time to smoothly piece these fragments together. This was done via taking segments of the recording from the ambience dedicated mic and applying respectable fading in and out times in conjunction with the conversation audio being faded out and in. This stitched areas together accordingly, allowing for a more consistent and coherent 12 minutes of speech driven audio. For further information on the editing process, please see the bottom of post [Location Sound 30/11/17].
This project was finally decided to be framed as a podcast once all of the above editing had been carried out. Due to the nature of the conversation, the first name idea was, 'A Postgraduate Pool Game Conversation. Ep. 1 - Sound Design’. Further thinking enabled the realisation that this could be expanded and broadened largely by changing the name of the proposed podcast. By eliminating specifics of academic level, location and participants, the podcast could be focused on recording conversation in different sonic environments, speaking about anything from current affairs to health awareness. With this the podcast could potentially attract a wider range of listeners.
No final name was crafted for the podcast due to it being excluded, however if a name was to be chosen after this, it would have been something along the lines of, ‘Sonic Environment Exploration: Tell Me About It! Ep. 1 - Students in their Union (Student Union Bar)’.
Although speech has been made intelligible in this recording, the quality for it’s determined purpose is not good enough to be included in the portfolio. When recording, a Davide Tidoni principle was adopted of leaving the piece unedited in any way (Tidoni, 2013). I thought the audio would be far more interesting as the original focus was the space we were in, not the conversation. With late editing developments to create a short podcast (where speech is key, needing to be intelligible) the quality of this body of work would not suffice. Going forward with an idea of creating a podcast in different sonic spaces, my approach will change. By keeping an ambience microphone recording the space and close mic’ing participants in the podcast, the desired outcome may be achieved with far greater results (post edit).
Here is the link to this audio file: https://soundcloud.com/user-396826251/a-postgraduate-pool-game-conversation-ep-1-sound-design/s-1RG1Y
Both files can be found in the [Development Project 2 folder].
Main Project Outline
The main project in my portfolio is another idea that has been changed and developed frequently; keeping the same frame from the beginning, however. I wanted to paint a sonic picture for Leeds Beckett University Headingly Campus. This was to create an audible reference for a building/University that I owe a lot of personal development to (as well as academic). The developments of this project can be seen in posts [Location Sound 1/11/17, 29/11/17, 30/11/17, 4/12/17 & 6/12/17(x2)].
The main influential character that pioneered the initial thought process for this idea was Davide Tidoni. Please see [Location Sound 1/11/17, 3&4/11/17] for further text regarding how my project idea was influenced. Briefly, his idea of obtaining recordings that are personal to himself led me to want to do the same; create a body of work that could be listened to at any time, taking me back to somewhere I feel so strongly about.
One of the later evolutions of the project was then influenced by Hildegard Westerkamp’s ‘Kits Beach Walk’ (Westerkamp, 1989). Her style of talking directly to the listener, informing them of her experience on the beach, influenced me to inform listeners of room functions or interesting facts learned in the room being recorded at the time. A prototype was recorded but like the Soundscape attempt was unsuccessful. See [Location Sound 4/12/17] for further development points of this.
After many twists and turns, the decision was made to create Musique Concrete/Soundscape Composition pieces for 4 specific places in Headingly Campus. The 4 spaces chosen were:
Coach House - This building is the smallest i’ve been in on campus, but is where a lot of interesting lessons were held in my first year as an undergraduate.
James Graham Stairway C - As well as being an interesting acoustic environment, this was used to access all of my Music Technology tutorials and studio sessions; still being used to this day to access the same rooms as a postgraduate student.
JG117 - The room I spent most of my time in as an undergrad with a large proportion of tutorials being held there. I also stayed over night in this room (working into the following day) when completing my final project in level 6.
Studio 6 (in James Graham building) - One of the studios used to construct and edit a semester 1 project for my postgrad studies; also used as an undergrad, just not as significantly.
When approaching recording these individual pieces I followed the same ideology for each space, using the same microphones and conducting similar practices each time. Refer to post [Location Sound 7/12/17]. As well as following the techniques referred to in this post I wanted my presence to be a part of each recording. This is why I have not removed any coughs, clicks or slight breathing from each track; it was important for myself to be a part of these pieces.
My attention was also drawn to two terms taken from R. Murray Shafer’s book, ‘The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World’. These two terms are, ‘Keynote Sound’ and ‘Soundmark'. Both are Soundscape related terms that similarly refer to environment or landmark specific sounds (Shafer, 1977). In reference to these terms, I aimed to capture the essence of each room to the best of my ability as well as recording incidental sounds. This was done to make more of a collage of sound (Soundscape Composition) than a musical piece (Musique Concrete).
This has been named ‘Headingly Campus’s Sonic Highways - Audio Postcards for Music Rooms of Significance’. The name was influenced by ‘Foo Fighters - Sonic Highways’ album/documentary, due to the nature of travelling around to significant states/studios in it’s production.
Critical Evaluation of ‘Headingly Campus’s Sonic Highways - Audio Postcards for Music Rooms of Significance’
The Coach House
The essence of the Coach House is captured well due to the underlying rehearsal taking place in a nearby room. The bed of ambience sitting underneath all the other recorded sounds generates a nice flow to the track, providing a rhythm for listeners to follow whilst all the other sounds are played.
Other than the 3 coil pickup mic recordings, there aren't many sounds sitting on top of the rehearsal that are particularly special. This being said however, the close-mic recordings provide dynamic range in both volume and frequency. With the ongoing rehearsal dominating the low end of the frequency spectrum, plenty of room is left in the mid to high range which is then filled out by all the other sounds of the room. This works out okay, offering a potential variety of focus.
The quality of the sample recordings is consistent with no outstanding clipping or extremely poorly-executed recording techniques.
A musical element may need to have been adopted to improve this piece. Although carried out to be a collage of sounds, playing samples in time with the rhythm of the rehearsal may have been more interesting than playing sounds in a sporadic fashion. Also, the chosen room does not offer much character bar the rehearsal taking place. Maybe recording a different room would have provided more stimulating sounds as well as having the rehearsal ongoing in the background.
Stairway C
The essence of James Graham’s Stairway C is captured nicely via the acoustic qualities of the space. The DPA Lavalier microphone picks up reflections from all three floors, portraying the power of the mic and the depth of the space. Another point to raise with regards to this, is that there is no self noise/hiss being produced due to over amplification of any of the microphones. This indicates recording was carried out at a good level.
The arrangement of this piece, aside from the 3 coil pickup mic recordings, doesn't particularly flow in a musical sense but offers more of a narrative to the piece. There are moments where groups of students are using the stairway (implications they are going to or coming from a lesson) and moments where it seems no one is using the stairway. These moments of inactivity offer space for incidental sounds, like doors opening and closing, to accentuate the acoustics of the space; indirectly, the essence of the space.
As well as some of the electrical sounds recorded, the depth of the acoustic environment and generator hum that can be heard provide low end sounds for a dynamic frequency range. However, there isn't much consistency with the low end which can result in parts of the track sounding thin. Panning also has a destabilising effect where low end can only be heard in one ear.
Upon closer listen there are faint signs of handling noise disrupting parts of the Rode NTG2 recordings. This is undesirable but not prominent enough to cause too much of a problem. Also, at 1:54 there is distortion on one of the recordings of a door closing. This may have been due to over-amplification of the Rode as well as poor mic positioning.
Although not entirely possibly, more variety of sound would improve this piece. Maybe recordings from inside the elevator would have provided more interesting variety; however, this would be coming away from the initially intended recording space. It sounds like there is also re-use of certain samples; dragging knuckles and a pen across the face of a radiator. Although there are radiators on more than one floor these samples sound extremely similar.
JG117
The essence of JG117 has been captured with the implications of a well attended class being in session. This creates a narrative for the piece. The track flows with what you may imagine entering any classroom before and/or during a lesson could sound like. Further to this point, you can hear murmurs when the room is first entered (the start of the piece); then murmurs don’t continue prominently until after the teacher has made his announcements. Hearing activity around the class, like keyboards being used (QWERTY and musical), guitar notes being strummed and people clicking mouses feeds into the perceived narrative.
Due to the focus primarily being the surrounding activity, the DPA Lavalier mic has the most prominent use in the piece, solidly capturing surrounding ambience. Samples have been recorded clearly and there are no harsh cuts or areas of extreme/unbalanced panning.
With regards to the editing, although there is a narrative in place with the active classroom, there is often conversation samples being faded out without a bed of ambience, once silent. This creates an unsettling effect with regards to the flow, sonically. There is no intended narrative so this should not be a problem; however, given the nature of the piece (a class in session) these fade outs and fade ins have a negative effect when listening. These gaps should really have been filled, maybe with a centralised bed of constant ambience (like the Coach House piece).
Studio 6
The essence of Studio 6 is captured in a more fragmented nature in comparison to the other pieces. The entrance at the beginning, an amp being turned on and hissing, mic stand configuration and audio bleed from the other studio are all signifiers of this space. These samples are all placed in separate parts of the track, however. The samples in between could potentially be described as filler.
The arrangement does display parts of the track where events have been strung together with association intentions. An example of this can be heard when the guitar amplifier is switched on at 2:01. Following the amp being turned on there is a sample of mic stand configuration. This signifies that at this point in the piece the listener could be in a live room. Although there are parts like this however, they’re not consistent enough to imply any kind of narrative element; unlike other pieces in the body of work.
Like ‘Stairway C’, this piece has a good frequency range but poor placement of low frequency samples. Panned low frequencies can be unsettling, having a negative effect on the listeners perception.
As this space is a recording studio it would have been nicer to hear unorthodox sounds of musical instruments being captured. For example, tuning an electric guitar (not amplified), drum sticks being fondled together, XLR cables being manoeuvred, cymbals being manoeuvred etc. These would create interesting sounds, true to a recording studio. As well as this, there is reoccurring use of a chair being wheeled drastically. Although this chair usage may or may not be true to all studios, it is not true to this studio, taking away from the essence of this space.
The Full Body Of Work
Overall I am pleased with the results of this work. The four tracks have individual qualities as well as remaining consistent with the principles applied to the construction of each piece. The same equipment was used in the same manor for every recording session, providing the body of work with a persisting theme throughout. Although the 3 coil pickup mic did not play any part in capturing the essence of any of the spaces, the recordings provided interesting sounds to listen to alongside the rest of each composition; adding it’s own unique quality.
The recording of samples went smoothly with only a handful of anomalies spread across the four pieces. Although a wider variety of microphones could have been used, I wanted to keep consistency due to the amount of tracks/material being recorded. This was done via familiarisation of the equipment being used.
Given the opportunity to adopt this project at an earlier date, more spaces could have been recorded and Soundscape Compositions produced for them. The chosen spaces offer an adequate amount of variety to suffice as a body of work; however, given the length of each track, I believe 2-3 more spaces could have been recorded with a more meticulous approach to the logistics of each piece. A larger variety of spaces would also allow me to experiment with a larger range of microphones.
Conclusion
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my experiences, project construction and the learning process throughout this module. I aim to continue actively field recording after University, as well as during the rest of my time here. Quality over quantity is always desired, however sometimes quantity is required to find something of quality. Please see the bottom of post [Location Sound 16/11/17].
Bibliography
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Watson, C. (2017) Field Recording Lecture. lecture notes, MA Location Sound. Leeds Beckett University, delivered 4th October 2017.
Westerkamp, H. (1989) Kits Beach Soundwalk. Hildergard Westerkamp [Digital Audio File]. Youtube. Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg96nU6ltLk> [Accessed 4th December 2017].
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