Tag Archives: contact mics

building contact microphones

Since a number of people have asked about building contact microphones, particularly from my youtube videos, I’m posting a very brief tutorial here regarding my own experience. Since I have no need to build any contact mics at the moment I’ll only talk a bit about the components. There are other web pages here and [...]
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tape, wind and wire soundmix #1

New video up. This is a straight forward sound mix made in my backyard using both live mics and contact mics. No post-processing or composing was done. A higher quality version is available on my Vimeo page. The video was from hand held material recorded on a panasonic digital camera.
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formica aquilonia

Formica aquilonia or Red Wood Ant is a species of ant commonly found in the area where I live. The ant colonies are easily recognizable by the large mounds that they build out of debris from the pine forests they inhabit. The mounds also tend to be clustered together. I’m not sure what is the [...]
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found fences, spring drifts

Gathering inspiration from the metal fence highlighted in the previous post, I spent a few hours wandering Tampere to search for other metal fences and railings with similar resonant qualities. There were many, each with their own characteristics. The two I highlight here stood out. But there was also a prectical reason for not recording [...]
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sound objects in the landscape

During a recent revenant sound workshop in Tampere, Finland we took some time out to introduce a few basic recording techniques used in the field (it is good to remind ourselves that “field recording” is more a technique than a genre). This was to show what kind of things we do in practice to the [...]
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animate structures #2

It’s winter and the temperatures are not friendly for recording outdoors. In Dresden, where I’m in residence for several weeks at 7.stock, it’s been around -5 – 0 C during the day (not including the wind). I mention the wind because I’ve been working on the 7th floor of a building. While the view is [...]
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revenant : saaropera

video of a revenant sound action made in the hollow metal shell of an electrical substation on lake peipsi near the russian border. the participants are eamon sprod (tarab), maksims shentelevs, kaspars kalnins and myself. recorded november 16, 2008. note the sound of ducks flying overhead towards the end.
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harmonic remains

In the last 8 months I’ve made a number of recordings of old, and as far as I can tell, abandoned telegraph lines. My friend Toomas has a step-grandfather who was a telephone repairman during the Soviet times and kindly let me borrow his old pole climbing “shoes” (which are metal claws made from old [...]
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intentional sound gathering

I’ve spent the past few weeks in France visiting with Patrick McGinley who has generously offered his temporary residence as a gathering place for friends, many of whom are avid sound recordists. Naturally those who came started to explore the local area for interesting locations. Patrick and myself went out early to work [...]
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nodar flowlines

In April of 2008 I spent a month at the Binauralmedia residency in Nodar, Portugal. My interest was to carry out a sonic and visual survey of the landscape around the local village through a series of site-specific recording sessions. In particular I compared and contrasted the geographic lines caused by the natural water flows [...]
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animate structures #1

New video up on YouTube that documents some of my latest recording activities. I’ve decided to call this series ‘animate structures’ rather than phenomenological.
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phenomenological structures

A few days ago, while it was relatively warm out, I set up a temporary sound installation behind our house. The installation was a type of environmental sculpture constructed entirely out of objects and materials found around our yard (except for some basic household wire). The wire was strung up between and old metal [...]
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