Music of Sound

On the top of Brooklyn Hill, here in Wellington, there is a huge wind turbine which apparently generates enough power to supply 300 homes (especially during a Southerly!) While there is much debate about the visual aesthetics of wind farms I have to confess I quite like the look of them, in fact IMHO they are more pleasant to the eye than many of the architectural abberations (aka suburban homes) in the immediate vicinity….. But even more so I love the sound of them! Where else can you go to hear the sound of air being sliced by a huge propellor? Its not like you can gaffer tape yourself to the front of an aeroplane….

To give you some idea of scale thats my record kit you can just see sitting on the ground at the base – have a listen, here is a recording from last Sunday, plus one from an earlier visit:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Matt had the genius idea of recording the interior ambience as an element for one of the locations in our current project & so a number of phone calls later we gained access to it….

And wow, what a great drone!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Not that either of us were keen, but we were told in no uncertain terms not to venture up the internal ladder – just this view gave me vertigo…

Beside the turbine there is also a tower with various aerials & wind measurement devices… the wind was fair whipping around it…

Of course I had my contact mic with me & after speculating as to what sound could be heard from attaching it to one of the guy wires, we just had to find out:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

And this is the sound from tapping the guy wires:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Next I attached it to the actual base of the entire tower & wow!!!!!!!
sub bass rumbles galore!!!!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

here is the same sound pitched up an octave, so you can appreciate what the rumble consists of:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I think this is the best criteria for a successful recording mission:
to record what you set out to, but to also find sounds that you didnt even know existed…
bliss!

What to do with an old car that still goes, but the idea of it actually passing a warrant of fitness is less likely than discovering a perpetual motion engine in a junk store in Westport? I believe one of the best options is to donate it to a bunch of maniacal sound editors & let it become one with its particles as we smash the living daylights out of it!!

here is the ‘before’ photo, a donated Ford Telstar parked outside my old studio in Jessie Street – the front windscreen was already smashed but other than that it actually was quite driveable… Late the previous evening, when the city was quiet, i put a couple of mics inside the car & stomped around on the roof & got some great sounds until one of the neighbours woke up & asked me what the hell I was doing?!?

The first time we did this we had six sound recordists and a serious array of crow bars, hammers & axes. This time there were just four of us – we got access to the local landfill/rubbish dump after hours & spent the next three hours wreaking every kind of sonic havoc that we could muster. First up was reversing it into other car bodies & a huge pile of fridges and we got some massive metal impacts! Then we drove slowly into the other car bodys & recorded some fantastic metal scrapes – the kind that when heard in real life you just know the next phone call is to your insurance agent. Here is a video clip of reversing into fridges (hint, if you ever do this – reversing is better for recording car crash impacts for a start as it doesnt damage the engine)

And a few ‘car meets mountain of fridges’ sounds:

After we had tired of driving moves we decided to try & blow the motor up. A brick was found & placed on the accelerator & we stood back as the motor screamed its lungs out. After about ten minutes the entire exhaust & muffler were glowing red hot & the motor began to self oscillate in revs until it finally seized.

By this point the motor was VERY hot & we recorded some fantastic hot metal ‘tinks’ as it cooled

Next up we recorded puncturing the tyres with a sharp knife:

Followed by an array of axe & hammer impacts on the doors, bonnet & roof

Everyone went home physically exhausted.. and the following day we compiled all the various perspective recordings into a fantastic library that has been used in more than a few films since. Highly reccomended for the sound effects library (& for any residual violence/stress relief) and SO MUCH BETTER than the generic sound FX that you can buy in commercial librarys. They are also easier to find/remember when hunting through the many thousands of sound files in my library, simply because I was there and recorded it myself – every sound effect from that session is permanently imprinted in my brain, unlike generic library sound effect….

And here are a few of the ‘after’ photos”

RIP = REST IN PIECES

For the sounds of violence & gore in the film I decided to do a major studio based FX recording session involving as wide a selection of sound generating vegetables as we could muster. I did this for a project a few years ago & got great results, but wanted new material for this film.
Age Pryor, the FX Assistant went off to the supermarket & came back with los of crunchy material (such as celery, cabbage, carrots, pumpkin, eggs, nuts) and squelchy material (such as oranges, persimon, rock melon, water melon, mussels in their shells, baked beans, yoghurt) for some seriously messy fun! You would be surprised how wide a range of incredibly gross, revolting sounds can be made, even with a simple orange or a rock melon! If you dont believe me, wait until you see Black Sheep & have a good listen to the offal pit scene!

Matt Lambourn, FX Editor, manipulating some celery… this was great for bone break elements & wrenches. We also recorded some of the celery wrapped in cloth, which worked well as elements for some of the body tranforming sound design.
We recorded to my FR2 24bit/96k using a dbx preamp and a combination of a Neumann KMR81 short shotgun mic and an EV RE27 dynamic mic.

We also wanted a selection of bites & eating – so each person involved in the session had their turn at contributing variations. Pictured is Chris Todd, dialog and ADR editor, munching and fully in character!

Many vegetables died for a good cause, including these two!

We did quite a lot of sound effects recording for Black Sheep and I was just sorting through the photos & thought I’d post a bunch of them…
it was a hell fun project!

Sheep recording
While I had a few sheep recordings in my library from my brothers farm, I knew I’d need more than a few for this film! I collected up some great recordings from the personal librarys of Kitt Rowlings, Don Paulin, Beth Treadray & Tom Miskin (much thanks!) & did a first pass of all of the sheep FX in the film. It became obvious there were still specific FX I needed (aside from vocals I also wanted sheep hooves on various surfaces) so I set up a recording session with the animal trainers for the film – James & Caroline of Hero Animals. Wow – what a great experience! The photo above shows the trained sheep responding to a few whistles from James.. After watching sheep attack people on film for the previous month I almost laughed out loud when this mob came bounding down the hill & swarmed us!

James could even blow a whistle & get the sheep to baaa as a group, very funny to see & hear I can assure you! I recorded lots of sheep vocals as well as close up breaths when the sheep were eating, for the carnivorous scenes in the film. I also recorded single sheep footsteps at various speeds, on grass & then inside the woolshed on wood. Everything was recorded using my trusty Sanken CSS5 stereo shotgun mic and Fostex FR2 hard disk recorder.

An intriging side note, James & Carolines farm is the one & same that was used as a main location in Peter Jackson’s first film Bad Taste and that James still had one of the alien’s masks form it! The trailer for Bad Taste is on youtube, here:

I managed to capture a few impulse responses for Altiverb while away on holiday. I haven’t gone through the recordings yet but once I have I’ll upload them and then update this post…

My nephew Morris firing my .22 starter pistol into a small metal silo on my brothers farm in Southland.

This IR had a nice metal zing to it!

This is inside a tin shed – figured it might be useful for ADR….

This is Echo Point, a spot on the road of the Western Inlet from Takaka. I discovered this spot many eears ago, when there was a sign saying: ‘Echo Point – startling echo heard here!’ The signs now gone but if you happen to explore this area, its by the road marker #99 on the Western Inlet. No doubt it sounds quite different when the tide is in…

this book looks intriging, more info on this site

apparently birds sing in their sleep as well!?!

Obsessions are funny things… obviously one of mine is sound, which I appreciate is a fairly broad obsession, so to be more specific about it I love to try & capture the wind – not in a balloon or anything – but the many textures of sound created through the wind hitting things.
While there are plenty of obvious examples eg wind in wires, wind drafts, wind turbines, etc, the further into it you go the more specific it becomes…. so needless to say I have been searching for the perfect situation to capture the sound of the wind through a cabbage tree.

Last weekend I went for one of my favourite bush walks close to Wellington, up in the hills above Eastbourne, starting by where the buses sleep at night…

Of course I took my record kit (Fostex FR2 HD recorder & Sanken CS5 mic) but every time I stopped to try & record nice birds etc either a plane or the wind would pick up…
After half a dozen aborted efforts I was heading back down the track to Kowhai Street & realised the wind was making some crazy gusts up the valley & there before me was the perfect little cabbage tree…

So I put the mic up the side of the cabbage tree, sheltered from the main gusts but capturing the the leaves thrashing around.. so I recorded until my arm got too sore to hold the mic any more, but heres an excerpt:

I’ve been recording & then messing with some lovely resonant sounds
generated by various bits of metal, suspended by cotton thread…
the largest have been some chromatically tuned wind chimes that
I just got from magnolia windchimes in nelson – add a breeze and
these generate beauitful aleatoric music all on their own!

have a listen to the mp3s below, first forwards & then backwards:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

far out! Just came across these wind chimes:

You’d get shut down by noise control
if you had those in wellington!
(US$2700 incase you’re interested)

Its such fun to get out of the studio & do some FX recording! This a Ford Bronco V8 we recorded yesterday for our current film project: Bridge To Terabithia. We managed to track this vehicle down via TradeMe, since whatever we recorded had to match the one used in production. This one provided the challenge of having no WOF or registration and also being left hand drive… Needless to say we took it carefully but got some great material!
Recorded onboard using an HHB hard disk recorder using two dynamic mics (one on exhaust & one on motor) plus two Sennheiser 416s inside the cab… For exterior moves, passbys etc we used a Sound Devices 422 recorder with an MS mic setup using Sennheiser MKH 50 and 30.
After all that we went & recorded some interior bus moves (foley etc) plus recorded a few impulse responses with my starter pistol for use in Altiverb…