Music of Sound

I know there are a lot of very experienced field recordists who read this blog, so after stumbling across Greg Shaws brief but poignant field recording tips I wondered if we might expand on that list & attempt to compile a set of field recording tips that go from concept to completion? If you’re keen to contribute, I’ve started a basic timeline below & sketched some initial basic ideas. Add a comment with your thoughts & if you can, tag them to a relevant section (eg 2B additional: blah blah) so I can update this post as a master list & eventually create a PDF of it for all of our future reference… Be aware I have little experience eg with gun or weapons recording so your help with specific advice there would be much appreciated.

Sorry it is a bit dense & text heavy at the moment – I’ll reformat this document once it is complete. If you have a field recording photo that you’d like to contribute (generally or to a specific section) please link to it in the comments… Thanks!

 

 

 

FIELD RECORDING TIPS

 

 

1. WEEKS BEFORE:

A. research the prop/s, location and create a RECORDING LIST, with estimated set up time, time with each prop

B. do a recce to the location

C. do you need official access?

D. do you need permits?

E. do you need help? assemble a crewlist
- other recordists? Every recording device needs to be monitored
- props wrangler?
- production manager and/or safety officer?
- a runner? catering?

F. assemble an equipment list
- recorders
- microphones
- stands
- cables
- headphones
- expendables eg gaffer tape, cable ties
- comms devices eg RT?

G. plan power requirements: battery vs AC

H. schedule recording session, plus alternate dates for weather

 

 

2. A WEEK BEFORE:

A. refine the RECORDING LIST – time estimates are important to track progress on the day

B. do test recordings, at the planned time of day of the actual session. Check recordings in studio

C. if location is exterior check for flight path, traffic, other users of location

D. if location is interior check for light or appliance buzz, air con, traffic, other users of location

E. Discuss & decide on coverage with your team:
- close, medium & wide perspectives?
- microphone types & choices?

 

 

3. DAYS BEFORE:

A. Charge batteries – do you have enough batteries? No – Order more!

B. Test cables, mics, recorders

C. Check weather forecast

 

 

4. THE DAY BEFORE:

A. Complete & print your RECORDING LIST: with estimated timings & priority list including all props & locations

B. Final check weather

C. Visit location

D. Reconfirm all crew & check who needs transport

E. Set meeting time & place for session – make sure each person has a map etc

F. Assemble gear

G. Syncronize internal time-of-day clocks on all devices (especially important if crossing time zones!)

H. Pack gear ready to go, but keep in secure area (we’ve all heard of bands losing all their kit from leaving it in a locked van)

I. Pack any required food, drinks etc

 

 

5. THE MORNING BEFORE:

A. Confirm session with all crew – weather ok?

B. Load all gear, food, drinks

 

 

6. AT THE LOCATION – INITIAL SET UP:

A. Cable mics with clear access to props

B. Test recording on all recorders and mics

C. Record a verbal ID of all mics & recorders, one by one: tap the stand & say the mics name & recorder

D. Test recording for gain setting

E. Disable limiters? Comments please?

 

 

7. WHEN RECORDING:

A. Assign someone the role to verbal ID every take, and every prop/location

B. Assign someone the role to write sound logs & take a photo of every recording – do not rely on memory or metadata!!

C. Photo and/or video: every take, every prop, every change of location

D. If shooting video: at least do a hand clap at start of every take

E. If something unexpected happens, DO NOT VERBALISE until after the action & reverbant field has completed.

F. Constantly refer to your RECORDING LIST as a priority list to avoid over recording with one prop and running out of time & getting none of another. If you are getting behind schedule, assess & re-prioritise.

 

 

8. AFTER THE SESSION: IMMEDIATELY

A. Clean up – leave the location cleaner than you found it!

B. Be aware you may have to revisit and do more recordings, so make sure you do not create any reasons that people won’t want you back

C. Reward people, especially people who help & who refuse reward. Buy them a nice bottle of wine or a gift. Our industry runs on goodwill, make sure you create it.

 

 

9. AFTER THE SESSION: ASAP

A. Extract all data from recorders & cameras – verify integrity

B. Clone to multiple copies – verify integrity. Do not return hire gear or erase recorder media until all media is in a DAW and been checked.

C. Celebrate!

 

 

10. NOTES/TIPS FOR ADVERSE CONDITIONS:

A. Personal safety
- This is priority #1 for every member of your team. Even walking outside your front door presents potential dangers but we are used to dealing with most local situations, its when your are in unfamiliar situations that you must be extra vigilant & well researched on potential dangers.
- Think through the potential dangers before you are there: environment, props, other humans
- No one wants to be a dead hero, but people have been killed trying to defend their iPhone! If you are robbed or confronted be very careful to not escalate the situation. Recording gear is not easily sold, but your watch, phone & cash are and can more easily be replaced. Think through how you will handle such situations and do not panic. The primary outcome is for personal safety. Do not be a hero, do not call peoples bluff. Always remember: you cannot reason with a meth head who hasn’t slept in a week. Give them what they want & get away from harm as fast as possible!

 

B. Access
- Whats involved in safely getting to and from location? Do you need support crew?
- What happens if something goes wrong? Have a plan.

 

C. Night
- Lighting is vital: head lamp, torches
- Do you need a road sign? traffic control? warning lights?

 

D. Temperature – cold
- I have little experience recording in snow/ice – hello Frank?

 

E. Temperature – hot
- use high SPF suntan lotion at all times, sun burn can be bad, skin cancer can be fatal
- wear a hat
- if in another country research ozone depletion (eg sun in NZ is many times more likely to bun than in Europe)
- keeping hydrated is critical, drink enough that you are not thirsty. Travel doctor says: “It is best to gauge that you are well hydrated by the colour and volume of your urine. Keep your urine “clear and copious”!

 

F. Humidity
- research your mics behaviour in high humidity
- be careful acclimitising equipment, especially moving between air conditioned areas & outdoors
- pelican dessicant silica gel capsule in each bag to extract any moisture
- keeping hydrated is critical. Travel doctor says: “It is best to gauge that you are well hydrated by the colour and volume of your urine. Keep your urine “clear and copious”!

 

G. International travel
- you are a visitor, be respectful of local customs & law, never presume, always ask
- do you need a work VISA?
- do you need permits?
- do you need shots/vaccinations? see an experienced travel doctor (not a general doctor)
- weigh baggage & check excess baggage costs for each step of travel, cheap flights can be a false economy with exorbidant excess baggage charges – check before you book flights with an airline.
- if all of your checked baggage is lost, can you still fulfill the minimum recording requirements? all critical gear should travel as carry-on baggage.
- have copies of your passport, contact info in every bag
- have printed copies of your name, contact info and a description of what you’re doing translated to the local language
- do you need a local guide, support person, negotiator?
- be careful with drinking water unless you are sure it is safe, use water purifer tablets if in doubt
- take a gastro kit (see travel doctor) to help deal with any stomach upsets, food poisoning etc

 

H. Rain
- check forecast but be prepared for the worst, especially in tropical locations
- check your response time, in a sudden downpour how fast can you protect your gear?
- rain covers for recorder bag
- rain covers for mic bag
- rain covers for individual mics
- umbrella
- pelican dessicant silica gel capsule in each bag to extract any moisture

 

I. At or near Sea
- check tide and swell maps
- always make sure someone not on the trip knows your plans, departure time & estimated return time
- life jackets are mandatory
- a cellphone is worthless if there is no reception
- be aware of freak waves, the one in a hundred wave that kills fisherman – never turn your back to the sea

 

J. Insects
- take insect repellant
- in areas with mosquitos and sand flies you may have to set & leave your recording gear rolling & get away from the area to avoid being bitten repeatedly & interupting the recordings – take a waterproof bag for the recorder.

 

K. Weapon recording
- What is standard procedure at a weapons session?
- safety first!
- hearing protection

 

 

 

Thats all I have time to do now – I’ve got a plane to catch!
Thanks!!
Tim

NOTE: If you have never commented here before, your first comment will be held until I approve it – sorry, otherwise I get too much dumb spam… Keep contributing I will approve as soon as I can!

As a starting point I figured its worth explaining why I’ve chosen the mics and configuration that I have for the Papua New Guinea trip – specifically about capturing elements for the ambiences for the film. As I worked through my reasoning, this post slowly became a generalised discourse on my approach to ambiences for film, so I changed the title & now it hopefully serves two purposes…

First, as a caveat, I have huge respect for the incredible research that goes into single point 5.1 mics like the DPA5100 or the Sanken WMS-5 or the Holophone and Soundfield mics and appreciate there are many applications where these kinds of mics are perfect, but…. while the considerable cost is one issue, it is the use, on location and then working with the resulting recordings, where my aims & process differ from the single-point-microphone concept…

This article on the development of the DPA 5.1 mic explains my stance exactly: “It is also important to distinguish between produced surround and acoustic surround. Produced surround is where a sometimes high number of mono (and I add, stereo, LCR, quad and 5.0) channels are surround panned in the sound field. Most modern mixers and workstations are able to deliver this functionality to create a virtual reality. Acoustic surround, on the other hand, aims to increase the feeling of presence in a specific acoustic sound environment by capturing the characteristics of the acoustics using surround microphone techniques.”

That statement “capturing the characteristics of the acoustics” is where single point 5.1 mics excel. But as a film sound designer the end results of my work primarily requires produced surround – the recording of any ambience is just the first of many steps in creating the ‘right’ ambience for a scene in a film. And the best way to capture material in a location for this use is, imho not necessarily a single point mic – sometimes it might be (and it sure would be more convenient than lugging a bag of seperate mics and stands and Rycotes across borders) but other than placement there is no flexibility with a single point microphone – this isn’t about criticizing, they definitely serve a purpose, but it’s worth thinking about the two aspects I mentioned in passing: the recording, and the use for the recordings….

 

The Final Result?
I’m going to discuss this is reverse order, since the reason for recording is not academic – the only reason these ambiences are being recording is for their use in a film. So the ends dictates the means; given the opportunity of actually being on location, the aim is to capture elements of that location in a way that is likely to be of the most use for the film. And what is the ‘most use’ for you will depend on your experiences and how you’ve edited ambiences for a film before, and even more importantly how those ambience tracks worked when predubbed and in the final mix. The ends dictates the means.

A typical ambience editing session for a film for me looks a bit like this:

 

So each predub stem is being fed by Cx4, LRx4 and LRsx2 – the number of stems required depends on the film and scene, as does the number of elements actually used on the tracks, but I would likely assign stems as:

AMB_A + AMB_B – primary ambience
AMB_C + AMB_D – secondary ambience
AMB_E + AMB_F – spot ambience elements 1
AMB_G + AMB_H – spot ambience elements 2

The edited ambiences are ‘checker boarded’ to allow for transitions between scenes. Its worth noting there is no set length for a fade overlap between scenes, as it depends on a number of factors. The first consideration is the cadence: dramatically do you want the scene change to be seamless, pronounced or somewhere inbetween? A pronounced scene change might be required for a time change where it is important the audience realise that time has passed. Another consideration is relative levels: cutting from a scene set on a surf beach to a scene in a quiet library requires a different approach than cutting from a street scene to a rain storm. Each scene change requires individual attention.

So the ambiences for a scene may have somewhere between 5 and 20 layered elements to create what appears as a single ambience in the final film. I layout my session starting with centre tracks because an important role of ambiences is to support production audio. Most production sound has an ambience/background behind it which may change between different angles and the centre channel of ambiences must match and help that inherited background. And when a scene is 100% ADR then the C channel ambiences need to be plausible as 100% of ‘normal’ dialogue background. In a worse case scenario i.e. your final mix is heard with only the centre channel playing, I believe the ambiences should still work for the film.

Elements for C, LR and the surrounds are layered to suit the scene, and also for perspective cuts within the scene where necessary. And its the choices and layering of those elements that allows you to shape the ambience for the scene, and then allows the re-recording mixer to balance & place the elements on the dub stage. There are many tactics or approaches to choosing material – one I use sometimes is foreground, mid ground & distant. So for example, a street scene might have foreground elements of pedestrians & street activity, mid ground might be traffic two blocks away and distant elements might be general city rumble. Another approach would be to split elements by type for eg a park AMB A+B might be park birds AMB C+D wind in trees AMB E+F insects and AMB G+H kids playing.

So are the LR and surround LR elements actually stereo recordings? or quad recordings? How does a 5.0 recording fit with this? The only answer is that it depends on the point of view of the visuals in the film. But it also depends on what works – the best advice I have ever been given is TRUST YOUR OWN EARS ONLY. But to make the best decisions you need to have the material to experiment. One of the concerns with stereo, quad or 5.0 recordings is how they are perceived by the audience. If only the entire audience was sitting in the sweet spot of the theatre then this might be less of a concern but imagine how differently they would be perceived from a seat front left compared with someone sitting at the rear of the theatre. A simple example: a stereo recording of a river might seem realistic in your edit studio when played as it is, from left and right speakers. But for someone sitting left in the theatre, they are not going to hear much of your right side due to the Hass effect. In this example, taking one side of the stereo river recording and offsetting it by eg 30 seconds effectively creates a representation of the river as two discrete elements – like the mics were spread so far apart they were capturing totally different parts of river. For a visual wide shot, the original stereo recording might be most suitable whereas if the p.o.v. is as if you were standing in the river then the discrete would be more dramatic, and potentially interesting. And someone sitting front left will still hear unique material from right, because it is essentially discrete.

You’ll maybe notice in my ambience edit session there are no quad or 5.0 tracks, and there is a good reason for that. I prefer to place quad recordings across two stereo tracks so I can edit them more effectively and experiment with offsets. I bought Tonsturms new library of very beautiful quad ambient recordings and its been great working with that material in a few scenes of MR PIP. I did quad recordings for THE ORATOR but was pursuing discrete elements so its been interesting to work with coherent quad recordings captured with omni mics. In some cases I broke apart the quad recordings & turned them into discrete elements (eg a river & stream) and in others I retained the coherent quad image across a LR and LRs tracks. But it again showed me there is no ‘one technique works for all’ approach when editing and layering. One of the dangers of using the offset mono approach is that it can make an ambience seem busier. Take a example of a recording of a suburban street with sparrows chirping – when you offset one side of that recording it is in effect doubling the amount of birds chirping, as if there are twice as many birds! And that may potentially not suit the scene in the same way that the original recording did. So TRUST YOUR OWN EARS ONLY.

 

 

Capturing Useable Elements
My ideal when field recording is to capture both coherent images of an ambience as well as discrete elements. As per my previous post I effectively have a six channel recorder so what is the best way to use those six channels to achieve this? A single point 5.1 mic would let me capture a single image of a location, but as soon as I start thinking about that scenario I start to have questions. What if there is an element in that ambient field that I do not want or want to minimise? Also if the scene dictates that an offset-mono or discrete approach will work best, what are my options with a single 5.1 recording?

The conclusion I came to for my current mic rig is this:

- I want a coherent but discrete L-C-R image, which I can choose the spacing (ie discreteness) depending on the location. The low self noise & extended frequency response of the MKH80X0 has huge appeal – for ambiences & for all of my recordings, hence the choice of MKH8040-MKH8050-MKH8040 as L-C-R

- I want to capture discrete elements for surrounds and/or as spot elements – my pair of MKH70s have proven themselves in Samoa to be excellent at pulling focused sound from within a complex environment, and the Telinga dish with an MKH8020 takes that approach to another level

- At some stage I can imagine upgrading to a Sound Devices 788 and potentially adding a pair of MKH8020 omnis to capture diffuse surrounds. I like the tonality of omni mics for ambiences but their biggest advantage is also their biggest potential fault – if there is something in a location that you do not want, then an omni mic is likely to pick it up more than any other mic. And other than being in very remote quiet locations, avoiding or minimising unwanted elements is an important part of the process. Bougainville in Papua New Guinea is a remote location, but I suspect avoiding or minimising the sound of distant generators and boats may well be a challenge. So I’d love the best of both worlds…

 

 

 

While thinking through all of this I came across this mic setup for surround recording: the DPA S5 – bhphoto.com has it listed for US$2,703.32 which is a lot to invest in mic stands, but the DPA site also mentions the inspiration for the rig: the work of Akira Fukada, senior recording engineer at NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories in Japan. Here is a link to an outline of his work and a PDF of his surround mic configuration. Very interesting food for thought…

 

 

> Pandora’s digital box: Art house, smart house

 

“…..in the end it was the soul-crushing ennui that led me to deactiviate my Facebook account last week” – I know the feeling…. and it might just be a $10bn share offering that pushes me towards the exit button…. is it time to leave Facebook?

 

> beautiful long exposure photos of fireflies

 

Nice ideas, but ahhhhh it could be/would be so much better if (a) the mix focused on the dominant action and (b) their music didn’t suck (sorry!)

 

> din = bezier powered synth?

 

> I heard an interview on the radio last night about a local community choir and what struck me as fascinating was two things: they sing a lot of music in different languages and they don’t use manuscript! It is open to anyone and is a big choir, and the examples they played during the interview were an excellent reminder of just how powerful the hive mind can be – the pure humanity of the results is almost overwhelming…. So the news of an imminent crowd sourced choir project by Sonic Couture is very intriguing!

“SonicCouture are going to build a unique sampler instrument: a choir/vocal ensemble made with hundreds of voices from all around the world. We need a a minimum of 200 notes to layer in the instrument, so please help us if you can. Everybody that sends us a recorded note will receive the CrowdChoir instrument free, in Kontakt/EXS & Ableton Live format. Please go HERE to be a part of it!

 

> On Bob Marley’s birthday, Magnolia acquires rights to his bio documentary

 

Balance Out of Life from Wyatt Hodgson on Vimeo.

Koyaanisqatsi at 1552% speed

 

> Apologies for anyone patiently waiting on HISSandaROAR Tortured Cymbal Library – I just have not had time to complete it, it will have to wait until I am back in a few weeks…. sorry!

 

As I’ve mentioned a few times I recently added a Telinga flexible dish and universal mic mounting kit to my recording setup – the universal kit lets you use whatever mic you like, and I’ve added an MKH8020 with the MZF filter for this purpose…. So what’s it like? Well yesterday I went for a drive over the road from Upper Hutt to Waikanae, crossing the Akatawera range, with the hope of getting away from traffic, to do some test recording. It was only when I got over to the Kapiti side of the hills that the cicadas started to become less diffuse, so I found a place to stop where I could hear individual cicadas scattered through the bush and had a listen, as per the photo above….

Before you have a listen bear in mind that the first cicada I recorded would be approx 20m away from me, up a tree. It was completely still, there was no wind but there was plenty of other activity (birds, other insects) going on around me. The thing that first struck me was predictably the directionality of the dish – I know thats the whole point of it but its only when you’re holding it and slowly moving it that you realise just how narrow its beam is. I will shoot some video to demonstrate this at some stage (I didn’t have a second tripod with me yesterday to do this effectively) but basically the cicada you hear below was on mic, but if I changed the angle of the dish by 1-2mm it was off mic, to the point of being very distant. The localisation is unreal! The other aspect that struck me was just how close sound becomes – with my eyes closed it felt like I could just reach out & flick that cicada off the tree 20m away! Anyway have a listen, first at real speed, then half speed, then quarter speed…

I walked up the road a bit & recorded this cicada, which was further away and in a tree with other cicadas – so it is less isolated…

 

Next I headed in a valley following signs to the Kapiti 4×4 Adventure company to Maungakotuktuku Scenic Reserve. The road into this valley winds it way up the side of quite a large hill, with the bush dropping away off the side of road. So I figured this might be an interesting location to try, and it served to teach me a valuable lesson with the Telinga, which I already knew from my MKH70s but it bears repeating. Directional mics such as these basically compress distance and have a very long depth of field (the opposite to a camera lens with shallow depth of field) so if you are aiming to record object A at a distance, then it is important what else is in the same line of sight/hearing in a straight line from your mic to object A and beyond. So this next recording I was on a steep hillside pointing down into the immediate bush on the side of the road, aiming to record insects, but it also captured distant birds, a very distant dog and a very, very distant chainsaw. And when I say ‘very distant’ I’d guess the chainsaw was 10-20km away!

The effect of compressing distance is something to be aware of, as simply changing your location by a few metres and your angle of attack can eliminate unwanted background action to a degree… On a slight side tangent, another thing to always be aware of when using directional shotgun mics is their polar response pattern – a typical shotgun mic is below:

Note that a side effect of the front narrow directionality is the rear sensitivity. So for example if you are recording from above pointing down at an object and there are a lot of birds above you, then that rear lobe may well pick them up more than what you would like, and recording from under pointing up with the rear of the mic pointed at the ground may create better isolation. Same goes for recording in the city and trying to minimise traffic behind you. Heres the MKH70 polar pattern, but you should check what each of your mics polar response is so you know if its an issue you should be aware of….

The last recording I’ll post is a short bit of an insect I recorded & what blew me away was that when I took off my headphones I could not hear the insect at all! Its a short recording as a vehicle came past & the insect stopped & didn’t start again….. But it illustrates what a fascinating new microscopic world of sound that I’ve been given access to – I wish I bought a Telinga dish years ago! And re the PNG trip, I’m used to hearing most insects in New Zealand, I just hope I don’t have any panic attacks when in PNG and hear very strange insects VERY close up, via the dish like they are inside my head!

 

Ok, pending the Kickstarter project that sends Frank and Michael and I to Russia to record this madness, I’d have to say that THIS is the most worthy Kickstarter project yet – if you are American, have a heart & love film that is!

I’ve ranted about the experience of working on sound design for the film BOY before and apart from it being a beautiful, funny, emotionally engaging film one additional aspect that makes the kickstarter project worth supporting is that the film was shot on 35mm film, AND graded on film, AND neg matched and output to film. It seems almost by default now that films get a DI and digital grade, but as any DOP will readily admit, film is not digital and vice versa. So if you live in the U.S of A this is your chance to see a beautiful film, on film, in a picture theatre…. Support BOY!