promo video for TWO new libraries releasing next week!

If you’re doing pretty much anything outside then the weather is obviously a factor, but if you’re going out field recording or taking photos then the weather becomes more critical. And if the aim is to record the weather, then obviously it is completely critical. So I’m not sure why its taken me this long to realise it, but learning about weather patterns & behaviour is something worth investing some time & energy into.

Now I’m sure most people rely on TV News weather forecasts or online resources, but depending where you live these may range in how specific they are… Locally I really appreciate the rain radar here which provides an animated display of rainfall over a 3 day or 5 day period…. which lets me change my thinking from ‘Saturday is going to be rainy’ to ‘Saturdays going to be wet but late afternoon should be ok…’ (I put a red dot on my house – its going to rain about 2am tomorrow morning!)

But slowly I decided I want to learn more, to understand whats happening and why. Having lived in Wellington for a decade or two now I know what to expect from different fronts eg a cold front from the South will be bitterly cold, while from the North (as per that chart above) will be blustery, warmer & likely less heavy rain. But come September I am going to spend 2 months on an island in the Seto Inland Sea, where I will be outdoors as much as possible, shooting photos, timelapse & video along with recording sound, and I do not know anything at all about the weather patterns there…. but I will need to!

I grew up on a farm, so weather dictated what my Dad did each day. And one of my most distinct childhood sonic memories is of my Dad walking down the hall after breakfast or lunch & tapping the barometer before he headed out to work. Now this shows how naive I was – I never really appreciated why he tapped it. In a vague sense maybe i thought it was a bit old & cantankerous & needed a prod to make sure its working. But a month or so ago I bought myself a barometer & finally realised why you tap it: its about change!

The advantage of owning a barometer is that it provides very local feedback on the weather. So as per that barometer above, you can see it has a little rain icon on the low pressure side and sunny on the high pressure, but it isn’t like you sit & watch it change. And thats why you tap it: to see which way the pressure is moving. I tapped mine just before & sure enough the needle jumped 2 or 3 stops – the pressure is dropping due to that northerly front coming through tonight.

OK so thats about the limit of my knowledge for now – please feel free to share any valuable insights you have or resources…. I just went to the kindle shop and bought a few ebooks on weather for homework

Understand The Weather: Teach Yourself’ by Peter Innes

Weather Forecasting Made Simple’ by Stan Yorke

And just for fun (& really due to shooting timelapse)

The Cloud Collector’s Handbook by Gavin Pretor-Pinney

So who do you rely on for weather info when heading out recording or shooting?

> Seriously great advice from Ken Loach (thanks Brita!)

frequencies (a) | nicolas bernier from Nicolas Bernier on Vimeo.

> This is a great idea, which hopefully more developers will try: you can rent SyncroArts ProTools plugins (VocAlign pro, Revoice Pro but not Titan, which is a shame since if you inherited a project with a messed up workflow then Titan might well be a one off solution) – plus if you rent the same plugin three times & you get a free permanent license, so its like rent-to-buy! via PTE

love how the 1D almost sounds like a Bolex!

> Imagine if Alexander Calder was still around & got into 3d printing….

> A new field recording blog to read: SoundMindFX

> Love these new wooden pinhole cameras – photos from pinhole cameras feel so mysterious… and I am not 100% sure quite why….

> Great read about Terrence Malick

I have a theory this is actually a Chemical Brothers track with 3 or 4 elements muted….

Sound Picking – Teaser from Haakon Mathisen on Vimeo.

A master thesis by Jonas Barsten at the Norwegian academy of music – more info here

well, one of my current obsessions, which will see the light of day as the next HISSandaROAR library

> The traditional view is that words can’t survive for more than 8,000 to 9,000 years…..

Whats that saying about never meeting (or listening to a stream of consciousness of) your heroes?

> a 3d printed ear!!

more info – thanks Tom

> one of the most interesting sounds I heard today: a musical siren
(would love to hear this tree instrument too!) – thanks Richard

> A camera that sees sound?

> Totally LOVE the ideas behind these acoustic laptops! – check some videos of performances

60 medical infusion sets, water, fire, metal sheets 20x20x4cm by Zimoun

Sonic water

mercury with a 10Hz > 120Hz sine wave (not sure what the point of the soundtrack is)
thanks Joe