Learning Ouctome One:

Understand characteristics of different acoustic environments in relation to recording sound:

Location recording analysis

The objective of this task was to record being in a quiet environment and then a separate recording in a loud environment. We had to explain in our recording what we could hear or see that was making the noises our recorder was picking up. Then we were asked to analyse the recordings and explain in detail what was going on in each recording and what was making the noise and compare the difference between recording in a quiet environment and a loud environment.

The recordings: 

Quiet environment recording which took place in library

Before we entered the library we turned on our microphone and explained where we were recording. This is probably the most difficult environment to analyse purely for the fact that in the library there were signs everywhere saying “silence please”. The mike didn’t pick up any speech at all while we recorded in the library.

There were a number of very quiet sounds I picked up though, they sounded like chairs scraping along the floor it was a very low pitch and because it was quiet im guessing the person who was getting out of the chair must have been quite far away from the recorder.

There were a few coughs as well all in very deep low pitched voices and sounding like they were coming from a distance. One small problem I have noted from this recording is the weird noises that were being picked up by the mike throughout being in the library. I know what this was because when I was looking at the person who holding the microphone they were tapping it around the desk for some strange reason, which is what I am linking to that strange noise I heard in the recording.

That is my analysis for the quiet environment recording, one alternation I would make next time if I had the chance would be to do the recording in a room/ area with more noise going on it, the library was very difficult to analyse as it was very quiet.

Loud environment recording which took place next to a busy road in Henley

We start off with me explaining that we are next to a road in Henley. One of the people explains that car is approaching. You can tell it is approaching you because the pitch is deep but the noise is getting gradually louder and louder until it is right next to us and the car noise is at its highest volume possible then the volume of the car gradually starts decreasing more and more until it’s gone. At 1:20 in the recording clip a lorry starts coming up the road towards us, you can tell without vision because the engine (noise) of the vehicle sounds very different to a car. Lorrys require a larger engine to be able to drive their massive vehicle and cargo at a steady but fast speed.

The engine of the lorry has a much deeper sound to it than the car that passed by earlier. I also noted that there was a choking like noise coming from the engine presumably which I heard the easiest when the Lorry was at its loudest point (right beside us).

Unfortunately part of the recording clip was ruined by someone who was making immature comments and noises. This took place after 1:30 Ietherw ay though it still picked up the persons voice very well even though he hadn’t said it that loud the mike picked it up far louder than we had expected.

The rest of the clip was without us saying into the mike what we could see or hear. One very cool sound I discovered while playing back was at 1:53 where you couldn’t hear much apart from this very annoying constant rustling which was actualy leaves on the floor, we were walking underneath a lot of trees by the road. The rest of the noises in the last 20 seconds of the audio clip were just cars deep pitches growing louder and louder in sound as they got closer and then gradually becoming quieter as they drove further away from us.

Two small differences id makes to that recording would firstly be the wind; I could constantly hear the wind in the background of the recording because the mike picks up sounds far away so easily it picks up the smallest and hardest of sounds to hear such as wind. Secondly I feel very strongly that we should have recorded over the people trying to be funny in the background of our audio clip because it was not part of our assignment to include that and it looked very un-professional.

Did the equipment work properly how did you plan this project out?

My group and I had a major problem on the first day of recording, everything as going fine, we had recorded everything we need to at our locations but when we came to transfer them onto computer via usb cable it wouldn’t transfer them, we tried changing computers accounts and usb cables but nothing would make it work so we were now one lesson behind on recording.

The next lesson which was a week later we had another attempt at recording our original locations but we also had to catch-up and do another recording of an interview. This time we took a different recording device and sub cable with us. The recording went successful although we did have to rush to catch-up with everyone else but the best part was that the audio files transferred to the computer this time.

All the equipment worked well putting aside the first attempt of recording our sounds at our locations. One small item that could have been useful if we had one was a wind shadow; they are small devices that can usually fit around the edges of mikes to protect them from picking up the annoying wind noise like ours did.

Indoor location recording analysis (interview)

The objective?

We were told to record an interview between two people (interviewer and interviewee) plus the one extra person who would record the interview. The interview had to be recorded inside a room/ building and was not allowed to be recorded outside. The interview could not be made up and had to be a real interview either from the internet or a magazine.

The recording:

The interview recording analysis

The location we chose was an empty staircase inside R6 in the Rothefield site of Henley College. The interview was three minutes long and to be honest was very boring, but the quality of the interview was professional standard. Jack was the interviewee, Charlie was the interviewer and I was the person recording the interview.

I have allot of experience of interviews and the standards they require to sound good, the reason being is that at my secondary school I did drama and I was the technician and for one of our plays I needed to take recordings of some dialogue to play in the background of our performance.

At the first 20- 30 seconds of our interview I deliberately held the mike behind the two people talking during the interview. After that I then held the mike close to each person face, so when Jack was talking it would be close to his face and then when it was Charlie’s turn I would change the mike to facing his mouth and ect.

The difference between the first 30 seconds of the interview and the rest is very different. If I had to rate I would say the first 30 seconds sounds like it’s done by an amateur and the rest is done by a professional.

The first 30 seconds of the interview sounds horrid, the voices sound like they are talking from a distance and is also very wavery. Here are my reasons why the first 30 seconds did not sound like good quality which I learnt from my drama class back in secondary school. Firstly think of the mike as a camera, pretend the lens of the camera is at the tip of the microphone, and then think about line of sight. For my first 30 seconds of the video the line of sight was pointing at the backs of the people doing the interview. So it wasn’t picking up the best quality sound it possible could.

After the first 30 seconds had gone by I then moved the my microphone over the shoulder of the two people doing the interview in turn point the mikes line of sight at the person who was talking at the time and then switching between the two of whoever was talking at the time. The two main rules I stick too for professionally recording dialogue or in our case an interview are firstly making sure the mikes are very close to whoever is talking at the time and secondly always use my line of sight method which in this case would be making sure the line of sight is pointed directly at the persons mouth as they speak.

The rest of the interview went by very smoothly and professionally as I had intended for it do so. The voices were clear as crystal throughout with the occasional gap of no speech where we lost track of where we were on the interview sheet but were being judged on the sound quality not the presentation of words so it’s not a problem.

There is nothing I feel that I could do differently to make the interview sound any better than it did apart from maybe taking out the first 30 seconds of the interview and re doing it in professional standard but I did the first 30 seconds of the interview deliberately so that I could explain/ analyse to people between a standard quality interview and a professional quality interview.  

We used the same equipment with this interview as we did with the quiet and loud environments, so there’s no need to explain that they worked fine. I am very impressed that me and my group managed to get all this recording squeezed into one lesson considering that everyone else had two lessons to complete these sound recordings.