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A webcam mic is going to be nowhere near good enough to record infrasound.
Most mics, good or bad, aim to capture sound between 20Hz & 20KHz [the approximate absolute limits of human hearing]. The cynic in me would say that roughly, the higher the price, the closer to achieving that they may get.
Then there are specialist mics - made by some very ...
8
I'm stuck in San Francisco, but my wife commanded me to walk her through setting up my rig over Skype. Can't wait to hear what she records for me!
UPDATE: She chickened out :p
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To reflect on your first question, Randy is referring to a psychoacoustic principle that falls under something called "scene analysis." I don't know that he's necessarily read a ton on psychoacoustics...but whether or not he has, the different effects are something that you begin to pick up on after a certain amount of experience. Basically, what's going on ...
8
Have done a few scenes like this before. Not sure what you mean by broken though, is that a state other than flickering? Most scenes like this seem to be variations of flickering.
It's definitely worth recording some as the 'plink' sound you get from them all is different, as is the buzz and and hum. For the long tubes you can use some worn out starters to ...
7
I put up a bunch of recordings yesterday if you want to check some of them out. It was quite a night. http://sepulchra.com/blog/?p=1959
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Deep and resonant with less sharpness sounds like you want to put the mic underneath the piano pointing up at the sound board. You'll probably want to move it around down there and experiment with how it sounds in different places pointed towards different parts of the sound board. I'd start off pointed toward the bridge in the middle of the board, ...
6
The first is that he said that one of his huge trade secrets in sound design are sounds that continually change in pitch just slightly. This way, they clash less with music and dialog and can be heard better through the mix because they're constantly changing. This makes a tone of sense and is genious. The question is...what would you use to do that?
I ...
6
By no means a canonical list, but what I've found has become most useful to me, in situations like yours (recording SFX in a controlled interior as opposed to field recording):
Know your polar patterns. Shotguns vs. cardioids vs. omnis, etc. etc. - they all have unique advantages and disadvantages that indoor conditions usually amplify.
Know your room. This ...
6
Hey Young George, emails aren't contracts. And getting someone to sign a contract is usual business practice, so go ahead and do it without feeling uneasy about it.
You can tell him it's how you always work, if you fear it will create distrust, but it never happened to me in the past. And if he doesn't want to sign it that's a huge red flag.
6
There are two main elements to this answer-
1) Room- This is VERY important. I recorded an actor screaming (should've brought my earplugs!) in a wardrobe room. The room was small but not too small and the hanging clothes worked pretty well for difusion. We checked out a few different rooms and found this one to be the best. Not too dead and not too ...
6
I wouldn't record using FX unless I was very sure about the end result I wanted and how it would sit in the mix, just to leave my options open since you can't go back and remove the FX. On the other hand, if the FX are an integral part of the performance then it might be a good idea to record after the FX. Sometimes the performer might hit a 'sweet spot'that'...
6
Those are DIN connectors. DIN line-level signals expect a different impedance than is usual for RCA or XLR connections. IIRC you can put a resistor in series to convert to RCA.
I'm not sure what signal level and impedance DIN microphones use. I'll see what I can dig up.
It looks like this is a dictation microphone. One of the connectors allows you to ...
5
Michael Raphael (Rabbit Ears Audio) has been recording some stuff. He's even posted sounds already:
http://soundcloud.com/sepulchra/wind-hurricane-sandy-short
He also posted some pics of his DPA 4060's attached to his windows.
5
Actually you can do soundproofing without damaging the house. Using acoustic panels (expensive but provides the best result) works, however some well placed blankets using string and 3M adhesive hooks in a carpeted room can vastly change the sound of the recording because of reduced reverberation.
Picking a recording time that has the least amount of noise ...
5
If you want to save some money and do it yourself you might try suspending a membrane of some sort, like a piece of paper or plastic, and attaching an accelerometer to it. A quick search found the MMA8453Q made by Freescale Semiconductor. It costs a dollar, takes 10bit samples, and samples at a rate of up to 800Hz. The max sensitivity mode is 2g which ...
5
I would go with 2-4 goosenecked clip microphones positioned in top and bottom of each sound source, something like this:
The important thing here is that the mics stay at a fixed position, so you will not get varying levels as you play and move around, as with a mic on a stand.
The DPA 4099 series would be a good choice. They actually made an accordion ...
4
Eek... I think you've recommended everything thats possible.
I would ask for a few takes of wild tracks of wide shots and grab an impulse response recording of the location incase you need to get the actors in for ADR.
Other than that good luck! :)
4
As for the horse, you can watch a top artist doing it here.
The dryer, why not record a real dryer drum. Just open one up and spin by hand. I've done this before. Sweeten it with the metal box idea. Usually the simplest idea is the best.
Laser beam...you should probably do something that no one suggests...that way it's original :) Old school method would ...
4
I did a lot of night shooting in Downtown Los Angeles for a photo project a while back. I was concerned someone might jump me for my camera gear, so I brought someone along to watch my back as I shot. If you are concerned about your safety, bring a friend along.
4
I have recorded here in switzerland about -20 C or more. I can recommend you this:
Recording in low temperatures are not such a problem, the difficult parts are putting the gear out in the cold air an back.
Going into the cold:
-You need to acclimate your gear before using. If you come out of a car (+25 C) into a winterday (-25 C) you have a difference from ...
4
Honestly, I just use whatever I have - even if all I have is mono. Never let the equipment get in the way of a good roomtone (or for that matter, ambience). I certainly agree with @Guido that high quality gear is best suited for roomtone to obtain the most robust S/N, but beyond that, I'm pretty loose about this type of recording.
Roomtone is one of those ...
4
I do a lot of trail running alone in the mountains. I'm usually not more than 5 miles away from my car. Sometimes there are other people hiking/biking around, other times I find myself prety alone. Every bit of advice I've ever seen says that hiking alone is pretty dumb, and they're pretty much all correct. My feeling is that if you are going off ...
4
What an exciting journey! My two cents worth: Regarding the safety of your data, be sure to upload to the cloud (Dropbox or the like) whenever you have internet. Bring WAY more memory cards than you think you will need, then double that. As long as you can get it to the cloud and know someone back home has copied it locally AND backed it up preferably ...
4
Ok, so for backpacking and biking, here are the component parts:
recorder:
SD 702 - quality sound, durable build, simple operation. Its the heavier and bulkier of the viable options, but it won't ever fail you.
SD mixpre + Sony PCM M10 - still quality sound, lighter and more compact, but also a little fiddlier since you're dealing with two devices that ...
4
A bit of feedback for those interested - I didn't actually get as much time to put into this as I'd of liked, but did get a couple of interesting recordings:
Both of these were recorded in areas of quite powerful water movement, my idea of recording ambient sound from more tranquil pools didn't ...
4
Two thoughts...
1) The song is currently in the wrong key for the sound you are aiming for, vocally. The only fix for that would really be to re-record it in a more suitable key.
2) There are plugins available that can adjust the formant** of a sound without changing the pitch. Probably the best tool available for that is Melodyne [imho] which can adjust ...
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