Remembering PRESTAGS

Sound Recording 4 - Sausages Sizzling

I wanted to try out my new Rode microphone pistol grip, so I whacked in an Audio Technica mono shotgun mic, the AT 897, and wandered around the house annoying the wife.

No particularly interesting sounds, and as usual Sir Lancelot refused to talk.

The most excitement I had was the sound of sizzling sausages, preparation for a katsu beef sausage and sweet potato curry. Pity I can't capture the smell.

It's a soft recording, the sizzle getting a bit louder as I moved closer. In the second recording you can just make out small pops from the hot oil.

Sausages Sizzling 1

Sausages Sizzling 2

Very quiet sound wave.

I got some practice with the Sound Devices MixPre -6 in a sound bag over my left shoulder, and the pistol grip in my right hand. Nice sound in the headphones. Ready for some outdoor field recording when I can get somewhere interesting.

 

Sound Recording 1 - Solving a Mystery

It's time I experimented with loading some sound files instead of photographs.

I will decrease the quality a bit so they are not huge uploads, but this might mean turning the sound up to hear the files.

First attempt - solving the great mystery of the Cotter River moving recorder.

Background: in September Thygo (aka Bastard) and I went to the Cotter river to take some photos. I left a small sound recorder near the river to record 20 minutes or so of nice bubbling brook sound. Just a small pocket recorder (Tascam DR-05) not some of my better equipment. I left the recorder on a log facing the river. When we returned, the recorder had been moved and was facing the opposite direction.

It wasn't our imagination - the photos confirmed it.

So who or what moved the recorder? No humans were about, but a person who may have picked it up out of interest would probably put it back in the same position facing the river. There was an emu nearby, but the scrub to get to the log was fairly thick and probably not an emu. That left a small animal or a bird.

The whole incident was recorded so I checked the sound file. I put the file into WavePad sound editing software to see if the sound pattern gave any clues. It did - a big noisy spike 5 minutes into the recording. This indicated a loud noise very close to the recorder's microphones or the recorder itself being knocked. 

The incident lasted about 1 minute. Here is a WavePad close up of the sound pattern for the incident.

OK now for the recording. Click on the link below to hear an MP3 of the incident. Please wait about 15 seconds for the MP3 player to open up and the recording to start. You hear bubbling brook ... then the recorder being knocked around a few times ... then the culprit revealing itself ... and quite proud of the handiwork as well.

Cotter Creek Recorder Moved

This seemed to work. I'll upload some other sound files in the future.

Who recognizes the species?

Good news is that the recorder was not knocked into the river.

Checking through my photographs later I found this one with a blurred moving object. Interesting.