Every time I go into my attic I hear outside sounds coming in through an unused vent pipe, and I'd often wonder what it would sound like from inside. So a February sleet storm seemed like the perfect opportunity to find out. Basically I stuffed my microphone (windsock attached) as far into the pipe as I possibly could, and waited for the heating unit to cycle off, as the unit was very loud and very resonant inside the pipe. I was waiting a while as the temperature never rose out of the thirties all day. Even with the unit off there's a standing wave resonance inside the pipe.

I thought this particular phonograph merited sharing because of its uniquely skewed view of everyday neighborhood sounds, and not because it seemed inherently pleasing to the ear.

download ( 2m59s 3.03MB vbr stereo mp3 )

This is the tail end of a sudden short hailstorm, the kind of thing that's likely to happen out of the blue in Central Texas during tornado season. This storm generated some hefty chunks of ice; the loudest sounds in this recording are those chunks hitting our cars.

download ( 2m16s 2.35MB 144kbps vbr stereo mp3 )

Got some more good audio of the toads who serenade my neighborhood every spring. This time I got them early in the spring when they're most numerous. This excerpt was recorded inside the storm drain where my street crosses the creek so it has great natural reverb.

download ( 2m41s 2.78MB 145kbps vbr stereo mp3 )

This was my attempt to somehow capture the motions and sounds of trees in the wind in a more obvious way. I anchored a screen door spring to the trunk of a tree in my back yard and connected it to a thin branch on a very windy day (cold front coming), then fixed a contact mic to the trunk end of the spring (see photo). I was pleasantly surprised at the strange sounds that resulted: it sounds like the tree has been immersed in a giant cheap reverb tank. I recorded an entire disc of these otherworldly sounds, but a 3 minute dose, I think, is probably sufficient.

i think this recording would make great source material for a "composed" field recording piece someday.

download ( 3m1s 2.46MB 160kbps vbr dual mono mp3 )

I got a couple of discs worth of audio during the ice storm here last month, most of which was very bad; a few things, though, came out quite nicely. This recording is of me walking along the frozen grassy bank and near the storm drains of Waller Creek, just down the road from my house. I used my trusty AT-822 on a boom pole aimed directly at my feet while I was crunching the snow, and as I walked beside the storm drains I slid the mic inside the drain a bit to capture the echoey sounds under the bridge.

Waller Creek, icy & drainy, January 16, 2007, 1pm
4m57s 7.26MB mp3 (click to download)