The above photos are evidence of my initial experiments with woodland field recordings. I found this to be very mindful, introspective and freeing experience. Using the H4N recorder I spent a number of hours walking around my hometown woodland, attempting to capture a number of sounds on my ‘hit list’. I felt particularly inspired by the experimental dub album Pretty Sneaky LP by Pretty Sneaky and wanted to experiment and with water and how it can be manipulated sonically.
The initial list consisted of;
- Light rainfall on leaves and shrubbery.
- Woodland stream
- Pebbles dropping in water
- Woodland Ambience
I felt particularly inspired by the experimental dub album Pretty Sneaky LP by Pretty Sneaky and wanted to experiment and with water and see how it can be manipulated sonically. Thus leading me to create a number of experimental draft pieces utilising the sounds I captured in the woods. I will add these to a separate blog post in which I discuss them at more length.
Although this field recording session was beneficial, a number of problems did crop up which I will identify and try to work around the next time I go out to record.
- For a number of the earlier recordings I was wearing my waterproof jacket which is rather crinkly and was picked up a number of times by the mic. As you can see in the last photo I eventually noticed this and decided to just wear my hoodie. Another noisy part of my clothing were my shoes that seem to squeak when i moved. To remedy this I’d suggest wearing trainers instead of walking boots.
- AIROPLANES! Not much I can really do about this but just plan to record efficiently in-between the loud rumblings from above. Although annoying, I did begin to ponder over noise pollution and how in the modern world it is literally unescapable, even when you live in the middle of nowhere.
- The majority of my recordings utilised the Shotgun Mic, I do need to experiment with the other microphones as the Shotgun does miss out on a lot of the sonic information a woodland environment offers.