Sound | Michael Firus

Audio Recording: a Wrap

Sound Recording Exercise; A three-way interview out in the field and in a simulated studio setting: In the evening sun, things couldn’t have bene more relaxing. And for three newly christened sound recordist walking around the CBD, it seemed fit that the best thing to compliment this moment was a smooth chocolate milkshake. But class…

Sounds of the Environment

When you think of a particular place, what is evoked? For instance, if I told you to bring to mind your High-school library… what would you recall? For me, it was the distracting noise that the door made whenever someone opened it. It sounded like someone was scraping carpet with a hairbrush. But I was…

4’ 33″

Listeners of this track fall into 3 basic camps: the confused, the intrigued and the annoyed. I have to say I am a synthesis of all three. John Cage’s 4’ 33″ is… well watch the video: (no cheating now, all of it) So which deem are you? In 4’ 33″ the performance is the sounds…

“Cakes (and sound) have layers” – Donkey (Shrek 2001)

Ok fine. So the quote doesn’t quite go like that. But perceived sound does indeed have layers. These layers can be defined in three categories: Figure – focus of interest (immediate) This would be like talking to a person face to face Ground – setting or context (support or middle) This would be like the…

Sound – Not Just Heard?

With all the discussion on the importance of sound, I began to wonder what a member of the deaf community could contribute to the discussion. My sister, Caroline, is 13 and has been profoundly deaf since birth. This means that she can hear almost nothing of the things we take for granted unaided. She can,…

Sound affects (not effects)

When someone has the same notification tone as you do, we all occasionally experience a split second where it seems that it must be us getting an unexpected message. Some of us are even on the way to checking the screen before realize that we aren’t quite that popular. This first-world problem intensifies with the…