The technical aspects involved in recording and making sound is far more difficult than i could have ever imagined. For this weeks exercise, we were asked to record sounds using the H2n zoom microphone and then edit the sounds using audition.

I was faced with two major concerns

  1. what in the world is audition?
  2. how do i listen to my own voice?

For the content part of the exercise, my group member and I decided to record small snippets of noises in the library and the city. To really capture the sound and atmosphere of the library was challenging. We needed silence but did not want to disturb those studying in the quiet area so we opted to use the shower rooms building 8. We also recorded snippets of us typing on a keyboard and the distinct sound of a photo copy machine. The funniest part of this exercise was the reaction people had to us. Walking around with massive headphones attached to a microphone made us stand out and naturally made it more difficult for us to record. We spent more than ten minutes waiting around the photocopy machine and even though we explained what we were doing, people were very frazzled and confused. The major problem was that I myself did not know what I was doing, hence why the stranger across from me was even more perplexed. An effective way to counteract such scepticism could be by putting aside everything and focusing on the person alone and informing them step by step what I am trying to achieve. People were avoiding us like the plague, even though we had no intention of approaching them.

To do

  1. work on people skills
  2. debrief the people around you, if it is going to affect the outcome of your work

For my part of the recording, we ventured to Melbourne central to avoid the construction around campus. We recorded snippets of the traffic, people and the general noise pollution in the city. We did have some trouble with isolating certain noises, for example we really wanted to record the road work and the drilling but the microphone lost its mind. We adjusted it so the range is not above 0 but it would not work. We also spent an unreasonable amount of time next to trafffic lights trying to record the noise of pedestrians walking by. This took a long time as we could not figure out where to position the microphone for the best quality sound, hopefully that is something I can overcome with more experience.

Major issues we faced with the recording

  1. We did not have enough time to work through the technical difficulties we faced
  2. isolating noises
  3. being able to detect where the source of the sound is
  4. using all four modes on the microphone

I felt like a true media student doing all the technical work and I realised that this exercise taught me much more than I imagines. I experimented a bit more with microphones after the class by loaning from the university, in hopes of becoming more confident with technology and tools of media.

Here are the recordings from that day…