F1 @ Silverstone Grand Prix 2011

Posted on July 13, 2011 by lost track

Having asked around the forums (http://socialsounddesign.com/) for tips, I headed up to Silverstone this weekend to camp & record some sounds for the F1.

The cars were LOUD. I must have been 50 metres away and had to wear ear plugs and cans…the gear changes kick you in the chest!

It was an entertaining race, and great experience. Tech below:

I was up by Abbey (and walking around) and managed to get lots of useable material. I sampled at 24/96 but there’s not much going on above 20-25k, only the really raspy exhaust stuff.
I hired out some low sensitivity DPAs and ran them into a fostex FR2LE at almost 0dB gain, coming up to -10dBFS.
The recordings do sound small and tinny. I remembered distinctly they had weight and size to them, although if you played them back at normal levels, you’d probably get near to the feeling – it’s the extreme volume.
The Lotus F1 engines had a new front firing exhaust and this made some entirely wierd noises, great for SFX.
(click for audio)

F1 Silverstone 2011 © Lostrack

BMW Burnout in the snow

Posted on January 3, 2011 by lost track

Hey all,

Boy Racer – Burnout in Carpark on snow – BMW exploding exhaust revving tyres squealing

photo credits Kemmish from sw-pc.com

This winter in the UK everything has been incredibly foggy and snow-bound. Awesome! I had some family relatives visit and one of the youngsters asked me what gadgets I had (as naturally all self respecting men should always be armed with several gadgets). The only thing I had on me (which I take everywhere) was my sound recording gear, so one dark night we went for a walk to the park to see what we could record.

From about a mile away we could hear some burnouts, so we ran through the park to find a highly tweaked BMW and driver having a fun time ripping it up in a snowy car park. Picture the scene, it was pitch black and extremely foggy, so the car cut through the silence of the night like a knife. We had to conceal ourselves from the driver, behind a hedge, and the car was sliding just metres away from us! The exhaust explosions sounded great, and the car lit up the snow with its headlights.

I recorded the following, and it’s unprocessed. Sounds RAW!!!

Boy Racer – Burnout in Carpark on snow – BMW exploding exhaust revving tyres squealing

tags: Boy Racer – Burnout in Carpark on snow – BMW exploding exhaust revving tyres squealing

Epic Machinery – Cruise Liner Engines

Posted on August 15, 2010 by lost track

While on holiday I routinely bring recording equipment with me. In Italy, where they have decided to make normal passenger cruise ships look like ferarris, they also have interesting engine sounds to boot. I’ve been searching for a sound like this for years and have finally nailed it with this sound.

I recorded this standing a few feet away from the harbour at the exhaust side of the ship. It was maneuvering into position away from the harbour, and you can hear the engines in some detail – the turbos are kicking in, and the engine goes through a few start up procedures. This sounds epic!

Ocean Liner Cruise Ship Engines Engaging Turbos Whine Bass Epic Rumble Rev Servos Awesome Cool Technological Sound FX

Superheated Water – Dance of the Blobs

Posted on January 25, 2010 by lost track

I love the texture of this sound – it’s infinitely sampleable, and equally uncontrollable. A thin coating of oil, rubbed into the pan – then heat it on high for 5 minutes. After a while, the water becomes so hot and isolated from the surface of the metal it superheats (boils without bubbles). This creates the beautiful dancing effect you get, similar to when mercury is loose on a solid surface.

The recording was made on a fostex FR2LE with a canon digital camera for visuals. The single hits would be cool for super fizzy percussion, don’t you think? Sampled at 24/96 on a fostex fr2le in stereo, 12 inches above the pan.

Tom

High quality download here:
Superheated oil and water – dance of the blobs

YOUTUBE link – Superheated Water & Oil – Dance of the Blobs

Generative Accident – Dripping Water

Posted on January 10, 2010 by lost track

drip I have been re-reading articles on Generative music in Audio Culture : Readings in Modern Music again, and some unplanned generative music took me be suprise – dripping from my jumper.

I set up a few cardboard loo rolls to resonate with the sound and stood around for 5 minutes recording it all. There are some really interesting syncopated moments, all underpinned with a regular metronomic beat. I liked the intrusion of external sounds to the mix, as you listen on. A Happy accident

Tom

generative dripping clothes
rec@24/96 with rode nt5 and fostex fr2le, minimal eq

Reel to Reel Tape JAM!

Posted on March 6, 2009 by lost track

Hey Cookbookers,

I’ve had a brilliant few last days, and amongst the highlights were the acquisition of a used AKAI 4000d tape machine. A bit on the machine first – I got it through an very healthy program called freecycle.org here in the UK. I simply put an ad up asking if anyone had any old noise making bits that they didn’t use anymore, and I got a response from a decent bloke who offered me a tape machine he couldn’t get to use.

Delighted I picked it up, he showed me how to thread the tape (a bit before my time you see…) and such. I was immensely grateful and helped him out with some technical computer bits out of gratitude.

Story over, now for the fun. I’ve hooked my Tape machine up to the PC, and routed it through a focusrite preamp and sherman filterbank. I love the retro psychedelic sound – type stuff, and was playing around with feedback loops and such. It turned into a jam, with my loops and samples, and feedback etc. and (i’m not sure if this is meant to happen) but the fast forwarding and rewinding of the tape picked up all the noise, but in super high speed. I think this sounds brilliant. Check it out!

*IT’S LOUD!!!* :D
Tape Machine Jam

vintage sci-fi retro sounds

Posted on January 15, 2009 by lost track

Vintage laser Hey again. More from the Lost Track archives! As my last contribution focussed on the huge NZL14 Yacht, I thought what better than to continue where I left off…

This sound is not an original discovery, but it certainly feels satisfying one you know where it came from – I’ve heard many techniques on getting this sort of sound, including striking telegraph poles. In this instance, it came from a large steel mainstay cable which was very thick and under several tonnes of pressure. After being struck, they started to move metal rings up and down, giving a raspy sound. I’ve got hours of this stuff!

Sci Fi retro laser gun sound!

Creaks ‘n Groans

Posted on January 13, 2009 by lost track

Hey Audio Cookbookers,

I’m Tom Player and have been a reader of ACB for a while, and a sound recordist for a long time. I run a website lostrack.co.uk where I store some commercial and personal work. I’ve got a huge archive of great recordings, some of which I plan to unleash here soon!

About this time last year I was in New Zealand, exploring and recording everywhere I went. I was fortunate enough to meet one of the captains of the NZL14 racing yacht who invited me on board with their crew, to record the sounds of them all in action. What I didn’t expect was the sound of the boat to be so fascinating!

A bit about the yacht, it’s a work of engineering excellence. The sail is one piece Kevlar, the hull carbon fibre, and the keel is 16 tons of lead. It’s formula 1 on the water – she makes beautiful groaning, creaking noises, like nothing you’ve ever heard before.

Gear: Fostex FR2-LE with matched stereo pair rode NT5 mics.