Radio Static Part 1
August 26, 2008 – 10:04 pm by John Keston
As I have mentioned in previous articles, I love knobs. This includes the tuning knob on AM/FM radios. For today’s sound I decided to record my old Panasonic tuner. I took a mono direct signal into my M-Audio Firewire 410 and started tuning. What I was after is that static sound between stations, and the tiny chunks of speech and music that pop through as one spins the dial. I started with FM, switched to AM, and then back to FM recording close to ten minutes worth of audio. This particular tuner wasn’t much good for producing the gliding theremin like tones you sometimes hear, but I got some good static and random micro-clips of music and speech. Here’s a snapshot of one of the sections I’m satisfied with.
6 Responses to “Radio Static Part 1”
I find that radio static is particularly nice if you’re recording radio in a language other than english — it seems like people pay more attention to the sounds of static, music snippets, etc if recognizable english speech isn’t present
I have a few radio static clips I recorded in Sweden that I totally dig…
By Jen on Aug 27, 2008
reminds me of my vintage radio…
mmmm
tubes.
By eric holsten on Aug 27, 2008
Cool idea, Jen. Please post a link. It will automatically load into the player on the site so we can all have a listen!
By John Keston on Aug 27, 2008
Here’s a recording of turning the dial through swedish radio — even though the recording is from 2004, to me it sounds very nostalgic, circa 1950 or something
http://modernbeet.com/img_bin/ADD0.mp3
By Jen on Aug 28, 2008
Yeah. Especially with the narrow frequency range and bit of music at the end. Very nice, thanks for posting it!
By John Keston on Aug 28, 2008
Well, it’s funny… Jen’s clip may have been recorded in Sweden, but – as far as can identify – all music and speech is either in english or in german ;o)
By Asaguare on Sep 17, 2008