This sequence of sounds includes dragging a plastic laundry basket on a cement floor, opening and closing of the dryer, loading and unloading clothes, and so on.
Mysterious Laundry Sounds
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Tag Archives: PCM-D50
The Janitors Sink
Until now the sounds presented on ACB have included just about everything except the janitor’s sink. So here it is, recorded in the Grandpa-George building, just outside their studio space. This is the sound created by the plumbing resonating as the hot water runs through the pipes. Apparently the sound doesn’t happen with cold water, and it takes a minute for it to happen with the hot water turned on. For some reason the pipes don’t resonate unless they have hot water running through them. Derrin played the sink while I recorded the results on the Sony PCM-D50.
Giant Light Bulb Tone
I’ll have to do another session down at Grandpa-George sometime soon, because I have gotten a lot of mileage out the the sound possibilities in their space.
They didn’t know it, but their office is virtually a Foley studio. I doubt they’d let me lay down some sod, sand, and gravel to record footsteps though.
Douglas, Matthew, and Derrin all tend to collect interesting objects including a pair of giant light bulbs, probably for street lamps. This is the tone produced by flicking one of the bulbs.
Pencil Sharpening at Grandpa-George
This typical, mundane sound has become nostalgic in many respects, but not altogether antiquated. However, this example is less typical, mainly because the sharpener was not mounted on the wall.
Derrin and Doug had to work together; one person holding the sharpener down while the other one turned the crank. This gives the sound a laborious quality that’s interesting to me.
Screeching Letter G
To create this sound I used a large hollow letter G and slid it along a Formica table top. Grandpa-George has an expansive collection of letter Gs from old signs and other sources hanging on one of their walls.
The G that I used to make this sound had not been mounted yet. The material that the letter was made from made a resonant screech when the thin edges of the back side of it slid along the Formica table top.
Talk and Learn Alphabet Center
There were dozens of great things to record at the Grandpa-George studio space. One of them was a toy Douglas picked up at thrift shop for less than three dollars called the Talk and Learn Alphabet Center. It’s a kind of cheaper version of a Speak and Spell.
The voice recordings on the unit are great, sometimes hilarious, and have a lovely low bit graininess to them. Me and Derrin Evers took turns pressing the buttons while the recorder was running. Here’s a brief selection of what we collected.
Smith-Corona Mechanical Typewriter
I made this recording of an old Smith-Corona mechanical typewriter recently at the my good friends interactive company Grandpa-George. Douglas Brull sat and typed while I held the recorder.
There’s loads of examples of typewriter recordings around, but I could not pass up the opportunity to make one of my own. Here’s thirty-eight seconds of what I captured.
Smith-Corona Mechanical Typewriter
Goodbye Winter
The long cold Winter of 2008 and 2009 is not over yet. Anything can happen, but most of the snow in Minneapolis has melted. I imagine that my sentiments are shared by most Minnesotans when I say that I am ready to move on to the next season. Hopefully this will be the last of my winter themed field recordings for a few months anyway. I recorded these footsteps while trekking through fresh snow near Lake Superior. It was a very still night, so the crunching of the wet snow came through well with very little wind noise interfering.
Gondola Ambiance
If you’ve never ridden in one, you might have wondered what it sounds like inside a gondola as it carries people up a snowy mountain. Well, now your curiosity can be culled with the sound that’s included in this entry.
The gondolas at Lutsen Mountain are pretty loud. Most of the sound is a consistent low frequency vibration from the cable, but along with it are some squeaks, creaks and groans from the hinge and structure of the gondola itself.
If you think about it too much it can be a bit unnerving. It’s probably best to enjoy the view while humming Beatles songs. Here’s a recording made inside the gondola as it makes it’s way to the top of Eagle Mountain.
Waves of Ice
The shores and waters of Lake Superior can change dramatically from day to day. After two days of calm, the lake revolted with waves of ice crashing against the rocky shoreline. I have never heard such a sound and eagerly made a recording. These waves were literally made up of water and densely packed plates of ice. When each wave would crest, shards of ice clattered down the trough of the wave, and when they reached the shore the plates of ice would shatter against the rocks.