One of the nine forms of transportation I did not include in the compilation from a couple of entries ago was the moving walkway. On the way home from Seattle last Sunday I had a little extra time due to a delayed flight, so I used it to capture some more airport ambiance including the moving walkway. This one is located in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The best part of the recording is the automated pre-recorded warning as passengers near the end of the walkway. The exact wording is, “Caution. moving walk is nearing its end. Please watch your step. Thank You.”
Moving Walkway
One of the very first tests I made using my DIY binaural mics was this example of back alley ambiance. I stood as still as possible because this first version of the headset had a stiff cable that was very sensitive to vibrations. Birds and traffic are the most obvious sounds, but there is a high pitched screeching going on throughout the recording that became even more noticeable after applying normalization. While making the recording I actually took the mics out of my ears to make sure they weren’t generating the tone and I knew I wasn’t going crazy when it turned up in the recording. The sound is either a near by train, or a neighbor using a power tool. It sounds more like a tool, but the freight trains that go through my neighborhood make some very similar sounds to this.
I captured this very typical example of restaurant ambiance recently at my favorite neighborhood Thai place in Minneapolis. I’m still running the PCM-D50 through its paces, but I sense that I’ll be looking forward to a long and happy relationship. This one minute and seven second clip includes many of the usual sounds sounds of diners in a food establishment: talking, laughing, coughing, children, plates clinking, ice in drinks, footsteps of the servers, and take away being placed in paper bags.
One of the first few recordings I made with my Sony PCM-D50 was to capture traffic ambiance. This was really a pretty good test for the stereo imaging of the built in mics. I held the device, so there is some handling noise, although I did put a wind screen on the D50. This recording would have been impossible without it. The mics on the D50 are very sensitive to wind. Even indoors if an object, like a door, moves the air near the unprotected mics you will hear the capsules flapping in the breeze. Despite the wind screen you can hear a bit of wind noise around 00:34. The stereo image is acceptable, but it’s not as broad as other stereo mics I’ve used such as the Shure VP88. I have yet to try the 120 degree, Y pattern setting, which I imagine will spread the image considerably.
This is not a website about my cat. First of all, the cats are not mine. I just live with them. Secondly, I can get away with this because I’m posting an animal sound. Anyway, before I get myself in trouble by saying something regrettable about cats, my wife’s cat Minuit (French for midnight) has a really great purr. I managed to capture a little bit of it along with some cat swallows and a partial meow the other night when I first got my Sony PCM-D50. The photograph is not Minuit, but actually his chief rival, Caro, the newest edition to the family who embodies pure evil. Just look at those eyes!