One thing I often do when illustrating to my students the breadth of sounds available on Freesound.org is to start looping multiple sounds simultaneously to instantly create a new sound piece. I never really bother capturing these, but recently I routed the output to Pro Tools as the loops were going in Freesound and got this result. The sounds used can be found here.
Lovely Loop
Hi, my name is Graham O’Brien and I’m a drummer, audio engineer, and composer living in St. Paul, MN. I play in some really fun bands around town (including Keston & Westdal!) and specialize in drumming and writing for sequenced music. And having gotten a recording degree, I do some work recording and mixing radio commercials at Marketing Architects ad agency in Mineeapolis. I also am building a drum recording studio in my basement that’s coming along really well and I’ll be posting plenty of really cool stuff from there. Now, for my first post to Audio Cookbook.
This is a short but pristine recording of me opening a can of Mendota Springs Sparkling Water (Lemon flavor). I recorded it at the radio production studio I work at, and the recording chain is amazing. First we tuned and sound-proofed the recording booth down to -32dB of isolation. Here’s the recording chain:
Neumann U87a (cardiod pattern, hi pass off)> Great River Electronics MP-2NV Mercenary Edition Class A Mic Pre > Langevin Electro/Optical Compressor/limiter > Pro Tools HD via 192 i/o interface
This recording was done at 44.1Khz, 16bit. The only processing I used is the Massey L2007 Limiter to make it louder: mendota-springs-can-loud
Something that I have wanted to do for a while, is post a sound without giving away any clues as to what the sound actually is so that readers can guess or perhaps even debate about it until I come along and reveal the truth. So, here it is. I’m not saying what if any processing was applied, where or when, or how or why it was recorded. If you think you know what this sound is, please respond in a comment with your guess. The winner will receive the all expense paid recognition of being the first reader to figure it out. And, no, it’s not a cow giving birth, and neither is the photo any sort of clue. However, I imagine that this one will not be difficult to solve. Have fun!
Mystery Sound
Here’s an earlier example of a loop from Freesound.org that I produced for my class in the same fashion as the example that I described in Freesound.org Loop. I’d love to hear other examples of these, so if you have them, please post them in a comment.
Earlier Freesound Loop
My brother Anthony Caston is visiting from the UK with his wife Sheena, daughter Lucy and son Dougal. At just sixteen years old, Dougal is an accomplished jazz saxophonist who has already had the opportunity to perform and audition with several well know jazz musicians.
He hopes to attend the London Royal Academy of Music or Trinity College of Music in about eighteen months. Dougal sat in with my group Keston and Westdal at the Kitty Cat Klub in Minneapolis last Wednesday, and last Saturday we spent nearly seven hours jamming in my studio. Here’s a short phrase of his playing that I recorded with my AKG c4000b.
Shown at right is my nephew Dougal giving my nephew Tony an early saxophone lesson in my dining room in Minneapolis.
Dougal on Tenor Sax