Subconsciously fulfilling the ACB metaphor, I recorded these sounds as I was preparing a spaghetti dinner in my kitchen tonight. I used my Audio Technica AT822 stereo condenser running straight into the MacBook Pro line in port. To my surprise I managed to get levels, but had to turn up the input volume in the preferences almost all the way up to get a good strong signal. In the preferences you can adjust the input volume, so the signal is running through some sort of pre-amplification.
Getting signal is probably the result of the condenser mic having a fresh battery, high sensitivity, and a short cord built specifically for the mic. It would probably not work as well with a dynamic mic. I wouldn’t recommend recording this way (without running the mic through a preamp), but I would be interested in knowing the specs on how the input volume is being powered on the MacBook Pro. Any Apple experts out there have any inside info?
Filling the Pot
As the sound of the freight train faded off into the distance and the railroad crossing bells came into view, I continued recording while deliberately walking on top of the large gravel that surrounded the train tracks. I particularly like the course crunching sound my footsteps made on the large gravel in contrast to the the softer sound of the finer gravel path leading away from the tracks. The wind screen helped but you can still hear some of it on the diaphragm giving the recording some lackluster, non-technical characteristics. 
Here’s another recording made with the 3g iPod field recording kit I described in the last entry. This time I managed to get the device to record properly using the 96kHz sampling rate. I’m using the mic input on the iPod via the headphone jack, so the recordings are still in mono. 
I made this recording of a freight train near downtown Minneapolis today using an old third generation 20 gig iPod running Linux (more info at 
To make this sound I increased the gain on some 60Hz buzz that I grabbed out of a bass guitar recording. There’s no bass, just the hum of electrical interference. A lot of boosting was necessary to get an adequate level.