BMW Burnout in the snow

Posted on January 3, 2011 by lost track

Hey all,

Boy Racer – Burnout in Carpark on snow – BMW exploding exhaust revving tyres squealing

photo credits Kemmish from sw-pc.com

This winter in the UK everything has been incredibly foggy and snow-bound. Awesome! I had some family relatives visit and one of the youngsters asked me what gadgets I had (as naturally all self respecting men should always be armed with several gadgets). The only thing I had on me (which I take everywhere) was my sound recording gear, so one dark night we went for a walk to the park to see what we could record.

From about a mile away we could hear some burnouts, so we ran through the park to find a highly tweaked BMW and driver having a fun time ripping it up in a snowy car park. Picture the scene, it was pitch black and extremely foggy, so the car cut through the silence of the night like a knife. We had to conceal ourselves from the driver, behind a hedge, and the car was sliding just metres away from us! The exhaust explosions sounded great, and the car lit up the snow with its headlights.

I recorded the following, and it’s unprocessed. Sounds RAW!!!

Boy Racer – Burnout in Carpark on snow – BMW exploding exhaust revving tyres squealing

tags: Boy Racer – Burnout in Carpark on snow – BMW exploding exhaust revving tyres squealing

Reel to Reel Tape JAM!

Posted on March 6, 2009 by lost track

Hey Cookbookers,

I’ve had a brilliant few last days, and amongst the highlights were the acquisition of a used AKAI 4000d tape machine. A bit on the machine first – I got it through an very healthy program called freecycle.org here in the UK. I simply put an ad up asking if anyone had any old noise making bits that they didn’t use anymore, and I got a response from a decent bloke who offered me a tape machine he couldn’t get to use.

Delighted I picked it up, he showed me how to thread the tape (a bit before my time you see…) and such. I was immensely grateful and helped him out with some technical computer bits out of gratitude.

Story over, now for the fun. I’ve hooked my Tape machine up to the PC, and routed it through a focusrite preamp and sherman filterbank. I love the retro psychedelic sound – type stuff, and was playing around with feedback loops and such. It turned into a jam, with my loops and samples, and feedback etc. and (i’m not sure if this is meant to happen) but the fast forwarding and rewinding of the tape picked up all the noise, but in super high speed. I think this sounds brilliant. Check it out!

*IT’S LOUD!!!* :D
Tape Machine Jam

vintage sci-fi retro sounds

Posted on January 15, 2009 by lost track

Vintage laser Hey again. More from the Lost Track archives! As my last contribution focussed on the huge NZL14 Yacht, I thought what better than to continue where I left off…

This sound is not an original discovery, but it certainly feels satisfying one you know where it came from – I’ve heard many techniques on getting this sort of sound, including striking telegraph poles. In this instance, it came from a large steel mainstay cable which was very thick and under several tonnes of pressure. After being struck, they started to move metal rings up and down, giving a raspy sound. I’ve got hours of this stuff!

Sci Fi retro laser gun sound!

Creaks ‘n Groans

Posted on January 13, 2009 by lost track

Hey Audio Cookbookers,

I’m Tom Player and have been a reader of ACB for a while, and a sound recordist for a long time. I run a website lostrack.co.uk where I store some commercial and personal work. I’ve got a huge archive of great recordings, some of which I plan to unleash here soon!

About this time last year I was in New Zealand, exploring and recording everywhere I went. I was fortunate enough to meet one of the captains of the NZL14 racing yacht who invited me on board with their crew, to record the sounds of them all in action. What I didn’t expect was the sound of the boat to be so fascinating!

A bit about the yacht, it’s a work of engineering excellence. The sail is one piece Kevlar, the hull carbon fibre, and the keel is 16 tons of lead. It’s formula 1 on the water – she makes beautiful groaning, creaking noises, like nothing you’ve ever heard before.

Gear: Fostex FR2-LE with matched stereo pair rode NT5 mics.