The Din of the Day

Here’s some fireworks from awhile ago, I just never got around to putting them up. I went to a friends house on the 4th of July and, this being Georgia (where explosives are legal), they had some pretty good fireworks. I stood as far back as i could from where they were lighting off the fireworks, and turned the volume on The Bishop all the way down to 1, and it was still peaking. Anyway, heres some fireworks!

While in Seattle, we also went to the Woodland Park Zoo. At the zoo, we came across a bird that was aptly named the Southern Screamer. It liked to make noise, and it was pretty easy to get it to scream. So I recorded it. At the beginning of the clip you can hear my brother provoking it.

I was recently in Seattle for my brother’s wedding (YAY!!) and while we were there we did some exploring. One day we decided to take a day trip up Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands in order to drop my uncle off at the ferry to Orcas Island where he lives. We ended up stopping for lunch in a place called Coupeville where we bought a bucket of steamed mussels (yum!) and sat on the hill watching a sailboat regatta in the bay. While taking a walk along the wharf, we noticed this weird ringing noise. We figured out that it was coming from the fishing line that was strung along the top of the railing. When the wind blows, it makes the fishing line sing. We later learned that its there to keep the seagulls away. I of course had my trusty Zoom with me (he goes by the name of The Bishop Henry Jones or just The Bishop). Unfortunately I had left my windscreen back at the house. Luckily it was a little chilly that day so I was wearing socks. I slipped off my shoes and then my socks and stuck them on top of The Bishop’s head, shielding the mics from some of the wind. It didnt get rid of all of the wind but I was able to fix that later (in post!). Anyway, its a really cool sound, so enjoy!

My parents have a creek in their backyard, so there’s usually all sorts of creatures hanging around, especially frogs. This one particular frog was rather loud and ridiculous, so I decided to record him. 

About a year ago, I helped a classmate out with an ADR session, in exchange, he gave me an entire sound library. So, being the sound nerd that I am, I immediately went home to listen to my SFX.  Well, I soon discovered that A LOT of the effects were not labeled beyond Audio 1, etc. This meant that I now had the wonderful task listening to, and figuring out what all the unlabeled effects were. So I enlisted the help of a friend and we made a game out of it, which we called ‘Guess That Sound’. This probably doesn’t sound like it would be a lot of fun to you non-audio people, but it is. Well, around Christmastime, we decided to play again. Only this time we invited more people, and we included booze. Now, ‘Guess That Sound’ is lots of fun sober, but even more fun when you’re drunk. It leads to a lot of interesting names for things, especially when we were unable to figure out exactly what the sound was. Everyone’s favorite sound that night ended up being something we called space trampoline. Later on, I listened to that effect again, Im still not entirely sure what it is, but I think it might be a flag pole. Anyway, this is space trampoline, and if you have any idea what it actually is, I would like to know.

So every year in May, my neighbor hosts a neighborhood barbecue. In addition to the excellent food, the booze (including moonshine), and the bouncy castle, there are also potato guns. Now, they used to actually shoot potatoes, but a couple of years ago they switched to frozen hot dogs. I recorded the three that made the best sounds. The last one is my favorite, unfortunately theres a scream right in the middle of it, but i plan on rerecording that one at some point. Enjoy! 

Here’s just a quick upload because its late and I don’t have much on this computer. It is the bathroom door at my aunts house in Cleveland. I believe I recorded this at Christmas. Anyway, I really like the creak that it makes. It took me a few tries to actually get it because my whole family was in the house and they are quite loud and didn’t seem to understand that I needed them to be quiet.