Monday, August 6, 2007

Week 2 - AA1.2



This week was a fairly simple week for the task. Unfortunately, I can't upload the zip file telling me what exactly to do, so I'm just going to do as much as I remember and hope for the best. The idea was to record some sound from the environment, whether a pool hall, park or shopping centre, and then draw a geographical map showing where everything is sound wise. My recording is pretty shocking, but I decided to keep it anyway, and just make sure I use the university recorders from now on. It was done in a popular cafe in the morning. You can't hear all the sounds on the recording I made, but I'll be putting all of them into the map. Again, because I can't open the .zip file I'll just have to go on memory to make the map, but I'm pretty sure it'll be fine.

The map is shown at the top of the post. I'll explain the symbols here, as opposed to making another picture with a key on it. Easier to read I thought.

1: the X marks my position in the room.
2: the diagonal lines represent an electrical hum, quite low, and as shown, heard in various parts of the room. There was also the same sort of sound heard outside the room, which is why I used the arrow.
3: the rectangular boxes represent a clanging, banging noise, again heard in multiple places in the room. It was a mechanical, metallic noise.
4: the swirls denote conversations and people talking and making noise in general. The thicker the lines the louder the person was or the closer they were to me.
5: the jagged, step-like line is footsteps. Everynow and then someone would walk past, and the sound of their feet is quite loud. The floor sounded hollow.
6: the wavy line under the arrow was a scraping, harsh noise, probably chairs on the ground or soemthine similar. It was outside again, but the sound was definitely similar to the sound made when metal chairs are scraped across a hard surface flooring.

And last but not least the actual recording, although as I said before, it's really bad. From now on, I'll be using the university recorders.

Recording of cafe environment

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Christian Haines, Audio Arts lecture, Tutorial Room, Schulz, 31st/7/07