Sound Project - Lesson 2 (Recording Sound)

In this lesson we were taught how to use the Zoom microphones to record sound successfully. We were shown how to work it and also we were given these handy tips for recording:
- Always record sound as clean as possible so always use wind protection (such as dead cats) whenever needed
- You must always try and keep the sound levels between -24dbfs and -6dbfs whilst recoding as this will keep you the best quality without nasty effects like clipping.
- Never let you sound levels go over 0db and if they do re-record because this will have clipping on it otherwise.
- Try to record and lot of alternatives and variations of each required sound so that you have a lot of flexibility when it comes to editing.
- Remember to always record the general ambient noise of a place too so that you have something to always go in the background as opposed to just silence.
- When recording announce verbally to the microphone first what sound it is your recording and what take it is as this will make the clips really easy to identify when editing rather than guessing what sound is which.
- You can also do a sound report sheet during sound recording so again you can easily identify which clips you want to use during editing.

These are my notes I took on how to work the Zoom:

Once we felt comfortable using this sound equipment we were set a small task in groups for the day to help us practice. We were given a topic to go and record sound for and then we ha an hour at the end of the day to edit it into a mini sound scape. The group I was a part of were given 'The Sound of Conflict' to make a sound piece on. We began by making a quick plan of what kind of sound we wanted. We decided we wanted a lot of loud harsh sudden sounds to represent an actual conflict/fight happening. We also wanted abrasive sounds as well to represent annoyance. We began in the canteen recording sounds like banging on a table in a variety of ways but when we played them back we realised very quickly that it was far too nosy in the canteen and the background noise was drowning out the noise we wanted. We decided to move to a quieter area outside on a table which worked a lot more successfully and also aloud us to get a much nicer ambient noise that what we would of got in the canteen. It took us a while to get use to the sound recording equipment but once we had it was very easy to change the setting to suit the different sounds we wanted. Once we felt we had enough sounds to use for a small sound scape and we returned to the room and began editing. As a lot of us including myself had never used Audition before to edit sound we got shown the very basics very quickly and then we practised alone exploring the programme and all the effects you could apply. Here is the small sound scape I came up with out of the sounds my group recorded:


I am very happy with what I managed to produce in this lesson considering all the equipment and programmes were new to me. I feel like this is a valuable step towards me beginning able to create my final Sound scape.