Trainspotting

Or should I say, train spot mic-ing Due to an oddly worded asset list most of the sounds we recorded wont be used in the deliverables

The lost session:

We booked out the Zoom H4n Handy Recorder and set out to record at the South Bank train station. We then left immediately as there was about 3 construction sites around interfering with our recording. We then made it to South Brisbane and things were much clearer. Our goal was to capture the following sounds

Train arriving Train opening doors Train leaving Operator whistle Conductor voice (to be muffled) First we set about to find the source of the conductors voice on the platform and we mic-ed fairly close to the sound source. The idea being that we wanted a very strong signal to begin with so we could play around with it later using LP filters or possibly re-playing the song through a speaker and placing a microphone behind some baffles, or a combination of both. We may need to record a completely muffled talk version in the studio. This depends on changes to the asset list. Not a moment later the first train arrived. We noticed that these trains were very quiet, we had to boost the gain up quite far to hear it through the background. This may have occurred due to the relatively loud background noise, or due to the quietness of these particular trains. We then headed back to the SAE Campus to record a few things that we thought could help liven up those quiet train sounds. The microwave in the student lounge was something blake suggested we could record, I'm not too sure if we will put it in to the train, however if they need a vending machine hum it would sound great.

The blue equipment trolly in the dock however, had the perfect creaky noise to add in to the train layer.

For the Future:

To say the day was a complete waste would be a lie, we gathered much information about the quality of sound we are looking for, and also the sounds that would work better at a train station at night as opposed to the day. We will be keeping the operator voice track we recorded, as well as the trolley and microwave.

After some clarification from Kirsty, our group liaison, we have generated a plan for the future. We will acquire the train sounds from a passing express train at a stop it does not stop at, this will give us the coming and going with a realistic Doppler Effect.