Second Walk - Sound Blunders

On my second time out, to try and cover some of my Drift walk area, I was able to venture up and cover most of the Northern point of my mapped out Drift 1 Star Shape. However, the recordings were horrible! Ha ha, but a learning experience none the less. I really understand the equipment much better now.

Again it was really chilly out and maybe my patience was thin and my attention was a little distracted by my cold finger tips, toes and nose. I really wasn't out for too long, because of the cold. Sound Walks and Winter are not my favorite combinations. My recordings suffered as a result. Here were my top 2 blunders of this outing:

BLUNDER 1 - Make sure you are recording!
When I came up on the school yard on E. Russell Avenue, there were two teenage boys there. Just hanging out and talking. One of the boys was kicking the fence in a rhythm as they conversed. I was far enough away not to disturb them, and to not to pick up what they were saying exactly, but close enough to capture the fence shake as he kicked it. It was a cool sound and I set up to record it. It sounded great through my headphones and I was really excited. The boys weren't there too much longer and started to walk away, but I thought I got enough recorded. Man, did I feel like a dope when I later realized I didn't hit the pause button a second time to actually start recording. What a typical first-time blunder. I was pretty disappointed and I ventured on.

BLUNDER 2 - Don't record with the volume level up to high!
My next sound blunder was in a yard next to a house on E. Potter Avenue. The house had an plastic American Flag in it's yard and it was making a great sound when the wind blew. It was really windy out. I set up my microphones and tried again to make a decent recording. In the cold wind I was a little clumsy with my stiff shoulders and I hit the little sound leveler on my headphones down to low by accident, so I was hearing everything a lot quieter then I was actually recording and I kept turning up the volume. I recorded on a volume way too high. Later when I listened to the recording it was full of peaks when the flag flapped, wind and handling noise. Click here to listen to the mess (53 secs).

Oh well, I didn't capture anything worth editing on this outing, but I learned a lot from these mistakes that made the following adventures way more smooth and successful.

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