Recording in Stereo

After my first series of recordings, I realized that my next step would have to be constructing a better means of recording in order to capture a better quality of sound and hopefully have more more control over the sounds that I am capturing.

I bought a Behringer 5-Input 2-Bus Mixer with XENYX Mic Preamp and British Eq despite the warnings of never connecting the piezo mics to an AC powered amp. This amplifier/mixing board would allow me to capture a wider range of sounds and also to isolate sounds using the Trim, EQ and Level functions on the mixing board. I also ordered a package of new piezo discs off the internet with varying frequencies (the larger the disc, the lower the frequency).

Secondly, with my growing knowledge of how recording and microphones and specifically, contact microphones worked, I created a way to record in Stereo format using contact microphones.

I used 2 Piezo discs, the first (left) is .6KHZ/44mm, the second (right) is 6.5KHZ/20mm. They are each wired to their own 22 gauge strand of the shielded audio cable and they share the ground wire. Then each opposing end of the strands and the ground wire are soldered to the appropriate components of the 1/4" stereo input plug.

By using 2 very different frequencies in each mic, the range of sound that is captured is very wide and it should make it easier and more accurate when I try to isolate certain frequencies.

This recording is from 5 points of my engine
1. Engine
2. Air Intake
3. Hot
4. Rotator Belt
5. Shock

The clip is another 30 second sample from the original and the tracks are played simultaneously.
Again the rhythm of each track is slightly different but if you try to listen to individual sounds it is interesting to follow the poly-temporal scale of each recording in relation to the others.

The Medium: Contact Microphones

The immediate question that followed the decision to acoustically study my car was... how? I was not interested in the sounds that I normally hear, therefore a typical microphone was not the most suitable answer.

I decided to use contact microphones that I built using piezoelectric discs. Following the directions of "Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking" by Nicolas Collins, I began experimenting with different kinds of Piezo Discs that I extracted from toys, buzzers, smoke alarms, etc. Piezo Discs are widely used as buzzers in most toys that make basic sounds, they are mass produced and are very cheap. Rather than a buzzer, they also work much better as a contact microphone when they are properly wired and connected to an amplifier.

Piezo discs use piezoelectric properties of crystals to create high pitched noises when a voltage is applied. They are made by bonding a thin layer of ceramic or crystal to a very thin, flexible brass disc. The first series of piezo mics that I made came from Piezo Buzzers bough from The Source and an old smoke alarm. These discs worked when I connected them to the shielded audio wire and then to a small 9volt amplifier, but the quality of sound was weak and there was a lot of static noise. This was due to every part of the construction being the bottom of the line. I soon realized, that with electronics... you get what you pay for.

This is a series of recordings that I did with the 9volt amp and the piezo disc from a buzzer. The disc was set up on 5 different places.
1. The engine
2. The wind sheild
3. The wheel well
4. The muffler
5. The radio speaker

The trip was the same for each recording, however the rhythm was changed by traffic, stop lights, speed, etc. Each track is played simultaneously. This is a 30 second clip from the original video.

SIlence of the Hyundai

I have chosen my car as a subject to study the mundane, the muffled, the quiet and the toned out sounds of my everyday life. My car is 1998 Hyundai Accent GSI Sport. It is old, refurbished and completely banal, however I spend a large portion of my day in my car in transit from school to home, to friends, to work, etc.

One main reason my car struck me as a perfect study is because more often then not, I drive without music or radio on. I enjoy the silence of the road at night when I am coming home late from studio or a friends. When I began to think about this notion of the 'silence within a car' I found it very interesting because the car is anything but silent.

Sound Artist: Janet Cardiff

Two projects by sound artist Janet Cardiff have given me inspiration into the medium and the method of recording the sounds. The first is called "Forty-Part Motet"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6nCFy_81n8

The following article gives a great description of the piece,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601697.html

How can I apply the ideas of the decay of sound to the mundane sound that I will record? In Forty- Part Motet, forty different sounds are recorded from the symphony in order to produce the grand sound. In the Mundane, is there enough layers to successfully analyze the individual sound that comprises the whole.

The second piece by Janet cardiff is called "Winter of Sound."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDPcUmeAuI8

In this piece, Janet Cardiff records the sounds of the street as she walks. She uses two kinds of microphones in order to capture all of the possible sounds. She uses contact mics (piezo mics) to capture the sounds of machines and vibrations from cars and buses as they pass by amongst other vibrations. The piece is interesting because she overlaps the sounds that she records and amplifies them. The sounds that we are used to hearing quietly are brought to the front and are prominent in the recordings. This alone creates a phenomenological experience because it reverses the hierarchy of the sounds. We hear the clicks and vibrations which are normally registers as a hum in the background and the passing of cars and and people somehow fade into the background.

The Mundane

Initially stalled by trying to think of an immaterial phenomenological sound that the fit the criteria of being poly temporal and poly scalar, I decided to approach the project from another angle. I am interested in the sounds of the everyday. The mundane. The banal.

There is nothing Phenomenological about the mundane sounds that we hear everyday, however, perhaps this is because we are not actually listening to these sounds. Everything makes a sound, a vibration, a movement, etc. Our ears do pick up on many of these things because we do not want to hear them. There is nothing exciting, informative or new about the sounds that we are used to hearing everyday.

What are the sounds that we are used to hearing so often that we barely register them?
What are the sounds that we try to tone out of our daily activities?
What are the sounds that we try to eliminate through mechanical and technological sound proofing?
What are the sounds that we do not hear but are constantly around us?

How can we take the mundane and create a phenomenological experience through a recording and a transformation?

Day 1

Recording or documenting an immaterial phenomena of light or sound seams like a simple task with straight forward criterion. The task at hand asks us to record a phenomenon of a building interface highlighting sound or light that has a level of interactivity and responsiveness with humans, deals with a threshold condition, contemplates materiality as a means of transmittance and delivers a poly-rhythmic/poly-temporal and poly-scalar series of events. A task that is much more difficult.

What is an immaterial phenomenon?
Immaterial -- not consisting of matter.
Phenomenon -- any event, circumstance, or experience that is apparent to the senses and that can be scientifically described or appraised. Merriam- Webster Online Dictionary

Together, these words suggest that the event, circumstance, or experience that is apparent to the senses can actually NOT be measured objectively in a scientific manner.
Subjectively discovering how to materialize this phenomenon will allow a rigorous exploration to develop into an understanding of the implications that could evolve.

Choosing a phenomenon that that follows all of the criteria poses a difficult decision. What is more important, the medium or the message, or can we say that "the medium is the message?"
Is it more important to choose a content that has depth and is vague enough for original and insightful explorations?
Or, is the content irrelevant (as long as the criteria is followed) if the medium has enough originality and possibility to explore the content in a fresh way?

Some of the preliminary research that I have done has sparked ideas:
- How can we record how our eye physically receives different levels of light and contrarily,
how can we record the light that our eye recieves?
- How does sound travel through water?
5x as fast in sea water than in air
20x-30x as fast in distilled water than in sea water
what is the affect of "shadow zones" in water where sound waves do not travel.
- How does natural light affect our perception of traffic (pedestrian, car, other) durring different times of day?