Soundwalk Report

Going for a sound walk in -28 degree weather proved an adventure indeed. I started on Friday recording all the sounds on my walk to work just to get a feel for it. I have to admit I am glad the Edirol’s look like mp3 players because I did feel a little strange stopping at bus stops to but not getting on or bending down to hear my footsteps better.
On Saturday, I decided to take a real sound walk around my house. I thought it would be hard to find 10 isolated sounds and 5 ambient sounds outdoors. At first it was pretty hard, I could only hear cars, my own footsteps and the wind. But as I began to move from causaul listening to reduced listening I came across a phone booth! As I recorded the various sounds of the phone booth (plastic doors, picking up the receiver and pressing the numbers) and really concentrated on my reduced listening. I realized there is actually quite a bit of different sounds I could find while staying outside. Except at this point (maybe 15 min into the walk) my fingers were frozen, my toes were numb and the long johns I had under my jeans didn’t seem to be helping so I ran home.
At home, I thought about other outdoor places that could work and lo and behold, there was a gas station across from the phone booth! Therefore, on Sunday I called up my boyfriend who has a lovely heated car and asked him to accompany me on my walk. We drove over to the gas station and this proved to have quite a rich mix of ambient sounds.
I recorded the cars driving in and out, starting their engines and turning them off, the noise the pump makes when you lift it up, the beep beep of the number pad for the pre-paid pumps, my footsteps, keys jingling, a dumpster cover flapping in the wind and the sound the air pump makes when you lift it out of its handle. This was a good place because the noises were not weather dependant and I could make them myself so I could go at any time of day really. I went in the afternoon on a Sunday so it was pretty busy and fairly noisy but I guess I could have heard more noise say during rush hour on a weekday. The major obstacle though, was people talking, which happened in a few of my recordings at the gas station, the train station and at the park.
Also it was a little funny, walking around with what people probably assume is an mp3 player and just standing next to them as they put gas in their tanks but no one said anything so it was all good.
After finishing off at the gas station I took a walk past the water right behind Annie’s pub, there was not much sound there besides the wind but it was cool to hear how loud it was by the water compared to in front of the gas station.
I hopped back in the car to warm up a little (especially after standing in that wind near the frozen lake) then we made our way over to the intersection near my house that connects to auto route 20. The most predominant noise there was obviously cars and the wind but I recorded it anyways because I liked to hear the difference between the amount of cars on the highway and the few cars that drove down Ste-Anne road near the phone booth and gas station; and there is of course the difference between trucks, cars and SUV’s. Luckily there was a few trucks that drove by so I got to record the different noises their engines made.
This again is not weather dependant (although the tires on the snow vs. tires on gravel would make different noises) but it could be time dependant. If I had gone during rush hour, I could have heard more cars drive by or maybe I could have heard a melange of engines as they sat in traffic.
Across from this intersection is a park where they had set up a skating rink so I headed over there after standing on the side of the road recording traffic. It was really hard to get sounds without people talking in the background and I didn’t feel right asking people if they could stop talking so I had to be strategic.
At this point I had a lot of ambient sounds so I decided to concentrate on getting more isolated sounds. Since most people were talking at the skating rink I made my way over to the playground part of the park. There, I got some really good isolated sounds. I got the click click of one of those rocking horse things as it wiggled back and forth (which actually made a really nice beat) I got the creaking chains of the swing as it swayed in wind. Of course there was always the crunching of snow under my feet. Then someone walked by dragging a toboggan so that was an interesting sound which by sheer luck happened to be isolated.
As I walked back to the car I passed the skating rink, the people seemed to be concentrated on their hockey game and not talking anymore so I got lucky again and recorded the sounds of skates on ice, the noise the puck makes as its being hit with stick and the noise it makes as it hit the backboards.
The Ste-Annes train runs over the intersection that connects to autoroute 20 so I decided to record that sound as well. I recorded the sound of the train coming in. Stopped it and then recorded just the squeal of the breaks as an isolated sound. I take the train everyday so it was pretty easy for me to time this properly. I also got the beeping the train makes as a warning that it’s about to leave and the squish of the air as the train drives off.
All these sounds were recorded with the built-in Edirol mic. I tried the handheld mic when I was recording in the phone booth but I found the mic handling was too loud and the quality was not good not to mention it was freaking cold so I liked having one hand in my pocket!
In terms of other technical considerations, I just made sure the mic gain was on low and the levels stayed between 12 and 24. When it came to quiet sounds like the swing or the toboggan I had to make sure the input was higher (between 75-80) and when it came to louder sounds like the train I lowered the input to the 60’s.
Overall I’m pretty happy with the quality of my recordings, I’ve never done sound before, I don’t have the best hearing and I’m really not musical so I was kind of worried about this class. Doing this sound walk, though helped me focus on sounds I wouldn’t have really heard before which is helping improve my aural sensitivity and I’ve always wanted my level of auditory achievement to improve.