Adventures in Field Recording
I bought a Zoom H4N field recorder a few months ago. I wanted to broaden the sounds I use in my recordings and do some experimental stuff. I don't have a huge field recording passion - I'm not very interested in recording a storm or a train. But I do like recordings of people behaving naturally. It's been fun, the quality is great and listening back to most recordings I feel like I'm in the room again. Which for a lot of situations is more interesting to me than taking a photograph as far as capturing a memory.
So here's a montage of some of the recordings I've done with it since I got it:
Field Recording I [5.4 MB]
- [0:00] Justin (my drummer) has a giant, giant empty room in his basement. This is me trying out the reverb in it.
- [0:05] At a Barn practice I made some jokes about Bryan Adams and then wound up singing Summer of '69.
- [0:25] And then "Run To You" but I couldn't remember any of the lyrics really.
- [0:39] Then, after being exposed to a bunch of ska recently, I suggested the worst combination in the world might be a ska version of Bryan Adams' Everything I Do, I Do It For You. [1:03] And then we improv it.
- [1:28] Total Breakdown in Brad Sucks practice. Next time I'm gonna feed the computer output (vocals and synth) into the H4N. I think that'll sound better.
- [1:55] Rehearsal of I Think You're Alright for a performance a few weeks ago.
- [2:31] As a favor I did sound for a bluegrass show by Yonder Hill. They needed eight microphones but they were very good. This is them doing "Beefsteaks When I'm Hungry, Whiskey When I'm Dry". There is a banjo solo.
- [2:54] My guitarist Ben and his wife performed an intimate Valentine's dinner-music show. This is them covering Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles. On this one I fed the monitor output into one of the H4N inputs so the vocals sound a lot clearer.
- [3:28] At Brad Sucks practice: Ben randomly plays an Irish jig riff, Justin says "dance, leprechaun, dance", and I yell "WHERE'S ME GOLD" in my evil leprechaun voice and then the delay from the microphone makes us all giggle.
It's a sweet little device. Main complaint is I wish it powered up quicker.