Digital sound recording

A couple of demos using iSequence on iPad

jhuckle — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:03:07 +0000

Despite a few niggles I am really enjoying iSequence on the iPad.

Here are a couple of demos so far. Things are a little harsh with iSequence and there’s no eq to use so too much playing with the effect filtering can produce harsh results.

First one is the raw output from iSequence (LAME Mp3, VBR7)

Second has a touch of compression and some eq to try to deal with the harsh mids (or could be my new monitor headphones not yet broken in).

Not the best but still getting to grips with the workings. I used a couple of field recordings from a train journey recorded directly onto the iPad while creating the track.

Recording problems using iSequence for the iPad?

jhuckle — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:21:10 +0000

I’ve been using iSequence on the iPad to do a bit of tracking and sequencing and it’s a fantastic application – the iPad I’m sure will revolustionse alot of audio produciton work – and had some problems using the built in sound recorder.

If you too are getting distorted recordings I’ve found a workaround.

Power off the iPad (hold down the power button and swipe off)
Restart the iPad
Start iSequence and record sound – result is distorted
Shut down iSequence
Start iSequence and record sound – sound is good to go! (within the limits of the hardware)

The iPad isn’t very configurable for recording yet and I don’t see any devices on the horizon to support plug in microphones however for rough and ready instamatic sound snapshots in the right environments, it has interesting possibilities.

iSequence for iPad Record

Classic Aircraft Sound Recordings for iPad

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:37:51 +0000

I’ve created an iPad and iPhone friendly site for listening to the most requested sound recordings at field-recording.org.uk.

Aircraft Sounds on Mobile website

The site is available from Aircraft Recordings on Mobile

“Optimised” for iPhone OS but should work on everything else too.

Let me know what you think!

Wordpress iPad App

jhuckle — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 19:20:32 +0000

I had wondered why there was an app for using Wordpress – as far as I could see, the only bit I would miss by using a web browser would be Flash based stats presentation and the Flash file uploader (which I could never get to work).

The killer seems to be the content/post form is not recognised by the iPad browser as editable!

So this is via the Wordpress app – still a bit buggy on presentation (has some real issues with the keyboard drawer and redrawing the post area) – the spellchecker is nice though.

Tomorrows challenge will be using the iPad at work – luckily I have the kind of job where I can try to make that happen.

New iPad today!

jhuckle — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:35:53 +0000

Ok, so today I finally bought an iPad, something I’ve been thinking about for some time.

So why then? My head said Android but like most people appreciate, that’s not where Apple position there stuff. It’s probably not going to replace a laptop and I doubt I can do any sound editing or composition on it (now), but from the people I know who already have them, there is always something new, so who knows. Audacity on iPad would be nice!

As you would expect there are a few jiggles; cursor keys (ie none), using the keyboard (getting better now).

Supermarine Seafire, June 2010

jhuckle — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:38:27 +0000

I’ve uploaded a new recording of the Kennet Aviation Supermarine Seafire on my field-recording website.

More information available from my field-recording Supermarine Seafire (Continue reading Supermarine Seafire, June 2010)

Creaking Fence

jhuckle — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:52:15 +0000

A process recording of a creaking fence. A good few days last week there were no aircraft flying which meant a good opportunity to record in the backyard.

This recording last about eighteen minutes. My intended target, the fence, lost out to repeated calls of an ice cream van. Exploring the sound a bit with some filters brought out a very eerie, ethereal feel to the plaintive calls of the speaker.

Composing for games

jhuckle — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:46:15 +0000

Not my usual line of things but a friend of mine who develops online games asked me to develop a few sound files for some game screens for something he was working on.

It was a screen based brick game, short playing time, repetitive and above all very, very additive.

Some rules I set: must be about a minute long, must compress into 1mb mp3 without losing definition, must be loopable

So here are the first 5, 1 minute long, tracks I came up with. The game has 12 screens, so I’m going to be a bit busy (as well as trying to remain original) to do the rest.

Track 1: This is used as the first screen track, also for the menu

Track 2:

Track 3: Some ‘dramatic’ orchestral samples

Track 4:

Track 5:

The sound of Mars Express

jhuckle — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:40:53 +0000

A French amateur radio operator was able to record and convert the signal of the Mar Express probe’s X-Band transmitter into an audio file. More information plus a sample of the recorded sound is available from here.

The equipment from an abandoned telecom uplink site used to listen in on the ESA’s Mars Express space probe wasn’t enough to allow download of the actual data.

“Listen here to the whistle of Mars Express as it hurtles towards Phobos and consider that this signal was generated on Mars Express by a transmitter only slightly more powerful than a light bulb.” – http://webservices.esa.int/blog/post/7/1058

Lip reading mobile phones

jhuckle — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:39:01 +0000

Some intersting potential for a new midi controller could be possible after some reseach and development carried out by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology into creating mobile technology which reads the users lips. A development of this could be to create a midi expression interface?

Current applications highlighted are communication in silent environments or where the phone user may disrupt other users and the transmission of confidnetial or sensitive information – not to mention “having a quiet word” in public.

A post from Cellular News covering the story.

A link to Karlsruher Institut für Technologie