As a resident of NYC, I’m always looking for ways to get out of town.  Thanks to my in-laws, the Missus and I have a place upstate New York to get away when the grind of NYC starts to get us down.

We get the opportunity to spend a tremendous amount of the weekend watching the Delaware River roll by.  The section of the river that we spend time on divides two small towns in New York and Pennsylvania respectively. If you want to cross state lines you have to cross this bridge:

It is this great old metal bridge that has a metal surface that sort of looks like a cheese grater.  It lets out a great low rumbling hum when cars pass over it.  Back in the winter I made some recordings with hydrophones in the water below, but I wanted to return and record it with my Schoeps MS pair above the water.

In this recording I positioned myself under one end of the bridge and let the traffic roll over me.  This is just a snippet of a place I could spend hours lost in thought.  Who knew cars could be so soothing?

Recording Geek Note: Rig consists of Schoeps CMC5’s setup for MS, with the MK4 as the mid. It was all tracked to a Sound Devices 744T at 24/96

Lately I’ve been working on a series of underwater and hydrophone based recordings for a sound library.  One of my first stops was my brother-in-law’s pool for some scuba sounds.

He’s a trained diver and he was nice enough to let me come out for the day and put him through his paces.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t get started until late in the day because of this sound:

I consider it a happy accident.  Initially I was really frustrated because I couldn’t figure out where this low frequency sound was coming from and I needed to record scuba sounds!  I kept looking around and there definitely wasn’t a nuclear sub in the pool!  My brother-in-law and I quickly discovered that a neighbor down the block was having his driveway ripped up and repaved.  All of that low frequency information was traveling from down the street and under the pool.  So what do you do when you have a loud hum?  We went out for lunch and then I took my nephew and niece out for ice-cream.  By the time we returned to the pool we were free and clear of construction hums and we could make all of the bubbling sounds we wanted.

Recording Geek Note: Rig consists of 2 Aquarian H2a Hydrophones. It was all tracked to a Sound Devices 744T at 24/96

I’ve been running this blog for over 3 years now, and it is with great excitement that I announce the establishment of Rabbit Ears Audio.  After years of recording for myself, I’ve decided to launch my own independent SFX library company.

My first library, REA_001 ROCKETS features a number of rockets that I’ve posted previously on this blog, and, in honor of the launch, I’ve decided to put up two of my favorite rockets from the library.

This is an large scale amateur rocket recorded at a close perspective with a pair of Schoeps in an MS configuration.

This is slightly smaller Rocket recorded at a close perspective with a pair of DPA 4060s.

They were truly a blast to record.  Here is a little background from the Rabbit Ears Site:

I recorded these rockets on two separate occasions.  The first session was in Plaster City, California, where temperatures soared to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit before noon.  The second session occurred in Pine Island, New York on an onion farm.

One of the biggest challenges when recording rockets is battling the high SPL and developing strategies to overcome it.  Before I did any recordings, I went to a launch and spent half a day just listening.

After working around lots of hobbyists and their wonderful creations, I have a pretty explosive collection of sounds.  None of my microphones or their owner were harmed in the making of this library.

This past weekend, the Missus and I went to a big wedding up in Hunter, NY.   The couple was married in a beautiful wooden Ukrainian Catholic Church that was built without a single nail.

The acoustics in the place are just beautiful.  Surprisingly, the acoustics in the church were not the biggest attraction.  Just outside the church is another hand-built structure: the bell tower.

The bells were sounded for the arrival of the couple and at the conclusion of the service.  I was lucky enough to weasel my way into the bell tower to sneak in some recording time.

Even though there were still some people in the church driveway, I managed to get a fairly clean recording.  If you listen carefully you can hear the creaking of the ropes and pulleys that the bells rest on.

Recording Geek Note: Rig consists of Schoeps CMC5’s setup for MS, with the MK4 as the mid. It was all tracked to a Sound Devices 744T at 24/96

I have a confession to make.  I’m a coffee addict and I don’t want to do anything to change.  I’m truly in love with the brown substance and over the last year I’ve become accustomed to the sound of our coffee maker.  My sister-in-law was nice enough to buy us a new coffee maker when we move back to New York, and it is the gift that keeps on giving.  I’ve been in love with our Cuisinart Grind and Brew since the day we took it out of the box.  We often set the machine up at night: there is nothing like hearing the beans grind and smelling them brewing.

I don’t know why it has taken me this long, but I finally decided to record the grinder in our special coffee maker.

The first section is the Grind and Brew dry fire, and it is followed up with a grinder full of beans.  It has a nice whirr to it, and it is truly a sound that I cannot get enough of.  If you could only smell the aroma!

Recording Geek Note: Rig consists of Schoeps CMC5’s setup for MS, with the MK4 as the mid. It was all tracked to a Sound Devices 744T at 24/96