I was recently out recording in downtown Manhattan and found myself wandering around Soho.  There are still a number of great cobblestone streets that have not been paved over.  I’ve always loved the low rumble that cars make rolling over some of those old cobbles.  Being a cyclist, I’ve had the not-so-lucky experience of turning down the wrong street and having my whole body shudder until I could turn onto another paved block.  I can only imagine what riding in an old horse and buggy was like back in the day.

For this recording, I placed my zeppelin on the sidewalk and tried to look a little inconspicuous, which can be difficult to do when you are standing around with a big furry zeppelin.  Normally when recording cars, I would track the engine of the car as it passed, but, in this case, the mic was pretty stationary, providing a bit of a overhyped stereo image.

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Recording Geek Note:  Rig consists of Schoeps CMC5 setup for MS, with the MK4 as the mid.  It was all tracked to a Sound Devices 744T at 24/96.

I recently took a new job in New York, which meant a departure from the midwest and a homecoming of sorts.  I grew up on the east coast and spent many years living in the Big Apple, but this is my first foray into the borough of Brooklyn.  I thought it would be appropriate to document my first full weekend in the new apartment, so I set my microphones up in the window of my living room and let the recorder roll.

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The first file was recorded at 5:00 PM on Saturday, May 9.  It is full of the typical sounds you would expect: planes, traffic rolling by, kids playing, and city birds chirping.  What I was not expecting was the sound of my neighbor’s cat purring on the floor below me (at least that is what I think it is.)  It occurs about 30 seconds into the recording, so let me know if you think I am right.  The Good Humor man also shows up on two occasions, but you’ll have to listen for that on your own!

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The second file was recorded at 5:00 AM Sunday, May 10. It also features the same city sounds, but it is missing the kids and the cat as I suspect that neither species was up that early.  I definitely wasn’t!  I set the timer on my Sound Devices recorder, let it kick into record on its own and got a few more hours of sleep.