Last weekend, the Missus and I were out in Jersey visiting family and, boy, was it windy! Throughout the weekend, gusts of 35 mph wind were knocking trees and power lines down.  When I heard the sound they made passing through the trees, I was really glad I had brought a kit out to Jersey with me.  For ease of travel, I went with my more compact set up, which consists of DPA 4060s, a Sound Devices MP-2 Mixer and a Sony PCM-M10.

I set up the DPAs on either side of a large oak tree in the neighbors’ yard; after just a few minutes, the tree seemed to be shakin’ it’s thang in the wind.  The diameter of the trunk was substantially wider than a human head, so you really can’t call this a binaural recording, but it is not super spaced out either. In the absence of a cool name for this stereo technique, I’ll call it “spaced trunk pair.”

In December, I managed to capture some nice wind sounds on the west coast of Florida, but I think I am little more fond of this recording.  This wind just seems to have a bit more grit . . .   maybe that’s because it is from Jersey.

Recording Geek Note:  Rig consists of a pair of DPA 4060s mounted stealthily on either side of a big tree.  It was all tracked to a Sony PCM-M10, with Sound Devices MP-2 as a front end.

Back in December, I was in Florida for a couple of days.  It was as a week of unusually chilly weather and overcast skies.  I was hoping to do a decent amount of recording that week, but didn’t have much luck.  One nice feature of the overcast skies and rain was the sound of wind passing through the palm trees.  In this recording I had the zeppelin right between to palm trees whose fronds were overlapping and banging against each other in the wind.

This edit is one of the cleaner passages where planes or cars weren’t rumbling by, and if you listen closely toward the end, you can hear small drops of rain beginning to fall.

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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.

New York City was the last place on earth my wife and I wanted to be on New Year’s Eve, so we retreated to upstate New York where the temperatures were in the balmy low 20s.  We were also treated to several days of snow and high wind: not so great for swimming, but full of intriguing sounds.  I noticed a pine tree creaking and crackling as it shed snow and ice in the wind.  I set up my Schoeps right under the branches of the tree and ran my freezing ass back inside the house.  One of the nicer details is the sound of a little padlock on a gas meter clanging away in the distance.

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If you haven’t heard Wintry Mix Part 1, you can check it out here.

Recording Geek Note:  Rig consists of Schoeps CMC5 setup for MS, with the MK4 as the mid.  It was all tracked to a Sony PCM-M1o, with Sound Devices MP2 as a front end.  I didn’t end up taking my Sound Devices recorder on this trip, but instead packed my new toy, the Sony PCM-M1o, which replaced my crappy zoom h4.   This recording is my maiden voyage using my Sound Devices MP-2 mixer as a front end to the Sony.  I’ve always loved the sound of the MP-2, and I’m really pleased with the results.  The PCM-M1o isn’t much bigger than an iphone and it has a fairly transparent and quiet line input.

This is the view out the back of a cabin in Two Harbors, Minnesota that I rented with some friends in December.  We originally planned to record a train down in Duluth but the weather did not really cooperate.  We were snowed in all weekend and we were lucky to get back on the road by the end of our weekend.  We saw about 13 inches of snow, but after the 8th attempt up the steep driveway of the cabin we made it out.  

Once I realized that we weren’t going to get out to record the old train I had to find something else to record. The porch on the ground level had a couple of nice features:  a few wind chimes, blowing snow, and a grill covered with a tarp that seemed to like to flap in the wind.   You can see one of the wind chimes in the upper left of the above photo and Gitche Gumee on the right.

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For the recording geeks out there, this was recorded with Schoeps CMC5’s in MS configuration.  The gusts of wind and snow were very strong; the recording gear hit the deck on more than one occasion!  The Rycote windjammer needed heavy blow drying when then day was done.

There are a few more photos of the surroundings if you continue reading.

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Some corn rustling in MN.  Recorded on a cold and wet day.

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