In October of 2009, I published a blog post with recordings of my rather noisy steam pipes. It is that time of year again. The temperatures have dropped, and the old-school radiator and steam-based heating is back on.
Our steam pipes are full of character – they gurgle, hiss, clank, and make a host of other noises that I can’t begin to describe with adjectives. Last year, I recorded my steam pipe with a Schoeps MS pair on a boom, but this year I staked out my subject with a DPA 4060 taped to the wall next to the valve.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/7545041″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]Every time the pipe started vocalizing, I punched record. With darkness arriving earlier and earlier, it is nice to add some excitement to my day by imagining I’m capturing the rare call of the Brooklyn steam pipe. Eat your heart out Attenborough!
Recording Geek Notes: DPA 4060 tracked to Sound Devices 744T at 24/96.
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[…] pipe, as captured by a microphone by Michael Raphael of Rabbit Ears Audio and posted on his blog, sepulchra.com. The post follows up a similar one from around this time last year, when Raphael wrote about […]
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Michael Raphael, Nagrit SRL. Nagrit SRL said: RT @sepulchra: New Fieldsepulchra blog post, The Steam Pipe Revisted: https://sepulchra.com/?p=1328 […]
Thank God you found a positive side to steam pipes. It brings back such terrible memories. 🙂 Sounds pretty awesome though!