For some reason I have a thing for bells.
In the last year I have recorded nautical bells, church bells, buddhist prayer bells, gongs, and all sorts of animal bells. Cow, goat, sheep … you name it I’ve probably recorded it.
I didn’t realize that I had a bell problem until recently. I guess there are worse problems one can have, but it is clear I have a problem.
My most recent bell encounter was another set of church bells. I took a drive up to the country in New York state to visit a secluded Ukrainian Catholic church. The church has a bell tower that is its own structure separate from the church. The bells are not struck with a fancy mechanism, instead they required rope and human intervention. Luckily I was not the guy that had to climb the tower. I safely guarded my hearing from a distance.
The largest bell was about 4 feet in diameter and just rings out for days.
I’m not sure what this recent obsession is about, but it sure doesn’t sound bad.
Recording Geek Note: Rig consists of Schoeps CMC5′s setup for MS, with the MK4 as the mid on the exhaust. It was all tracked to a Sound Devices 744T at 24/192.
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