Black Bamboo Garden

Posted on 01/09/2010 by admin

Here’s a recording I made in 2004, after just a few months with Transom in my life. It’s an odd one – me with a MiniDisc in Beijing’s Black Bamboo Gardens park. Mostly me yakking with pauses. I’ve stumbled across it and found it more enjoyable than I would have expected!
At the time I was working in China Radio International, but had already committed to leaving, to return to Europe. I had my own weekly feature but wanted better guidance, better standards.
Listening now, I think this would make a great programme for CRI, introducing China to foreigners. I would have called it a “meditation”, though now I’d require something more… considered to give it that title.
I seem to have used the pause button on the recorder to edit it on the fly. The audio here is as-transferred from the minidisc.
As wallpaper, I like it! Really been a pleasant surprise this week.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:14 — 52.4MB)

Posted in Audio, Coffeeflavouredtea Audio | Leave a comment

Disk Diving

Posted on 25/08/2010 by admin

For some reason, I wanted to find a programme from late ’06/’07  about falling. Some guy fell down a hole in a farm, in Australia I think, and it was a while before anyone found him.

I can’t remember if it was a ABC thing or a Thirdcoast The Falling Show. Googling got me nowhere. So I tried checking thorough old backup drives in case I had this podcast somewhere.

No joy.

Sorry, I meant, I didn’t find that show, but did find joy. Field recordings I had made in New Zealand. Lots of tuis, some bellbirds, rushing rivers, rain, thunder, and the echos of that disused train tunnel outside Wellington.

Many were my first experiments at Mid-Side Stereo recording, and to be honest, I still don’t really know how to turn those into stereo we can hear.

On this recording, I’ve tried using an image plugin, but I don’t know how much is right much for the figures. AND leaving it as is gives more delay, and greater resonance. So here you go, an unmatrixed recording of me faffing about in a train tunnel. No editing other then when I pressed Record and Stop, and bouncing down to mp3.

I think it sounds cool!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:59 — 5.5MB)

Posted in Appreciation, Coffeeflavouredtea Audio | Leave a comment

Recording in Los Angeles

Posted on 06/07/2010 by admin

It’s fair to say that if you can’t get good tape in Los Angeles, you can’t get good tape anywhere. They people love to talk, and to our ears that are fascinating. Local awareness, inhibition, plenty of volume.

And, well, I didn’t get good tape while I was there last week. (music builds for The Connor Excuse) Well I was with my mother and I’m not yet comfortable being the outgoing Radio-Connor when I feel she’d be made uncomfortable.

So it’s all ears! And that’s great too of course, enriching without being terribly responsible. Yeah maybe I don’t live and love production as much as I do listening!

Hum. I’ve attached a binaural recording I made at Long Beach – but because I wrote this partially on my phone and partially on the MacBook, somehow the description of the audio has vanished. Pfff. It’s binaural, I probably turned my head too much, and I bang the mics a couple of times. But it’s still got nice bits yaw.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:51 — 12.1MB)

Posted in Audio, Technique, Theory | Leave a comment

Tunnel

Posted on 25/06/2010 by admin

A recent tweet by Radiolab‘s Jad Abumrad on ways to die in a train tunnel (!) reminded me of the time I walked through a disused one in New Zealand, in May 2008. It was one of the last recordings I made in NZ.

Maymorn is a request stop on the Wellington – Wairarapa line. At the station, they write the stop name on the ticket with pen, and the ticket collector makes a note of it, telling the train driver to stop there when the time comes.

Likewise on the return leg, the train will only stop if there is someone on the platform.

It’s a bit of a walk up to the disused railway tunnel. There’s a nature reserve and mountain nearby, where I seem to remember there were longer disused railway tunnels – over a km.

I use adjectives in the recording to note the cold. Really they were alluding to how scared I was! Almost like going into shock the first time. With each subsequent trip in, the tunnel changed and the response was easier too.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:00 — 7.0MB)

Posted in Audio, Coffeeflavouredtea Audio | Leave a comment

Back when the phone was stuck there

Posted on 01/06/2010 by admin

Life was different before we all had mobiles.

It was an eara I just skirted the end of – waiting by the phone, relying on the phone, the shared phone, the box that rang – or didn’t.

A time captured in this great dramatic piece: Scanner’s version of Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice, on Ubuweb. Blurb here.

And the Skyped-up kids today think they have it tough…

Posted in Appreciation | Leave a comment

Sunny Sunday South London Freight Train

Posted on 16/05/2010 by admin

Just a week field recording of a freight train this morning. Listen carefully and you might hear a creak of some sort as it goes along the brick bridge above me.

And by field recording, I mean iPhone Voice Memo!

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (769.7KB)

Posted in Audio, Coffeeflavouredtea Audio | Leave a comment

Cantonese Youth Drama Demo

Posted on 14/05/2010 by admin

This is just a demo I made with the excellent Chinese Mental Health Association a few months back. It’s in Cantonese.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:06 — 7.4MB)

Posted in Audio | Leave a comment

Angus Graham: A Profile

Posted on 09/05/2010 by admin

Tada! The first new audio I’m posting here for quite a while: Angus Graham, A Profile.

Angus Graham (1919 – 1991) was professor of Classical Chinese at SOAS. For more on him, please listen to the programme :-)

The intended audience is Sinologists; scholars with a knowledge of pre-modern Chinese or Chinese philosophy.

I’ve made this to mark the start of the AC Graham Memorial Lecture series at SOAS. It’s being hosted by OpenAir.fm. The blurb there will relate directly to the programme and the audience.

I’ve learned quite a lot making this doc. From nitty gritty about techniques in Soundtrack Pro (like using zero crossings), to another step on my long road to the use of music.

I was on the home stretch when I had the pleasure of hosting an informal Q & A with Francesca Pannetta and Alein Dein at In The Dark. They have a fair smattering of Sony’s between them, and in particular Francesca’s description of layering, not just sounds but also narrative, gave me food for thought. I couldn’t see how to add additional, subtle narrative beyond the basic chronology I have there. That is however a new goal for me, for projects yet to come.

And the other big learning point has been towards the end. I’ve had it ready for a few days, but have been sitting on it, figuring out the best way to export it and so on. It’s been a few years since I carried out this role at the BBC Chinese Service, and that was only ever for 14:30 programmes, not 42 minutes as here. I’d welcome any guidance on this!

Oh and 15 years after I bought the LP in a junk shop, I’ve been able to use Chu Chin Chow in a programme!

Some tech notes: most interviews were recorded over Skype, one was in the OpenAir Studio and two were in offices in SOAS. For those, I held a Beyerdynamic M58 and Sennheiser MKH-60 in one hand, each recording to their own channel on a Fostex FR-2LE.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:00 — 19.4MB)

Posted in Audio, Coffeeflavouredtea Audio, Sinology, Technique, Theory | Leave a comment

In The Beginning: Sumer

Posted on 04/05/2010 by admin

Exclusive Preview!

No seriously, this is an exclusive preview. This will be episode two of In The Beginning, a series I’ve worked on at OpenAir.fm. The series isn’t ready for the off yet, but this one is, and I’m kinda proud of it – even more so of the stereo version which will go up on OpenAir. Comments welcome!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:12 — 5.7MB)

Posted in Audio, Broadcast Audio | Leave a comment

In The Dark @ LIDF

Posted on 04/05/2010 by admin

If you ignore me, you’ll not know I’m a thrilled volunteer for In The Dark Radio.

Well, I is.

Listening to five excellent long-form documentaries and a handful of shorts, is good for your sense of radio. Being forced by the situation to focus on the audio is good for your sense of radio. Listening to Alan Hall discuss the programmes with the producers is good for your sense of radio. And hanging out with them in the bar afterwards, cross-introducing friends and colleagues, is good all round.

Hearing great montage work, for instance, has had me going back to items I have on this here website, and thinking Gaaghbuluegh. “It’s a demo for news people” isn’t much of an excuse, I now reckon, coz they are humans and will prefer to hear something good and moving and – wait for it – effective.

The finest learning experience, for me, was Little Women – What Now? by Berit Hedemann. The techniques had been widely spoken of, especially in the UK with its po-faced, unintelligent understanding of journalism.  The best known are the very close micing of the lead character, and the distant micing of a group who, as it happens, don’t win much sympathy from us. But there  was another technique.

She gave a group of 11 years old girls a microphone, and left the room. In a few hours, she had tape you couldn’t dream of. Then meeting her in the bar afterwards, I was struck at how keen she was for people to try new things, how she wished young recruits to NRK’s features unit weren’t intimidated by the reputation but rather tore up the rules and created newness. Properly inspirational.

Other, less professional, high points included: being normal around Alan Hall so not seeing like the brown-nose I would have if I were to say how much I like his work; meeting a real live Radiolab fan (I claimed my first in the wild, though as World Service SM Lisa Hack pointed out, this was more like in the zoo); catching up with radio peeps I’ve not met for years; and hearing Nina Perry’s experiences of working with Radiolab at the World Memory Championships.

Posted in Appreciation, Technique, Theory | Leave a comment