Field recording
Encyclopedia
Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside of a recording studio
. The recording is typically recorded in the same channel format as the desired result, for instance, stereo recording equipment will yield a stereo product. This is in contrast to a multitrack
remote recording
which captures many microphones on multiple channels to be creatively modified, augmented and mixed down to a specific consumer format.
Field recordings can be either of two varieties. Field recording of natural sounds, also called phonography (a term chosen to illustrate its similarities to photography
), was originally developed as a documentary adjunct to research work in the field and foley
work for film. With the introduction of high-quality portable recording equipment, it has subsequently become an evocative artform in itself. In the 1970s both processed and natural phonographic recordings (pioneered by the Environments series
) became popular.
"Field recordings" may also refer to simple monaural or stereo recordings taken of musicians in familiar and casual surroundings, such as the ethnomusicology
recordings pioneered by John Lomax
, Nonesuch Records
and Vanguard Records
.
Field recording experienced a rapid increase in popularity during the early 1960s with the introduction of high quality portable recording equipment (such the Uher
and Nagra
portable reel-to-reel decks). The arrival of the DAT
(Digital Audio Tape) in the 1980s introduced a new level of audio recording fidelity with extended frequency response and low self noise. Amongst these technologies, other popular means for field recording have included the analog cassette (CAC), the DCC
(Digital Compact Cassette), and the MiniDisc
. The latest generation of recorders in use are completely digital (hard disk/Flash
) based. In addition, many are using a Smartphone
such as the Apple iPhone 4
, along with software such as Hindenburg Field Recorder app to do high quality field recording and editing.
Techniques have developed to include creative placement of microphones (including contact microphones & hydrophones for example), diffusion of captured sounds and highly individual approaches from recordists.
projects (pioneered by Charles Seeger
and John Lomax
).
and biomusicology
, most commonly in research on bird song
. Animals in the wild can display very different vocalizations from those in captivity.
, musique concrète
, experimental
, and more recently ambient
was evident almost from the birth of recording technology. Most noteworthy for pioneering the conceptual and theoretical framework with art music that most openly embraced the use of raw sound material and field recordings was Pierre Schaeffer
who was developing musique concrète as early as 1940. Further impetus was provided by the World Soundscape Project
initiated by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer
in the 1970s; this work involved studying the acoustic ecology
of a particular location by use of field recordings. Field recordings are now common source material for a range of musical results from contemporary musique concrète compositions to film soundtracks, video game soundtracks, and effects. Chris Watson, formerly of Cabaret Voltaire, is now perhaps the world's leading exponent of this art, with his recordings used for David Attenborough's series for the BBC, programmes for BBC Radio and many other outlets.
The sounds recorded by any device, and then transferred to digital format are used by some musicians through their performance with MIDI interfaced instruments. A contemporary artist of great success for his compositions is Christian Fennesz
.
Last, but definitely in first place in chronological order, remembered for the importance and the boldness of their projects are Luigi Russolo
, who with the manifesto The Art of Noises
as early as 1913, gave musical value to environmental noise
and then with the design and construction of Intonarumori, the first instruments for making noise, and his close collaboration with musician Francesco Balilla Pratella
succeeded in using the noise coupled to a symphony orchestra. And also Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
who was the main theoretical of the movement called Futurism.
often use recordings from the field e.g. a locomotive engine running, for evocative effect. This type of sound functions as the non-fictional counterpart to the sound effect
.
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
. The recording is typically recorded in the same channel format as the desired result, for instance, stereo recording equipment will yield a stereo product. This is in contrast to a multitrack
Multitrack recording
Multitrack recording is a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole...
remote recording
Remote recording
Remote recording, also known as location recording, is the act of making a high-quality complex audio recording of a live concert performance, or any other location recording that uses multitrack recording techniques outside of a recording studio. The multitrack recording is then carefully mixed,...
which captures many microphones on multiple channels to be creatively modified, augmented and mixed down to a specific consumer format.
Field recordings can be either of two varieties. Field recording of natural sounds, also called phonography (a term chosen to illustrate its similarities to photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
), was originally developed as a documentary adjunct to research work in the field and foley
Foley (filmmaking)
Foley is a term that describes the process of live recording of sound effects that are created by a Foley artist, which are added in post production to enhance the quality of audio for films, television, video, video games and radio....
work for film. With the introduction of high-quality portable recording equipment, it has subsequently become an evocative artform in itself. In the 1970s both processed and natural phonographic recordings (pioneered by the Environments series
Environments (series)
Environments is a series of LPs, cassettes, 8-Track cartridges and CDs created by producer and sound recordist Irving Solomon Teibel for Syntonic Research Inc. between 1970 and 1979. The series consists of recordings of natural sounds such as a seashore with crashing waves or a thunderstorm with...
) became popular.
"Field recordings" may also refer to simple monaural or stereo recordings taken of musicians in familiar and casual surroundings, such as the ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...
recordings pioneered by John Lomax
John Lomax
John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist and folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk songs...
, Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
and Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
.
Techniques
Field recording often involves the capture of ambient noises that are low level and complex, in response the requirement from the field recordist has often pushed the technical limits of recording equipment, that is, demanding low noise and extended frequency response in a portable, battery powered unit. For this reason field recordists have favoured high quality, usually professional, recorders, microphones and microphone pre-amplifiers. The history of the equipment used in this area closely tracks the development of professional portable audio recording technology.Field recording experienced a rapid increase in popularity during the early 1960s with the introduction of high quality portable recording equipment (such the Uher
Uher (brand)
Uher is a German brand of electronic equipment currently owned and licensed by Assmann Electronics of Bad Homburg.The manufacturer, Uher Werke was based in Munich, Germany, and is probably best-known for its former range of portable reel-to-reel tape recorders which were once widely used by...
and Nagra
Nagra
Nagra is the trademark referring to any of the series of mostly battery-operated portable professional audio recorders produced by Kudelski SA, based in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland....
portable reel-to-reel decks). The arrival of the DAT
Digital Audio Tape
Digital Audio Tape is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a compact audio cassette, using 4 mm magnetic tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm. As...
(Digital Audio Tape) in the 1980s introduced a new level of audio recording fidelity with extended frequency response and low self noise. Amongst these technologies, other popular means for field recording have included the analog cassette (CAC), the DCC
Digital Compact Cassette
Digital Compact Cassette was a magnetic tape sound recording format introduced by Philips and Matsushita in late 1992 and pitched as a successor to the standard analog cassette. It was also a direct competitor to Sony's MiniDisc but neither format toppled the then ubiquitous analog cassette...
(Digital Compact Cassette), and the MiniDisc
MiniDisc
The disc is permanently housed in a cartridge with a sliding door, similar to the casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs use a magneto-optical system to record...
. The latest generation of recorders in use are completely digital (hard disk/Flash
Flash memory
Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...
) based. In addition, many are using a Smartphone
Smartphone
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
such as the Apple iPhone 4
IPhone 4
The iPhone 4 is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fourth generation iPhone, and successor to the iPhone 3GS. It is particularly marketed for video calling , consumption of media such as books and periodicals, movies, music, and games, and for general web and e-mail...
, along with software such as Hindenburg Field Recorder app to do high quality field recording and editing.
Techniques have developed to include creative placement of microphones (including contact microphones & hydrophones for example), diffusion of captured sounds and highly individual approaches from recordists.
Ethnomusicology
Field recording was originally a way to document oral presentations and ethnomusicologyEthnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...
projects (pioneered by Charles Seeger
Charles Seeger
Charles Seeger, Jr. was a noted musicologist, composer, and teacher. He was the father of iconic American folk singer Pete Seeger .-Life:...
and John Lomax
John Lomax
John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist and folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk songs...
).
Bioacoustics
Field recording is an important tool in bioacousticsBioacoustics
Bioacoustics is a cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics. Usually it refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion through elastic media, and reception in animals, including humans. This involves neurophysiological and anatomical basis of sound production and...
and biomusicology
Biomusicology
Biomusicology is the study of music from a biological point of view. The term was coined by Nils L. Wallin in 1991. Music is an aspect of the behaviour of the human and possibly other species...
, most commonly in research on bird song
Bird song
Bird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs are distinguished by function from calls.-Definition:The distinction between songs and calls is based upon...
. Animals in the wild can display very different vocalizations from those in captivity.
Music
The use of field recordings in avant-gardeAvant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
, musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...
, experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
, and more recently ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
was evident almost from the birth of recording technology. Most noteworthy for pioneering the conceptual and theoretical framework with art music that most openly embraced the use of raw sound material and field recordings was Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician of the 20th century. His innovative work in both the sciences —particularly communications and acoustics— and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end...
who was developing musique concrète as early as 1940. Further impetus was provided by the World Soundscape Project
World Soundscape Project
The World Soundscape Project or WSP is an international research project founded by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer in the late 1960s at Simon Fraser University. The project initiated the modern study of Acoustic Ecology...
initiated by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer
R. Murray Schafer
Raymond Murray Schafer is a Canadian composer, writer, music educator and environmentalist perhaps best known for his World Soundscape Project, concern for acoustic ecology, and his book The Tuning of the World...
in the 1970s; this work involved studying the acoustic ecology
Acoustic ecology
Acoustic ecology, sometimes called ecoacoustics or soundscape studies, is the relationship, mediated through sound, between living beings and their environment. Acoustic ecology studies started in the late 1960s with R. Murray Schafer and his team at Simon Fraser University as part of the World...
of a particular location by use of field recordings. Field recordings are now common source material for a range of musical results from contemporary musique concrète compositions to film soundtracks, video game soundtracks, and effects. Chris Watson, formerly of Cabaret Voltaire, is now perhaps the world's leading exponent of this art, with his recordings used for David Attenborough's series for the BBC, programmes for BBC Radio and many other outlets.
The sounds recorded by any device, and then transferred to digital format are used by some musicians through their performance with MIDI interfaced instruments. A contemporary artist of great success for his compositions is Christian Fennesz
Christian Fennesz
Christian Fennesz is an Austrian guitarist active in electronic music, often credited on albums simply as Fennesz....
.
Last, but definitely in first place in chronological order, remembered for the importance and the boldness of their projects are Luigi Russolo
Luigi Russolo
Luigi Russolo was an Italian Futurist painter and composer, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises . He is often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers with his performances of "noise concerts" in 1913-14 and then again after World War I, notably in Paris in 1921...
, who with the manifesto The Art of Noises
The Art of Noises
The Art of Noises is a Futurist manifesto, written by Luigi Russolo in a 1913 letter to friend and Futurist composer Francesco Balilla Pratella...
as early as 1913, gave musical value to environmental noise
Environmental noise
Environmental noise is the summary of noise from transport, industrial and recreational activities.The definition is pursuant to the directive 2002/49/EC article 10.1. This directive should give a common approach intended to avoid, prevent or reduce the harmful effects of environmental noise. The...
and then with the design and construction of Intonarumori, the first instruments for making noise, and his close collaboration with musician Francesco Balilla Pratella
Francesco Balilla Pratella
Franceso Balilla Pratella was an Italian composer and musicologist.-Life and work:Pratella studied at the Pesaro Conservatory where he was a pupil of Pietro Mascagni....
succeeded in using the noise coupled to a symphony orchestra. And also Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti was an Italian poet and editor, the founder of the Futurist movement, and a fascist ideologue.-Childhood and adolescence:...
who was the main theoretical of the movement called Futurism.
Radio documentary
Radio documentariesRadio documentary
A radio documentary or feature is a purely acoustic performance devoted to covering a particular topic in some depth, usually with a mixture of commentary and sound pictures. It is broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD...
often use recordings from the field e.g. a locomotive engine running, for evocative effect. This type of sound functions as the non-fictional counterpart to the sound effect
Sound effect
For the album by The Jam, see Sound Affects.Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media...
.
Politics
During the early years of commercial recordings, the speeches of politicians sold well, since few people had radios. The HMV catalogue for 1914–1918 lists over a dozen such records, by Lloyd George and other politicians. Probably the last time such records sold well was in 1965, when the LP "The Voice of Churchill" reached number 7 in the UK album charts. This was immediately after his death.External links
- Early history
- Phonography.org
- Do-It-Yourself field recording advice at Quiet American
- Gruenrekorder
- User-generated mp3-field-recordings
- Soa-te a ISTo
- The Nature Sounds Society Japan Field recording workshop for beginners in Japan.