Recording outside?

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benherron.rrr

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So with summer well under way and uni finished for the year, I think its time to experiment.

Ive been toying with the idea of going outside to record a nice acoustic song. I live on a farm with a crap load of land so finding a quite space would be easy.

So has anyone tried this? do you think its a good idea (I am aware im not the first person to do this)? can you think of any veriables I should take into consideration?
 
The main things to be aware of are wind noise and damp / humidity.

You will need you make sure the microphone is effectively windshielded (eg: Rycote basket windshield kit or foam windshield if the air is still - or a foam windshield with a Rycote mini windjammer over it).

You also need to be aware that normal AF and electret condenser mics can go noisy or crackly with moisture (hence Sennheiser MKH RF condensers being the industry standard for film and TV work outside because they do not suffer from this problem). If it's a nice dry day you should be OK with good condensers, providing the diaphragms have not become contaminated (contaminants like smoke and dust can stick to the diaphragm and absorb moisture and then cause noise and crackling).

You will also need a good battery recorder.

The music will sound very different, because out in the country side it will be similar to an anechoic chamber with nothing to reflect back at you - so choose the spot carefully and good luck.
 
Baaaaaaa ! I hope you don't have hayfever.

I think it sounds like a great idea but you're being way to optimistic in believing that summer's here after 6 gorgeous days ! Especially up north pal !! :eek:

Seriously though, what John Willet said makes lots of sense. But let me ask you - do you not want some random ambient country sounds in the back ? Imagine finishing a great song and then capturing a loud long peel of thunder or just as you're going to an acoustic solo of some sort, a buzzing of a wasp or the bleating of a goat.
 
Yes.

make sure there is no wind...


it will blow the sound all over the place. :rolleyes:



you will have to sprinkle the fields liberally with talcum powder....




:cool:
 
Exactly grim you can be in the middle of no where and think that it is quiet as can be, you do a recording listen back to it and BAM there is mother nature just singing away.

That and it sounds a little weird in the great outdoors thin/different. You just can fill up the great outdoors with sound.

Now you could find a few *special* places like a ravine, some caves, or cliffs all of which will give you their special features.

When your done please post your results ...it's always interesting to hear experimentation with sound and it's recordings.



:cool:
 
moresound said:
^^^:laughings:^^^
Glen, do they read or post here on HR?
Click to expand...
The guitar player lurks on occasion, but he's an old, old friend of mine; we go back together some 28 years, and he knows both my sense of humor and that I (and everyone who knows him) think he's one of the finest guitar players in the metro area. As far as "my sax player", I don't have one. I know a few go-to sax players, and they're good, but we really don't have a mainliner sax player on staff. So that's also kind of a dead giveaway to these guys that it's all just a joke. :)

Now, my washboard player, on the other hand....yeesh! :rolleyes:


:D


G.
 
Many moons ago, I recorded at Long View Farms, outside of Boston. In the "barn", we recorded drums and guitars and the sliding doors, windows, etc where all open. Not exactly outdoors, but there was nothing "acoustic" about it, in the sense of keeping the "outside" sounds from getting in.
No problems. Fresh air and all the nice natural light was nice.

I'm sure if the birds tweeting was a problem, they'd a heard it over the monitors.
 
I read about a band (can't remember who now) that recorded at "Real World Studios" but set up on the lawn and did the recording outside because it had a great vibe and the sound was what they were looking for.

Don't forget most live albums / concert DVD's have been recorded outside.

I have recorded ambient nature background outside, and let me tell you that when you are after some natural bird calls you can hear car tyres on the road from over 2 miles away.

Cheers
Alan.
 
I've always struggled to keep Mother Nature OUT of my recordings...

Nothing worse than getting a perfect take only to have a cockatoo go screeching overhead as that last held chord is fading away...

RAAARRRKKKK!

And don't get me started on crickets...
 
mixmkr said:
Many moons ago, I recorded at Long View Farms, outside of Boston. In the "barn", we recorded drums and guitars and the sliding doors, windows, etc where all open. Not exactly outdoors, but there was nothing "acoustic" about it, in the sense of keeping the "outside" sounds from getting in.
No problems. Fresh air and all the nice natural light was nice.

I'm sure if the birds tweeting was a problem, they'd a heard it over the monitors.
Click to expand...

I live in NH and was at long view on many occasions working and hanging ....what a place huh mixmrk ?
If those doors weren't open the heat would kill.



:cool:
 
I think it all depends on what you're trying to record. Slash can drown out a lot of squirrels, although most living things will wisely run away from a cranked up band. If you are playing acoustic, the crickets can win. If you are near water, frogs can do some cool effects. I used to have a raccoon that would come out to hear me play in the back yard. He was mostly quiet, but the crows that liked to harass him weren't. I like to record birds on purpose, which is a challenge in the field. It seems to me that with very few exceptions, the world is made of concrete or plants, or a combination of the two. Concrete has its own sounds- traffic and sirens, media and refrigerators. Plants have their sounds- wind and rain, and the voices of life. I recently got to do some recording at a bird sanctuary in Jamaica, trying to close mic a hummingbird! What the hell? There's actually a good market for stock effects. Even the A-team needs jungle sounds for a good movie, 'cause even on location, the effects and stunt guys have set off enough explosions to scare every real creature out of that section of the jungle. Besides, it's an excuse to go to a jungle. I made some recordings at Chichen Itza, also.-Richie
 
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Richard..... Chichen Itza? Isn't that the Ancient playing field that you can hear a whisper Down the other end of the court some 300 yards away!
Mush like those domed ceilings that one walks under with the same whisper effect.
 
benherron.rrr said:
So with summer well under way and uni finished for the year, I think its time to experiment.

Ive been toying with the idea of going outside to record a nice acoustic song. I live on a farm with a crap load of land so finding a quite space would be easy.

So has anyone tried this? do you think its a good idea (I am aware im not the first person to do this)? can you think of any veriables I should take into consideration?
Click to expand...




what "sound" to your recording are you shooting for...?
recording outside will give you a "sound"...in the case of acoustic guitar if you record "close" it'll sound like a recording that lacks reverb, dry but airy...if you record distant you will incorporate the surroundings...so...what "sound" are you shooting for...? and if you only record one part of your recording outside itl stand out...good thing..? bad thing..? duno..its up to you...

:rolleyes:
 
moresound said:
Richard..... Chichen Itza? Isn't that the Ancient playing field that you can hear a whisper Down the other end of the court some 300 yards away!
Mush like those domed ceilings that one walks under with the same whisper effect.
Click to expand...

Yeah, theres a spot like that in the old capital building. If you listen very caefully at Chichen Itza, you can hear the screams of the thousands who died there.-Richie
 
In the 80's the first two albums I released were done in my lanai outside.

It wasn't that big a deal. There were birds in a few spots that we left in but, especially considering that there is a busy road 50 ft from where we were just separated by a door, there was surprisingly few problems.

The reason we had very little background bleed I think was because we did all the mic'ing close. That's why when people talk about the room being a big issue I really don't think it is if you close mic. If you close mic it doesn't matter if you are outside in the Grand Canyon or in the best acoustically designed recording studio in the world, the room has almost no effect on the sound, that's what my first two albums taught me.
 
Other strategies for outside recording

You may want to make sure you have a mic with a cardiod pattern, unless you want the sounds of the outdoors, then you could do an omni pattern.
Or
you could record a straight line in (guitar) to a DAW, then once your take is good enough, you can reamp it in a bunch of cool places to experiment with sounds. The nice thing about this is you already have a good take and now it's just a matter of finding a great place and messing with mics (fun times!) You can also use several mics placed near and far from the amp for a wet and dry channel configurations.
Another idea is to record a whole bunch of outside areas on its own track (or tracks) and your guitar on it's own track.

I bought a really fun XLR to USB converter with phantom power I love for field recordings. The down side is that I do not have the ability to input more than one mic at one time. I recorded about 20 minutes of birds chirping at dawn a while back using a condenser MXL4000 on the OMNI. We are a mile or so away from the freeway, though, and it really picked that up. I just duplicated the channel and did a high pass filter EQ on it, though. Freeway frequencies are much lower than chirpy birds!

If I had a shotgun mic, it would be fun to experiment with...
 
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