Ambient noise... use/abuse

J

Josh English

New member
Hi, I'm new to this forums (as I am to home recording.) Hopefully I'm in the right place. Anyway, I was recording a song that was primarily simple accoustic guitar and vocals. To try and fill out the sound I started experimenting with ambient noise. I started out placeing an old army mic in the corner of the room I record in while recording (on top of the normal micing of course.) Although I liked the sound, I decided it ended up seeming to un-profesional. I was wondering if anyone has experimented with the use of ambient noise and if they have any advice (ways it works, doesn't work, storys, you name it.)
Thanks for any advice you can give me,
Josh
 
My best experiences came with a handheld tape recorder and various things; a oil heater in the basement is great with noise, crowds are excellent, really open rooms with echo noises... the best thing is something with a constant sound, like the oil heater, or a fan, or rain... etc etc. And the handheld tape recorder makes it nice and saturated and... well, I think that's mostly a personal thing. I like ambient noises to be lo-fi. But if you can mic the source and get a proper recording of it, it might be what you'd prefer.
 
Nothing unprofessional about using room ambience to augment what you have recorded or are recording. Lots of major engineers use room ammbience on their tracks. I've set speakers in another room bussed a sound to them and miced the room to capture the natural verb.

In Cutting drums there might be some ROOM mics in addition to the close micing of the kit.

It's sound. Have fun.

Unprofessional is not caring about what you do. :)

Bryan Giles
 
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