“This is a cannon… not a huge cannon but a decent sized fairly portable cannon that makes quite a bang. When you pack it with synthetic black powder, ram a chunk of solid steel down the barrel, light the fuse, run for cover, block your ears and wait… it makes a noise, a loud noise. This is the first of many sessions planned with this cannon over the next few weeks and I plan on recording it in many locations. Next location is high up on a cliff overlooking the river where there is not much but solid rock around. I named it the “Cannon on Call” as I can record it pretty much anytime I would like with just a little advance notice and planning.”

Check out the complete story here: therecordist.com/the-cannon-recording-session-1

0 Comments Continue reading

The Recordist:

“This is a video of me recording the sound of emptying a 55 gallon drum filled with yucky, rusty water for an upcoming sound effects library. Quite a workout and sounded like glubs. Enjoy! -Frank”

1 Comments Continue reading

The Recordist:

“Recording the sound of gun powder flare ups and sizzles on April 21, 2012 at my outside concrete floor foley studio.

Recently I have been experimenting with recording different type of gun powder to see which is the most effective at certain things. Some of those things are flare up speed, loudness, sizzle and volatility. So far I have tried three different types and those include synthetic, natural, and smokeless. These three types make a different sound and visual effect. The synthetic burns really fast and bright, the natural has a nice sizzle and of course makes a lot of smoke and finally the smokeless burns slow with sparks and makes a nice deep whoosh sound.

I set up a Sennheiser MKH-416 and a Sennheiser MKH-8040 on my outdoor concrete foley studio (which is very safe for recording fire this time of year). All the types of gun powder were not very loud so I experimented with various distances. At the beginning of the session there was a moderate wind so I had the Windjammers on and kept a close eye on any possible melting (they will melt very quickly, not recommend for use with fire recording). I started out with small flare ups so I thought the Windjammers would be OK and they were fine. After a few takes the wind died down so I took them off and it’s a good thing because I started to use more and more gun power so the bursts was getting hotter.

The video below does not have any footage of the synthetic kind. I used most of it while recording for Ultimate Destruction and I plan on recording more of it in the near future.

I combined the smokeless and the natural kind and got some wonderful fast bursts. I tried a curved pattern which was interesting because the whole thing went up at once NOT in a curve. I also tried long smokeless burns which turned out great for whoosh and flamethrower type sweeteners. I set the gun powder off with a short fuse with one end inside the powder. I found out that if I put too much of the fuse into the powder that it will still be sizzling after the powder has burned off and getting a good deep whoosh without a sizzle at the end was difficult.

As always, I must claim that I practiced as much fire safety as possible. I had goggles, gloves with a extinguisher at the ready. It is very wet here this time of year and the vegetation is saturated or just starting to grow. Yard waste burning is allowed without a permit in the my county at this time. Enjoy! -Frank”

0 Comments Continue reading

Recording the sound of a 1921/1928 over stamped Thompson Submachine Gun. This video cycles through the microphones used on location and some composite mixes of the microphones.

0 Comments Continue reading

Sights and sounds from the recording of North Country Trains HD Professional Sound Effects Library from The Recordist. Part 3: Weeks 8 and 9 of recording freight trains in and around the panhandle of Idaho.

A Sennheiser MKH-8040ST was used for all of the trains in this video. I recorded high speed pass bys in the fog, captured some awesome slack take up coupler impacts and witnessed some cool track vibrations from approaching trains on a curved set of railroad tracks.

Some very close up rail car movements with their slow metal stress actions were also recorded. I was able to get the MKH-8040ST within a few feet of the slow moving rail cars and locomotive engines.

The Recordist

0 Comments Continue reading