Outdoor Gun Recording, Cumbria (14/10/17)

Well this is a bit different; I've just returned from a fun (but loud) time recording guns and rifles in the Lake District with my Futureworks game audio buddies Aaron Turner and Alex Larumbe.

Thanks to Aaron being a member of a shooting club, we got the opportunity to record a gun club going trigger happy on an outdoor military shooting range. As gun and shooting sounds are prevalent in so many different types of video games, I was thrilled to get the chance to collect some genuine gun sounds for my personal sample library. It was a great experience, as it was a really good opportunity to both capture some hard to acquire sounds and put in a good chunk of time to learn the ins and outs of operating the ZOOM F8 field recorder.

Not that you can tell from this picture, but these folorn blimps are picking up some tasty ricochets and reverberations from the neighbouring hills.

As we were there as guests on the range, we of course had to abide by the house rules so to speak. We couldn't take photos of our recording setups on the range as we were the shooting was taking place on military base (and I didn't want to piss off a bunch of dudes with guns) so forgive the lack of pictures on this one. Also, we had to record the gun sounds in and amongst the normal itinerary of the shooting club; in other words, we could only record the guns going off en masse, and not individually catalogue each particular rifle in our recording process. However, as the various shooters began to disperse and head home as the day progressed, we were able to collect some more isolated recordings of gunshots towards the end of the session.

For the majority of the recordings, we used a pair of Line Audio CM3 cardioid mics with a Rode NTG1 shotgun mic going into the ZOOM F8. We set up the mics behind the line of shooters (we couldn't the impact sounds of the bullets hitting the metal targets for safety reasons) and experimented with various combinations of XY, ORTF and spaced mic pairings. On occasion, we also used a ZOOM H6 recorder with the proprietary shotgun mic attachment on occasion to capture the sounds of the blasts at a further distance from the main recording rig.

One problem we encountered during the recording session was that we didn't have the ability to consistently monitor what we pointing the mics at. Due to the ridiculously loud volume of the various rifles going off around us, I didn't want to risk removing my ear protection and damaging my hearing to listen to the incoming mic signals. While this decision helped preserve the structural integrity of my eardrums, it also meant that some of the recordings aren't amazing; listening back to a few of the audio files in Pro Tools today, some of the quieter gun shots sound muted and off-axis; problems which could have been easily avoided in a quieter recording environment.

A secondary problem is that there's also a lot of background chatter on the early recordings as the shooters are nattering away to each other in-between bullet barrages. Clever editing will no doubt help remove the bulk of the gabber, but as it's pretty consistent during the early hours of the session, a lot of this material might just be simply unusable...unless I ever need to do ambient sound design for a game/film scene set in a moderately busy outdoor gun range that is. 

However, despite these flaws, I think that overall the recording session went pretty well, especially considering it was our first time operating the mighty ZOOM F8. I still need to go through and edit the recordings, but from a quick listen I think we've managed to grab some pretty useable stuff. Here's a short clip of a meaty .50 calibre rifle for posterity:

Manchester Field Recording with Martyn Ellis

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to go field recording with audio engineer, Foley artist and all-round audio wizard Martyn Ellis (@Ellis_Audio). It was an incredibly fun and rewarding experience, so I thought I'd throw a few sentences together about it on here!

Over a two-day period, we scouted out several locations around Manchester to record interesting ambiences and capture a variety of city soundscapes; all the while experimenting with different configurations of mic types, polar patterns and mic positions, including mid-side & binaural recording setups.

Along with fellow game audio students Adam Whitehead (@AdamRWhitehead), James Balshaw and Josh Hindle (@BassFaceBindle), we set up our recording gear (including our very own disembodied polystyrene head for the binaural sounds, which definitely drew some funny glances from onlookers) and got to work. Whilst we were out and about, we also had a fortuitous encounter with NJ Apostol - the audio designer from White Paper Games - and got to briefly chat about game audio with him. Very cool indeed!

Fancy a listen? Here's a few samples of what we recorded :

New Bailey Street/Chapel Street Crossroads

Binaural Head Recording - Sennheiser Lav MKE2 Gold Mic Pair

First up is a binaural recording we sourced from the junction of New Bailey Street and Chapel Street, right next to Salford Central station. The mics were taped to either side of the head, and covered with Rycote Ristretto Lav mic windshields to attenuate wind sounds. I like this recording a lot as it's really cool being able to hear a busy detailed audio picture in your head of cars passing by on the left and right. We were even lucky enough to snag the sound of a rattling overhead train as it makes its way into the station.

Deansgate

ORTF Pair - Superlux CM H8Ks with Omnidirectional Capsules

Another roadside recording, this time we were situated on Deansgate, the busy main street of Manchester. As you might have guessed, we were to capture some really beefy passing car sounds from the traffic from this position! The omnidirectional capsules on the Superlux mics really helped to capture the detail of the scene without also picking up extraneous wind noise.

Trinity Bridge Construction Site

Mid-side Pair - Sennheiser MKH 8060 (Mid) and AKG C414 (Side)

For this recording, we set up just outside a loud construction site close to Trinity Bridge. What was good about this location was that the tall buildings and walls surrounding the construction site provided a lot of hard surfaces for all the bangs and engine rumbling to reverberate against, which created a nice sense of distance and depth in the recording.

Big thanks to Martyn for showing us game audio greenhorns the field recording ropes, it was really useful! 

Recording and Production 1 - Creature Comforts (Assignment 1)

After several months of hard work, I submitted Assignment 1 for my Recording and Production 1 module at Futureworks today - phew!

Working with my fellow game audio students Joe Foulds (@Foulds_Joe) and Josh Hindle (@BassFaceBindle), our brief for the assignment was to replace all the original audio from a Creature Comforts clip with our own recorded sounds. I was primarily involved with recording the musical elements of the project, recording and performing Foley work and transcribing and editing the script for the VO actors.

Here's the finished production we came up with:

I’m really pleased with how this one turned out (if I do say so myself). Anyway, onwards, ever onwards; Assignment 2 will be due in shortly, so I'd best get cracking with that!