I came into this project not wanting to use any effect, but instead keep the sounds as natural as possible, inspired by Jez Riley French’s unedited recordings. When it came to editing, I realised that some of the sounds had so much dynamic range, the boiler for instance with a low rumble and regular loud blips, that it wasn’t possible to include those clips without either having the loud parts clip, or not being able to hear the quieter bits. This meant I had to use a little bit of compression in order to for them within the piece. This has been the only editing I have included, so whilst I am disappointed that I felt I needed to use it, I’m glad that I have barely used plug in effects.
Another problem I have faced when editing, which has not been so easy to fix, has been the huge difference in recordings from the same mic. Trying to piece together sounds from different mics was difficult, but I am facing similar issues with certain recordings from the contact mic. For instance, the contact recordings taken of the metal fence were full of higher frequencies, and contained a lot of natural reverberation due to the material. Compared to the boiler recording for instance, which is much lower in pitch and has very little noticeable reverb, it has been hard to blend these sounds together. Because of this, it is easy to see why recordists such as JRF separate dedicate a track t each sound, and leave them as they are.
Lessons learned:
– Try to keep similar recordings together. Collect sounds that have been recorded from the same type of material, to ensure better combination.