Technologies and Recording
In the era when the first sound recorders were built, people started recording not only instrumental music but also the sounds of nature.
Example
The early phonograph cylinder had 2 needles, one for recording and one for listening. In 1887 the first vinyl was created and offered a more precise reproduction of the sound source printed into the grooves on the surface of the records. Vinyl records began to dominate the market. As they were more resistant and flexible than the shellac sheets record that preceded them. They offered higher fidelity. less noise and were also lighter in weight. Those early recordings were only mono, all the way through the 1950s. In the 60s, stereo was established, the ability to reproduce sound 2 speakers added spatial depth to the listening dimension.
As technology progressed, the fidelity of recordings greatly improved. Here is a short timeline of the evolution of recording tools:
Sonic Environment and the tuning of the world The Soundscape page 71
The Electrical Era 1910-1940
The recording technology started using in war world 1 they use to recorder sound of the enemy to eavesdrop. But in this era they use the acoustic sound recorder. After world war 1 they developed the sound recorder to use in the army. Effect from world war 1 is destroying nature.
The 'second wave' of sound recording history was ushered in by the introduction of Western Electric's integrated system of electrical microphones, electronic signal amplifiers and electromechanical recorders, which was adopted by major US record labels in 1925.Sound recording now became a hybrid process -. sound could now be captured, amplified, filtered, and balanced electronically, and the disc-cutting head was now electrically powered, but the actual recording process remained essentially mechanical - the signal was still physically inscribed into a wax 'master' disc, and consumer. discs were mass-produced mechanically by stamping a metal electroform made from the wax master into a suitable substance, originally a shellac-based compound and later polyvinyl plastic.
The Magnetic Era 1940-1970
After war world 2 technology grew up. The recording equipment grew up from acoustic to tape but still in the acoustic era. The effect from world war 2 affected the recording equipment. In world war 2 they use recording technology to eavesdrop in good quality and better than war world 1. And still being developed continuously
The third wave of development in audio recording began in 1945 when the allied nations gained access to a new German invention: magnetic tape recording. The technology was invented in the 1930s but remained restricted to Germany (where it was widely used in broadcasting) until the end of World War II. Magnetic tape provided another dramatic leap in audio fidelity — indeed, Allied observers first became aware of the existence of the new technology because they noticed that the audio quality of obviously pre-recorded programs was practically indistinguishable from live broadcasts.
The Digital Era 1970-Now
The fourth and current "phase", the "digital" era, has seen the most rapid, dramatic and far-reaching series of changes in the history of audio recording. In a period of fewer than 20 years, all previous recording technologies were rapidly superseded by digital sound encoding, and the Japanese electronics corporation Sony in the 1970s was instrumental with the first consumer (well-heeled) PCM encoder PCM-1 Audio Unit, introduced in 1977. Unlike all previous technologies, which captured a continuous analogue of the sounds being recorded, digital recording captured sound by means of a very dense and rapid series of discrete samples of the sound. When played back through a digital-to-analogue converter, these audio samples are recombined to form a continuous flow of sound. The first all-digitally-recorded popular music album, Ry Cooder's Bop 'Til You Drop, was released in 1979, and from that point, digital sound recording and reproduction quickly became the new standard at every level, from the professional recording studio to the home hi-fi.
Documentary sound recordists
Documentaries make use of professional sound recordists who specialise in recording soundscapes in nature. Here are a few of the main field recordings practitioners who use recoding technologies to capture the sounds of the natural world.
Bernie Krause
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Bernard L.Krause was born December 8, 1938 is an American musician and soundscape ecologist. In 1968, he founded Wild Sanctuary, an organization dedicated to the recording and archiving of natural soundscapes. Krause is an author, a bioacoustician, a speaker, and natural sound artist who coined the terms geophony, biophony, and anthropophony.
Chris Watsons
Christopher Richard Watson born 1952 is an English musician and sound recordist specialising in natural history. He was a founding member of the musical group Cabaret Voltaire, and Watson's work as a wildlife sound recordist has covered television documentaries and experimental musical collaborations.
In 2006 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Technology degree by the University of the West of England "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to sound recording technology, especially in the field of natural history and documentary location sound".
Field Recordings
Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human produced sounds. Field recording of natural sounds, also called phonography, was originally developed as a documentary adjunct to research work in the field, and foley work for film. With the introduction of high-quality, portable recording equipment, it has subsequently become an evocative artform in itself. For underwater field recordings, a field recordist uses hydrophones to capture the sounds or movements of whales, or other aquatic organisms. In the 1970s, both processed and natural phonographic recordings became popular.
Techniques
Plan
Planning is an essential part of field recording. more importantly, There are many things to think about when planning a field recording trip,
Here are three tips
1.What do I want to record?
2.What will the weather be like?
3.What time of day should I go?
Listen
Before you set your equipment up, take a moment to observe your surrounds. Close your eyes and take note mentally of everything you hear. As you sit in silence, notice how the landscape comes alive with sound.
1.Spend 5 minutes in silent observation
2.Make mental note of observed sounds
3.Determine position/orientation of mics that maximizes diversity
Fine-tune Microphone
1.Balance Use headphones to isolate your recording from ambient noise
2.Adjust microphones for perfect balance
The impact of recording technology on our perception of the natural environment
Today.we Can listen to recordings of natural sounds anytime and you can record it anytime anywhere. It’s good that we can preserve any sound we like but i believe it also has a negative effect. People are not longing for nature anymore and listen to recorded sounds much more than actual real sounds.. In the 20th century the sound recorder was very popular in society. Composers find the sound recorder to record instruments and nature.
“The Soundscape R.Murray Schafer The Sound of life p.73”