A bunch of new people joined us this week, again, it is hard to worry about new people as the group is changing all the time, but great as well. I find myself a bit anxious as to how new people are responding to the informal nature of the group, but hopefully it will be OK. Ellen’s second workshop was to take us out soundwalking, so John and I put equipment into bags, so there would be microphones, headphones and recorders for all. This is a crazy job as we have the most eclectic range of equipment known to humanity. Currently this is our list:
1 Marrantz recorder, 2 Olympus recorders, three directional microphones, 2 sets of Behnringer headphones (borrowed from the Don Snowden program at Guelph)
2 MAudio portable recorders and a Rhodes shotgun mic (belonging to the ICASP project at Guelph)
1 MAudio portable recorder and a range of microphone cables (borrowed from Steve Mason, his personal collection)
3 microphones and some audio cables (borrowed from CFRU Radio)
5 Sony voice recorder (as part of Teaching Support Services)
10 pairs of headphones and 1-4 laptops (borrowed from the wonderful College of Arts Media lab)
People’s own equipment (including a fabulous old school recorder the size of a cat belonging to Mike Mucci, a member of the group and a range of personal recorders)
Everything has different pick up and drop off schedules, requires different charging and batteries and needs to be wiped before each session. This may send me mad!
We spent the first half hour learning how to turn on, set the levels and plug in mics and headphones, I think the people using voice recorders didn’t learn as much as the ones using the MAudios etc, but hopefully we can keep swapping the recorders around so everyone gets familiar with them.
Ellen’s sound walk was great, we went through the basement of the building where we meet, outside across lawn and grass near a main walkway, and into the library. We went up and down the elevators and stairwells, around the drink machines, someone even caught sounds by the phone operator on the public phone. It was great to see such a range of people exploring the campus and pointing their microphones in strange corners of the world. Whilst it was just an exercise, some people stayed behind to save their sound files because they had captured some great sounds. I really like Byron’s operator, and Charlie Antony’a careful exploration of the world. Dharesi, Irene and Gwen also got some brilliant sounds in the library and amongst the leaves on the lawn, which we managed to save by luck as the recorder they were using was not wiped properly, a lovely piece of serendipity as the sounds were very cool!
We also showed off the changes to the website and got feedback, which was fantastic!
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ICASP is a Major Collaborative Research Initiative, based at the University of Guelph, sponsored by the SSHRC
