The Sounds of Kart Racing
Join me on the trackside at a Grampian Kart Racing Club meet (14 August 2022)

Join me on the trackside at a Grampian Kart Racing Club meet (14 August 2022)
Please see my previous post and then join me as I try to record the tranquil sounds of the River Deveron, near to Banff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It clearly isn’t my day for field recording! Today is a public holiday and I would expect any self-respecting farmers to take a day off. Not in Banff. So please enjoy the tranquil sounds of the River Deveron passing you by and the delightful sound of a f**king tractor pull a rake around a nearby field. Using my directional parabolic mic (DM), I can hear the sounds of tractors and other industrial noises several kilometres away.
Join me at the Vritomartis Naturist Resort close to Hora Sfakion, Crete as I listen to the very busy bees and other insects buzzing around large plants close to our beautiful room which overlooks the Libyan Sea. You might also hear the occasional bird!
Join me here in wonderful Crete as we listen to a large herd of sheep passing close to the chalet where we are staying at the Vritomartis Naturist Resort in Crete. The sound of sheep bells (the sheep have bells around their necks for some reason) really is one of the wonderful sounds you will hear on this most delightful Greek Island. I can also highly recommend the Vritomartis Naturist Resort. A wonderful hotel in all respects.
Join me for my rather warped idea of what it would sound like if you were sitting in the middle of an internal combustion engine. Best with headphones on….
All done on my Machine Mikro.
Join me as I try to imagine the sound swooping swallows would make as they fly around the sky over our heads. I always think that swallows are avian jet fighters and yet so graceful. I could watch them for hours…
All sounds created on my Machine Mikro (what a clever little box it is!)
This is what happens when you put the sound of surf crashing onto rocks (see my previous post) through Adobe Audition filters (flanger, phases and echo). Quite a noise! Best with headphone on.
Join me at a bird colony on a rock which sticks out of the sea just West of Portsoy, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. If you listen, you will hear the sea washing around the column of rock and the birds, who cling to and nest of the sheer rock face (see image) and make an almighty noise. You can hear the natural echo as the bird sounds bounce off the cliff faces which surround the rock column. You will hear seagulls, gannets, razorbills, cormorants and many other birds – all squawking away. You’ll hear ‘peak squawking’ at about 2 minutes.
Recorded using my parabolic mic and a Zoom H6 (my Zoom F6 still missing in transit!)
Join me on the beach at Portsoy, Scotland where the stream that flows down from the hills crossed the beach and flows into the sea.
Join me and listen to the waves crashing onto Portsoy beach. Portsoy is in Aberdeenshire, Scotland and was the setting for a Peaky Blinders episode last year. Portsoy has some wonderful walks in and around this most delightful town. The harbour is also well worth a visit. By the way, I used my panoramic microphone (1 dish, two mics) to record the sound.
Join me on a KLM flight and listen to the safety briefing many of us, I suspect, don’t listen to.
Join me as I try to record bird sounds in the wood only to have a light aircraft fly overhead…
Join me as we all take off in a modern helicopter (best with headphones on).
Join me in the departure lounge of an airport (we’ve all been there!)
Join me an enjoy the sounds of a wedding in an old Norman Church.
Join me for a cup of tea in the cafe in Harrods department store in London.
Join me on one of our British trains. Over the years I’ve learned that the food on our British trains generally is massively overpriced and doesn’t taste so good (French trains so much better in all respects). Please note that it is the train loudspeaker system that is delivering quite badly distorted sound (along with the badly distorted sandwiches!). Brexit = terrible food!
Join me at a British train station as the train makes ready to depart, and then departs.
Join me and enjoy the sounds from our dog walk in the woods near to Duff House in Banff, Aberdeenshire, this morning. You’ll hear the sounds of woodland birds, including a fine woodpecker, streams and all the other sounds (including, if you listen very carefully, golf ball hits from the nearby Dufff House Royal Golf Club.)
All sounds recorded on my parabolic (directional) microphone using a ZoomH6 recorder (My Zoom F6 still hasn’t arrived!). The sound was mixed (using adaptive noise reduction) using Adobe Audition.
The Walk in the Woods…
Please join me for another ride on one of Amsterdam’s wonderful trams.
Join me as I submerge in my own private submarine…
Join me as we take a Warp Factor 6 train ride (fun with sound effects in Adobe Audition). Rest assured, however, no British train will ever go that fast – not with Boris Johnson driving. Thinks…..didn’t we invent trains?
Join me along side the high-speed railway track in the Netherlands as an express train whooshes by us at tremendous speed…
Join me for a cup of tea or just listen to a good old sound effect – a kettle boiling in our kitchen earlier this morning.
Join us as we listen to a group of crows squabbling over something…
Join us in our back garden where, because we live on the coast, we have seagulls swirling about over our heads all day. After a while, you stop noticing their shrieking (about a minute into the recording, the seagulls really shout out loud!). You can hear the tiny birds tweeting away. They sit in a tree in the garden waiting to be fed…always hungry.
Join us as we walk along a muddy track in Scotland…
The Walk Along the Muddy Track (in Scotland)
A new microphone system!
I have purchased a parabolic microphone from the Parabolic Microphone Company.
Today was the first day I ventured out into the woods with the ‘para-mic’ to test it out – results below.
Briefly, the parabolic microphone is a directional mic. Basically, point it at a sound source and press the record button (listen to the babbling brook recording above).
On this first try out down in the woods close to Duff House, I forgot to put the ‘wind condom’ on the dish (second image below) and so I picked up quite a bit of wind noise. Moreover, there was a gentle but steady wind through the trees in the wood and that gave me a small amount of background noise which I’ve managed to reduce in post-processing using Adobe Audition.
I used my Zoom H6 to record the sound. I’m still waiting for my Zoom F6 to arrive.
The first recordings will be coming up shortly. Please stay tuned.
Join me for a New Year’s firework display in the Netherlands a few years ago.
Join me on a train travelling across the Netherlands with a group of very chatty ladies.
Join me as we sit in a delightful and vibrant restaurant and coffee house in Amsterdam.