Jez riley French

Had a great talk from Jez, a sound recordist and sound artist he came in to talk about his work and how he got started with his recordings. He does a lot of his work with contact and hydrophonic microphones. Although he has been at it for a long time he said that he still has no idea what sounds he’s going to get and that wind, temperature and time of day all affect the sounds he will capture. One thing that I really found useful was how long I should record for, usually on locations I will record for around a minute for wildtracks but for his recordings he was suggesting recording around 20-30 minutes at least. One, because any animals that were in the area being recorded are going to be disturbed by the mics and need to be given time to settle. And two because for the first few minutes our ears won’t really pick up these sounds when they’re being played back but once they are noticed it’s easy for us to heard patterns so looping them won’t be as natural and enjoyable. My favourite thing about the talk was his DIY approach, I’m all about winging it and hoping for the best. Since the talk I’ve gone out and bought my own bits and bobs to make a contact mic, it doesn’t work yet but I’m going to give it another bash and try some recordings with it. The first real sound I’m planning on recording is the sound of the springs inside my guitar.