This Library Sucks!

THE ART OF THE SQUEEZE

It was a dusty day in the studio when a piece of packaging foil from some new gear got sucked into my vacuum — and it sounded fascinating. I immediately wanted to capture that squeezy-farty flapping suction noise but needed a way to isolate it from the motor. I headed to the hardware store, grabbed a 20-meter plastic hose, and gaffer-taped it to the machine. Initially, it produced an extraordinarily loud and unbearable screaming sound. That’s where the Sennheiser MKH 8040 and the Sanken CO-100k high-frequency mics entered the game. And a pair of good earplugs.

MICROSCOPIC PASS-BYS

For the final part of the recording session, I routed the tip of the hose out of the recording room, miked the hose in the middle, and covered everything with absorbing elements and blankets. Feeding small items like chickpeas, rice, and screws into the hose produced incredibly distinct, close-miked pass-by sounds. When pitched down to half or quarter speed, these tiny particles transform into bigger objects — like debris or water bottles flying past, almost completely separated from the wind that carries them.

ULTRASONIC FREQUENCIES

Most of these recordings were made using microphones capable of capturing ultrasonic frequencies up to 100kHz. While some of the sound files are already pitched down (usually by one octave), the delivered 24bit / 96kHz resolution allows you to pitch them even further down without losing the full audible frequency spectrum.