{"id":1030,"date":"2010-03-02T18:30:35","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T01:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/?p=1030"},"modified":"2010-03-02T18:30:35","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T01:30:35","slug":"underwater-finger-cymbals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/2010\/03\/02\/underwater-finger-cymbals\/","title":{"rendered":"Underwater Finger Cymbals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dipping

Dipping struck finger cymbals into water creates some great filtering effects.<\/p><\/div>\n

[Credit where credit’s due: This is a technique I’ve always wanted to try, and I first heard of it in a <\/span><\/em>great video by Roger Gregg<\/span><\/em><\/a>, at around 02:45. The <\/span><\/em>entire series<\/span><\/em><\/a> is worth watching.]<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

So a fellow gets a\u00c2\u00a0hydrophone<\/a>. He’s excited, and starts recording all sorts of crap. But then he has a free hour to himself and realizes that he’s got a box full of sound-making toys and objects that could sound pretty interesting underwater.<\/p>\n

Let’s say I’m that fellow.<\/p>\n

Before work one day, I sifted through said toybox and decided to give this a whirl. In search for a large container to fill with water, I decided to record in the executive washroom of Noise Jockey World Headquarters, and the photos in this post will give you a glimpse of the sumptuous luxury in which we conduct our noisy business.<\/p>\n

Since our high-tech executive spa<\/em> didn’t have a stopper handy, I grabbed a plastic tub and filled it with lukewarm water. I put the hydrophone halfway between the surface of the water and the bottom of the tub, suspended from a boom arm so the cable would be isolated from noise and the mic element wouldn’t sit on the bottom.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"An<\/div>\n

An Aquarian H2-XLR hydrophone set into a tub of water.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

The Aquarian H2a-XLR hydrophone<\/a> is pretty heavy and holds quite still. One gotcha is that a high-frequency hiss can occur from air bubbles forming on the microphone casing. This can be a challenge if the water coming out of your spigot is highly aerated. I’m still working on solving that one.<\/p>\n

I donned a pair of finger cymbals<\/a> (truly something every sound recordist should own!) and dipped one or both of them in the water after striking them together. They went into the water at a 60\u00c2\u00b0-90\u00c2\u00b0 angle, so that they’d not create entry splashes or secondary water drips. This created a really neat tone that combined a pitch bend with a very resonant filter cutoff.<\/p>\n

I’ve attached an edit of the raw recordings to this post. Pitch-bent down or up, obviously, there’s a lot of sonic possibilities for sound design. As with all such experiments I do, I tracked at 192kHz to ensure enough latitude for further sonic malfeasance.<\/p>\n

[soundcloud url=”http:\/\/soundcloud.com\/noisejockey\/finger-cymbals-in-water” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=dd0000″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]
\n[Aquarian H2a-XLR hydrophone into Sound Devices 702 recorder]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Credit where credit’s due: This is a technique I’ve always wanted to try, and I first heard of it in a great video by Roger Gregg, at around 02:45. The entire series is worth watching.] So a fellow gets a\u00c2\u00a0hydrophone. He’s excited, and starts recording all sorts of crap. But then he has a free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[63,4],"tags":[13,174,9,171,22,321,18,176],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1129,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions\/1129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}