Not_Tape: Recent Episodes
John
Recorded on my Zoom H4 from my dashboard, once we broke through the worst of the storm.
My wife wanted sound of the trees up on the mountain, so she dropped me off at the head of a trail and headed back to town with the kids. (I’ve tried to tape nature with them in the vicinity before…their voices carry.)
I hiked in with my field kit and a camera. I’d gone up with the Lewitt airs in mind, figuring I would need the better wind protection I can fit on those mics but the weather did not cooperate. The wind died almost as soon as I set up and didn’t pick back up much in the few hours I was there. I switched to a more sensitive pair of mics without the windshields but I think it was still too subtle for me or my kit to capture.
I may not even leave this recording up. I may have ruined anything that was there it in post.
Recorded at 96kHz on my personal Zoom F6 via a matched pair of Clipply EM272s on my travel stereo bar.
Recorded from just inside the open door of my garage during a fast-moving Thunderstorm. Thunder and rain on concrete along with the same traffic sounds I always get and a train, which I wanted to leave in.
Storm tape never turns out how I like. I need to get rain on a tent, but who has time for that?
Fourteen minutes from the front porch of the cabin we stayed in outside Flagstaff, Arizona, this summer. Late evening, I left the rig on a mic stand zip-tied to the railing in case the wind knocked it down. Ang really wanted the sound of the wind in the aspen trees, a few of which were growing next to the stairs leading up to the porch. You will also hear the birds come up to the feeders nearby.
Recorded from just inside the open door of my garage during a fast-moving Thunderstorm. Thunder and rain on concrete along with the same traffic sounds I always get and a train, which I wanted to leave in.
Storm tape never turns out how I like. I need to get rain on a tent, but who has time for that?
I’ve wanted good campfire tape ever since a certain episode of Nocturne, from a few years ago. Unfortunately, the only times I’ve been camping since then have been places with fire bans in effect. I may take this down later, it’s only up here right now so my wife can listen and tell me what she thinks.
I used a very cold night in January to burn off a lot of fallen wood in our backyard fire pit. No real logs on this fire, just short crackles of sticks and large, ax-shortened branches. It’s about what you would hear any night we’d have a fire, but without people talking.
I’m standing on Jupiter Beach, facing the sea. I’m right where the waves break, although the water touches my tripod legs once or twice. What you hear came through a matched pair of Lewitt 140 Airs into my Zoom F6 field recorder at 96k, 32bit. I stood there with my cans on the whole time. Jupiter Inlet is about 30 yards to my left, and you will hear boats coming in an out along the beach on my side. (The other side of the inlet is private beach, and the jetty is dotted with fishermen) Once the sun is up I notice a couple huddled on a blanket under the sand bank about 20 yards to my right. I have no idea if they were there when I arrived in the dark or if they just got there. Towards the ends of the recording you may hear them or beachcombers in the distance.
This was my second attempt at this beach. On my first try the wind was too strong, even for my good filters. This time the wind was calm and the weather clear so of course I had more boats passing out of the inlet…Which I decided to leave in, it is part of the space after all.
About fifteen minutes along the Guadalupe River where it passes through Kerrville, Texas. I had been to this crossing several times before over the years, but not this particular spot. This is a spot my wife liked when she visited, so I went back a few days later to make this tape for her. It was on a weekday morning, however, so there was more traffic noise on the nearby roads than she had on her visit.
Recorded at 96kHz on my personal Zoom F6 via a matched pair of Clipply EM272s on my travel stereo bar.
I’ve used a Zoom H5 in some capacity or another since 2017 and I love everything about it. (Perhaps because it was my first digital recorder I ever worked with.) The display is simple, I love the gain knob with the safety bar across the front. It’s simple and straightforward. Even when I picked up more advanced equipment— either for work or for my own stuff— the H5 lived in my camera bag. And for the same reason my everyday camera did—to catch whatever came up at the time. Most of the time I had to set the gain once and leave it, so this led to some bad tape sometimes.
To solve this problem (and with some birthday money) I picked up a Zoom H4essential, which has built-in X/Y mics, and…can record in 32 bit float.
I don’t know how I feel about it yet.
Setup in Grenwelge Park along the Llano River just below the suspension bridge. Recent rains meant the river was higher than normal (hence the noise) but I’m only here once a year, and I wasn’t as far in as I wanted to be. To the left, sound of traffic on the suspension bridge and just beyond that water over the lake dam. To the right, the river this out, sounds of wind through the long grass.
Recorded at 96kHz on my personal Zoom F6 via a matched pair of Clipply EM272s on my travel stereo bar.
A thunderstorm rolling through Waco. Recorded from the porch of an events center in Waco. Traffic sounds from Bosque Boulevard. We were setting up for the state art competition but the rain meant most people were holding off bringing in the art. I set this up and left it recording while I worked on other things. I just needed a few thunderclaps to put in our piece about this event in next week’s podcast. Unfortunately the most spectacular thunderclap of this session was ruined by the beeping of a school bus in reverse.
Recorded at 96kHz on my personal Zoom F6 via a matched pair of Clipply EM272s on my travel stereo bar.
It was cold and raining and the sun wasn’t even up yet. We couldn’t set up all of our equipment with the rain so I went out and put my recorder on the dashboard of my car. I let it run until busses started showing up to drop off teams. It’s an H5 and the gain wasn’t set correctly, but I still like that sound.
Recorded on H5 mics with it’s X/Y capsule at 48khz 24mps. I’m thinking about one of their new Zoom recorders with 32bit float, for these leave behind recordings…
I spent summers in Midland as a kid. Dad would take us out here almost every other weekend. It seems to be a lot more popular now than it was. (Although a woman we spoke with in Marathon—a town just an hour and a half drive south—had no idea what we were talking about. So maybe it’s still a bit of a secret) The park sits in the high desert of West Texas on the edge of the Davis Mountains and consists of a camp ground, a few cottages for rent, and a massive outdoor pool fed by the San Solomon Springs. The pool accommodates summer swimmers as well as scuba divers (it’s over 25 feet deep in places, in fact most of the pool is too deep to stand in.) It’s full of fish and underwater plants and stays a constant temperature year round. I hadn’t been in over 25 years and this was the first time my wife and kids have been there. It was so good to be back.
Here’s about 6 minutes of sound from the far side of the pool recorded on my F6 with a pair of clippy mics in A/B stereo. Overall a very good day.
I was heading to Austin for an assignment and traffic had been bad all day. (I even witnessed a crash in the first 30 minutes of the trip. Pro tip: do not linger in the left lane: even if you spot the slowdown in time the car that hits you won’t.) Having diverted in Waco for nitro, I was feeling better by the time I reached this stretch of road. Driving south on 35 through the city always feels like approaching a canyon on a river. The hills start to rise on both sides and you can’t see what’s beyond the guardrails at the top. Then concrete walls rise up and you pass under bridges and the traffic never seems to slow down but get faster and faster till it spills out the other side and you can see trees buildings again. I always feel like I’m going faster in Temple. Unless it’s a day like today.
Crawling along in the center lane, I rolled down the windows and opened the roof. Turned off the AC and the music, and pulled out my H5 from my bag on the front seat. Then let it sit and listen. I couldn’t check levels or anything so you get what you get. About 16 minutes up until my phone rang.
I post this from my hotel room in Austin. I haven’t posted anything here in over a year even though I have plenty of tape stored up. It’s not that I haven’t been making things, I just haven’t been making things for other people to hear.
This might not be relaxing to you. Don’t worry, I have more of the stuff you may be used to. And I’ll get it up soon. (That’s assuming somebody is actually reading this. And if you are, thanks!)
I wanted this to be better than it was. I’ve been up in this forest before but never with the intention getting tape. There’s just too much traffic on the roads, and the hikers mostly casual and noisy. This heavily edited segment was recorded in a bend of the road where a creek crosses under on its way down, right were the aspens begin. This is first of a series heading up the mountain, but the others aren’t much better. I only had a few hours to make this, no time to head deeper into the woods and I wasn’t equipped for it anyway. I’ll hit it again one day.
Almost a year since I published anything here. Time for another thunderstorm as we ease back into it, and this one is perfect for that mood. The rain is soft here and the thunder itself is distant, spaced out among other night sounds. There’s a slow build to this recording. I’m saving the meat of this storm for another file.
Recorded at at 96kHz on my personal Zoom F6 via a matched pair of Clipply EM272s on my travel stereo bar.
It’s been a while since my last update, but not from lack of tape. Here’s a welcome thunderstorm recorded from my Dad’s front porch in Midland, Texas this October. This trip was over a weekend to give my kids a chance to see their grandparents before my work schedule really gets complicated. It felt like much of it, for various reasons, took place late at night. It was a good visit.
Recorded at 96kHz on my personal Zoom F6 via a matched pair of Clipply EM272s on my travel stereo bar. The setup was close to the ground with it’s back to the door (the only place with cover from the rain).
The cover photo for this episode was made very close to where this recording was made, only during a Spring thunderstorm in 2019. Fall thunderstorms seem darker to me, but it could have just been the day.
Every so often I check the stats for Not_Tape.
And I love
How it is so very clear
That Abby is the only person listening.
(The only reason that it’s on Spotify at all is because she asked for it.)
The train tracks cut right through the middle of the town of West, Texas. If you’ve only ever stopped there for kolaches you might not know that. I like it when we have events in West. It’s quiet, the food is good, you can get coffee late, and there’s always a longer drive to the hotel at the end of the night. The view from the back of the high school is nice, too.
The media people are almost always the last ones out. I happened to catch the sound of a passing train as I was working on something next to my car.
This was made on a Zoom H5 from the hood of my car. Some wind noise at the end, I didn’t have a good shield on it. I was in a hurry to get it out of my bag. The last staff member had left and I was working on a laptop on my hood trying to get something posted before I drove back to our hotel.
Episode page: https://www.johnskeesphotography.com/not_tape/2022/3/12/last-person-in-west-high-school-parking-lot-1117pm-3-4-22
I was driving to Waco for an assignment when I hit a bad thunderstorm. Pulled into my usual stopping place in West for a bite to eat and to stretch my legs. I left my H5 rolling on my dashboard to try and catch some of the storm as it moved on. It was one of those storms that caused flash flooding in some places and possible tornados in others. I’ve always liked the sound of rain from inside a car, but these days I’m always the one driving. And you never enjoy it as much when you are the driver.
The cover image for this episode was made during the recording. Weather always complicates our Spring events, but I can never dedicate enough time to capturing it well if I am on another assignment. Aside from one or two exceptions. That little H5 was my first field recorder. I had used one briefly when I was a teacher and bought this one sometime during the pandemic. Even though I take an F6 or one of my work field recorders, this one always comes with me.
Episode page here.
The headwaters of The Wind River, this lake sits in the Rocky Mountains east of Grand Teton National Park. Recorded by a small waterfall downslope from the lake itself. Edited to remove the noise of passing traffic on HW26. You cross the parking lot in front of the lake and climb down among the trees in a space between the lake and the highway to find this waterfall. You can hear it from the road but not see it.
Recorded on a F6 via a matched pair of Lewitt 141 Air mics in ball wind filters and fluffy covers mounted on a stereo bar attached to a tripod. Tied down in a few places to keep it from sliding further down and into the water.
Along Bear Creek before it takes a turn and empties into the Wind River. Recorded from the property of our friends on a F6 via a matched pair of Lewitt 141 Airs inside ball windshields.
They said it’s running higher and faster than normal for this time of year. That there is construction work being done on the damn that feeds this creek, and they are letting out more water than normal. It really is that loud. It’s a constant sound at the cabin, and the sound we fell asleep to in the tent that night.
The Sinks Cave, Wyoming. Recorded from a perch on the rocks just before the water disappears under the mountain. Recorded on a Zoom F6 via a matched pair of Clippy EM272s.
The Sinks are a series of limestone caves that swallow the middle fork of the Popo Agie River in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming. The river is low enough in the summer to actually enter part of the cave, which is where the recording was made. Sitting there, after climbing up the angled back wall, you watch the river flow down hill and then sweep past you in a curve before vanishing into cracks in the mountain. The sound beats on your ears like the water over the rocks right below your boots. They told you that the water will stay underground for over two hours until it regains the surface in a pool called “The Rise”, a quarter mile down the canyon.
Learn more about The Sinks and The Sinks Canyon State Park here.
A slightly different walk thought the area around my hotel in San Antonio. Same neighborhood, slightly different path through the buildings along 410. Hotel coming and going, some talking, car music, traffic, insects, a water fountain, and a staircase.
This recording was also an experiment. I’d wanted to record in 32 float in order to compensate for sudden loud sounds (car’s coming close, hidden dogs barking, etc.) but I don’t have a hand-held stereo mic. So for this walk I recorded on an F6 via the line-out of a an H5 and it’s stereo X/Y capsule. Slightly more handling noise because of the cable into my bag. Recorded at a higher gain on the H5 than I normally would, I think held up with the traffic noise.
Recorded on a Zoom H5 set on a tiny tripod a few feet from the edge of the warm-up pool at one of our State Swimming Championships. Loud as it may seem it’s quite a change from the competition pool.
Sleet and ice falling from our front porch. Recorded on a Zoom H6 mounted just under the cover of the porch. Most of the storms have recorded are at night, so it’s odd to me to hear as many cars as there are. Wind chimes are prominent.
Recorded with the stereo X/Y capsule on a Zoom H6 mounted to a ceiling beam in my garage, pointed up, about a foot from the roof. Rain of course, thunder, traffic, sirens at times. The nice sound of rain on the roof is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of rain falling, but that tapers about at times.
Sitting on my front porch while some of my neighbors blow shit up on the Fourth of July. Traffic, insects, explosions, whistles, booms, cracks, dogs barking, children laughing. I regret the times I did this as a child.
Recorded at night from the balcony of a home I was visiting in Houston’s first ward. Sounds of the city, some traffic, birds and insects, people walking by, and a train passing very close toward the end of the recording. The house was about 100 feet from the tracks.
Recorded in A/B with a matched pair of Clippy EM272s on my Zoom F6. This is the first long recording I have made with these microphones since they arrived from the UK.
A thunderstorm from our front porch, a little before four in the morning.
I set up the array in our living room before I went to bed, trusting that our dog would wake me up. This is my first meaningful attempt at an ORTF configuration for this project and this storm did not disappoint. (The lightning was so bright it would briefly recharge the solar lights in our front yard.)
Recorded on my Zoom F6 at 96k in 32bit via a matched pair of Lewitt 140 Air microphones.
“There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.” ― John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings
An explanation of the content you will find on this feed. Probably the last time you will hear my voice on anything here.
You can listen to that TLDR episode here: TLDR #21 - There Is No Such Thing As Silence. You can find PJ Vogt’s current podcast here. (I’m a fan)
You can find that John Cage interview I mentioned here.
There’s a great NYT OpDoc on Gordon Hempton here.
Other people I wrote about but that didn’t make it into this episode that you should totally check out are Jeff Emtman of the Here Be Monsters podcast (a relevant episode here) and Sara Brooke Curtis (her newsletter is great you should subscribe to it.)