Field Notes

This is a slow, personal collection of ambient sound — rain on different roofs, rooms before anyone arrives, machinery settling down for the night. Nothing here is edited beyond a fade at each end.

Entries are added whenever there is something worth keeping, which is not often. Durations are approximate.

Recent entries

• Rain, tin roof, late August14:02
  Steady for eleven minutes, then a gust that changes the pitch entirely.
• Empty tram depot, 05:4008:31
  Distant compressor, sparrows in the roof space, one door.
• River under a low bridge21:17
  Best with the gain low. The bridge hums when traffic crosses.
• Library reading room, winter33:05
  Almost silence, which turns out to be a radiator and forty people breathing.
• Wind through a pine break12:48
  Recorded twice, a year apart, from the same spot. The second is included.

Notes on method

A small handheld recorder, 48 kHz, no processing. Microphone placement matters far more than equipment; most of these were improved by moving two metres.

The archive is not indexed and has no search. Browsing it in order is the point.