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!)