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Re: First attempt at thunderstorm recordings

Subject: Re: First attempt at thunderstorm recordings
From: Walter Knapp <>
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 20:20:29 -0400
Rob Danielson wrote:

> Gordon Hempton has a very nice CD.   The best results I've achieved 
> came from multiple recorders/mics running at the same time set for 
> three levels: distant rumble/presence, close lighting and close 
> thunder/distant lightening.  Even with multi-track editing,  the 
> dynamic range is so huge it's very hard to create the impact of a 
> close lightening strike and include much volume from the other 
> elements in the mix. A mix with a variety of sustained rumblings is a 
> good situation to start working with.  If you ever get a chance to 
> record a thunderstorm moving over without rain, jump on it-- you can 
> do a lot more if you can mix in rain separately.  Rob D.

I'm stubborn enough to keep trying to do it in one take. Though mixing 
is the obvious way.

Trick I've found there is to have the frogs close, and if rain is 
involved the rain heavy. That way you can keep from having to up the 
gain much to get the frogs and rain.

It also helps to be using the MKH-110's. They seem to handle this far 
better than any other mic I've tried. They can definitely soak up a lot 
of energy without having problems. Probably because they were originally 
designed for such jobs as instrument mics for testing things like jet 
engines and such like. They also give you a lot more of the low 
frequency components.

Here it's not common to have good thunderstorms without rain. But at 
least they often have very sharp delineation for where it's raining, so 
it's fairly easy to get tucked under one and avoid rain.

Walt




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