--- In "oryoki2000" <> wrote:
> I think a "cultural earcon" must be a sound that people come to
> associate with some state or condition through exposure to the sound.
> Examples might be the high-low sound that the sirens on European
> emergency vehicles make. To a European, the sound has come to mean
> "alert - make way." To a visitor from another part of the world, the
> sound would convey the "alert" message, but perhaps not the "make way"
> component, a cultural difference.
By chance, last Thursday,I recorded the "high low" sound as I was
doing a first field trial of my DIY triple capsule boundary mic (some
5 months after building it!). The sound is towards the end of the
siren.mp3 file:
m("btinternet.com/siren.mp3","//uk.geocities.com/g0sbw");">http:
The recording was made on a busy London road, Green Lanes, in the
Finsbury Park area. The road runs from left to right and at its
closest is 40 yards away from the mic. At 11 o'clock are a group of
people practising rock climbing on the stone walls of a tall Victorian
water pumping station. This point is about 80 yards away.
The emergency vehicle can be heard approaching but then switches off
its sirens, apparently making good progress with flashing lights
alone, until just level with the mic position. It then gives a burst
of warning noise to clear its way through a set of traffic lights. A
lot of distortion in the recording at this point. The triplets are
very sensitive. The minidisc recorder was set to high sensitivity but
the record level was only 8.
The triplet mic was used to record a very different environment
yesterday. This is an area of salt marsh in north east Essex. The
geese.mp3 file is a snippet from the recording
m("btinternet.com/geese.mp3","//uk.geocities.com/g0sbw");">http:
Relatively, this location is a lot quieter than the London street.
The mp3 has some 300 Brent Geese coming back to their overnight
quarters after a day of foraging in the nearby farmland.
Unfortunately it also has a noisy fishing boat also returning to its
mooring.
This sounds a little under recorded with the record level set to 10
and the mic sensitivity high.
Seems I need more experience to get the best out of this mic.
Photos of the mic are:
m("btinternet.com/p8310077.jpg","//uk.geocities.com/g0sbw");">http:
m("btinternet.com/p8310078.jpg","//uk.geocities.com/g0sbw");">http:
m("btinternet.com/p8310079.jpg","//uk.geocities.com/g0sbw");">http:
m("btinternet.com/p8310080.jpg","//uk.geocities.com/g0sbw");">http:
Cheers
Tom Robinson
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