Weirdest thing you've ever done for sound

Question

Today, I was at my work recording the internal motor of our birthing simulator (you really can never have too many servo sounds), and I noticed that the sound of the birth itself (the plastic baby exiting the silicone birthing canal) was ALMOST worth recording.

Who knew you could fit a microphone there?!

So, I lubed up my hand and was basically porno-style fisting our mannequin because it made a decent noise. I had the decency to close the curtain to that particular bay, but I can't imagine anyone who walked in (unless they were from this forum) would truly understand what I was doing.

So, I ask you... What is the weirdest thing you've done for the sound of it?

On a related note, does anyone know how to get silicone lube out of a windjammer? — Dave Matney, Apr 01 '11 at 19:44
Ahahahahahaha!!! Even if this is an AF, it's still hilarious. I'll have to search the depths and see if I have anything crazy. — Syndicate Synthetique, Apr 01 '11 at 20:08
@Syndicate, this is totally real.
@Fred, I'll try to get the sounds up asap. — Dave Matney, Apr 01 '11 at 20:33
That is both fairly intriguing and somewhat disturbing. Not sure which feeling is taking precedence. However, I am quite interested in hearing the resulting sounds! — Colin Hart, Apr 05 '11 at 05:51
I was wearing slightly-textured nitrile gloves, which made a sound every time my fingers rubbed together. The results were promising other than that -- I still have to clean it up, though. — Dave Matney, Apr 05 '11 at 13:11

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 03 '11 at 01:37

2

I've trekked across marsh land on my own at 3am in the morning not really knowing what I might find, but hoping to find something interesting to record.

And I happened to be in luck. At around 4am-5am I came across this:

[soundcloud]audious/sea-bird-dawn-chorus[/soundcloud]

I've got about 45mins of this in total, maybe more.

I don't know if that counts as doing something weird... but I certainly felt like a bit of weirdo at the time :).

answered Apr 03 '11 at 01:37

Audious Sound

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That's awesome. It's kind of terrifying, really... Is this about when the birds woke up? – Dave Matney Apr 03 '11 at 18:19
Yeh, the sky was just starting to brighten up when I got there, but it was still dark when I first heard it about 1/2 mile away or so. I have never seen anything like it before. Amazing to experience. – Audious Sound Apr 03 '11 at 18:58
@Audious Sound, Harrowing. What kind of birds were they? Sounds to me like they might be crows, but I know nothing of birds. – g.a.harry Apr 04 '11 at 12:24
@g.a.harry They were mainly seagulls, with a few other English seaside birds. This was about 1/2 a mile away from the English Channel. There was 1000s of them. – Audious Sound Apr 04 '11 at 14:54
It's lovely - very strong! Can you tell us what equipment you used (pretty new to field recording myself)? – Markus Apr 07 '11 at 10:55
@Markus I just used a Fostex FR2 and a Rode NT4 stereo mic (with windshield ofcourse). – Audious Sound Apr 08 '11 at 10:56

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 05 '11 at 17:20

A while ago I had a project that had a CGI sequence that tracked through the digestive system of a character that was about to vomit. I have a bunch of mild food allergies so I ate a couple things that mess me up a bit and then slapped my Aquarian Audio H2a-XLR Hydrophone on my stomach as a contact mic and recorded the madness that ensued. I got some amazing groans, rumbles and squishes. Worked like a charm in the final mix and after a good night sleep I was back to normal. (I feel like I might have told this story before on SSD but could not find it)

Recently I did some more internal recordings and posted these up on my audio nerd blog, check them out: http://www.azimuthaudio.ca/azimuth-blog/2011/3/19/stomach-rumbling.html

@Azimuth, That's what I call dedication to the craft. – g.a.harry Apr 05 '11 at 18:14 — g.a.harry, Apr 05 '11 at 18:14

g.a.harry · Answer 3 · 2011-04-03T15:25:54.660

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I put my H1 in a ten foot long, 4 inch pipe and went to the video store to rent SoundTracker. Not that weird in and of itself, but it is the first time I've ever set a piece of gear down and literally walked away.

[soundcloud]g-a-harry/pipe-resonance-1[/soundcloud]

edited Apr 03 '11 at 15:25

answered Apr 03 '11 at 04:32

g.a.harry

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I've thought about doing that with my h4n... It has an awesome hum to it -- I see why Ben Burtt did something similar for the land speeders. – Dave Matney Apr 03 '11 at 18:20
@Dave, Totally. I've been planning a science fiction radio drama for quite a while and could never figure out how to do the hover cars. Now I know! – g.a.harry Apr 03 '11 at 18:44

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 04 '11 at 06:16

I just did some ADR recording for a film that's more interesting rather than weird.

We were matching dialog that was recorded on a $250 point and shoot camera. This camera was mounted to a helmet which the main actor wore throughout most of the film. What we needed to do was record a speaker phone from the main actors perspective and here's how we did it:

1) Conferenced myself with the other actors as a talkbalk. The room mic created feedback because everyone was on speaker phone. One of the actors was at his house so this is how he communicated with myself and the producer.

2) Had the main actor wearing the helmet with the camera attached.

3) Rolled video (to later strip audio from) and a room mic as a reference for each take.

For the rest of the actors we taped the helmet rig onto a mic stand and had to roll video for each take. It was very tedious to go back and strip the audio out of nearly 90 quicktime videos, but overall the dialog matched production really well. Worth it!

Was the helmet-cam as the main audio source some self-imposed limitation? Or was it a budget thing (which I can fully understand)? — Dave Matney, Apr 04 '11 at 17:55
It was a big part of the story. The characters in the film create amateur webisodes using a hidden camera. Most of the film is their hidden camera footage. — Dan2997, Apr 06 '11 at 00:22

Weirdest thing you've ever done for sound

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