Since I love recording using contact mics, I have a few of them.
They give unique perspective for field recording and results are always unknown, which I find exciting.

In my collection I have (so far):
– Barcus Berry Plenar Wave System 4000
– JrF C-Series contact mics
– JrF D-Series hydrophones
– Aquarian Audio H2a with suction cup

You can use hydrophones as a contact mics, getting interesting results. Recently I have recorded my own heart beat for a feature film “Bogowie” (“Gods”) which I was supervising, using JrF hydrophone and the sound was very nice and interesting (clean and wide range). It gave nicely deep low end.

For JrF mics it’s worth to use Hosa MIT-129 Impedance Transformer, which results in much better noise floor and wider frequency range.

I adore recording using different types of microphones at the same time – shotgun mics, contact mics and/or induction coils. You can get super interesting sounds for designing and layering this way.

For Barcus Berry, first I was using double sided 3M adhesive tape which came up with the mic and when I run out of it I started using Blue-Tack, following Tim Prebble’s wise advices.

Both Tim and the great Ann Kroeber (if you haven’t before, than definitely check this great Tonebenders podcast episode with her, where she’s sharing her amazing field recording experiences) also mentioned using bee wax for attaching contact mics to the surface.
I found natural bee wax in different internet shops: for artists of for kids to play (=artists).

I have compared them all and here are results.
As a sound source #1 I used milk blender engine, which you might be familiar with from my previous post.
Placement of contact mic is extremely important. Even with such a small prop you can get wide range of sounds, attaching it in different places. Barcus mic is bigger / attached in two places, which might give more complex sound.

Below are sounds grouped by the mic:
– Aquarian H2a Hydrophone in suction cup (no adhesive used):
– JrF D-Series Hydrophone with Hosa Transformer (no adhesive used):
– JrF C-Series Contact Mic with Hosa Transformer attached using Blue-Tack:
– JrF C-Series Contact Mic with Hosa Transformer attached using pure granulated bee wax:
– JrF C-Series Contact Mic with Hosa Transformer attached using colored bee wax:
– Barcus Berry Plenar Wave System attached using Blue-Tack:
– Barcus Berry Plenar Wave System attached using pure granulated bee wax:
– Barcus Berry Plenar Wave System attached using colored bee wax:

To compare results I did second round, recording scrapes on metal briefcase.

Here are results:
– JrF C-Series Contact Mic with Hosa Transformer attached using Blue-Tack:
– JrF C-Series Contact Mic with Hosa Transformer attached using pure granulated bee wax:
– JrF C-Series Contact Mic with Hosa Transformer attached using colored bee wax:
– Barcus Berry Plenar Wave System attached using Blue-Tack:
– Barcus Berry Plenar Wave System attached using pure granulated bee wax:
– Barcus Berry Plenar Wave System attached using colored bee wax:
– Barcus Berry Plenar Wave System attached using original 3M tape:

Hydrophones have less transients and details, which is not surprising. Note that I have used no adhesive on them.
JrF C-Series mic is interesting considering it’s price, especially with bee wax.
Definitely Barcus Berry wins this comparison because it’s freq range. Bee wax as I thought gives more high freq details. What is interesting, is that different types of wax gives slightly different timbre/brightness. It’s hard to say if it’s because of mic placement, amount of wax and pressure applied or wax type. But high freq details will be important when pitching down. The second wax (colored one) is a bit softer and mic can be pressed closer to the surface.

Advantage of Blue-Tack and bee wax is that you can reuse it many times and it adheres harder to the surface (you can place them verically, which is hard when using tape).
Blue-Tack leaves no marks on the surface and is quick to use. Can brake paint from the surface, though…
Bee wax leaves marks, sometimes hard to remove. Needs a bit of time to warm it up in fingers, yet after some time is very flexible and can be pressed hard. The mic attaches close to the surface and wax doesn’t suppress vibrations.
I think it’s possible that after some time when wax dries up/hardens, the sound would change.

There are surfaces and situations where you couldn’t use bee wax for sure, but what I learned from this test looks promising at least.
Now time to go out and record!

Water is always very surprising sonically. Walking along the sea shore, which mostly was rocky, I found this great sound of water and air injecting between rocks, splashing and gurgling.

Later on I came back with my Sennheiser MKH 815 to record it. I found out there large variety of gurgles and bubbles. Using microphone foam came out to be a good idea for water protection, letting me to record very close at the same time. The splashes varied from soft to intense, some of them were also very funny sounding.

On the other day, I took my hydrophones and MKH 815 to record some under and over the surface perspectives. I was recording on Zoom H6. I really didn’t want my Sound Devices recorder to get wet and the opportunity of recording 6 tracks at the same time looked promising.

It soon came out, that wading in water on sharp rocks holding a mic was a bit challenging.
Waves were so strong, that I couldn’t hold hydrophones still in one place, not bumping on rocks. Below is a mix of H6 internal XY capsules and MKH 815, fading into a pair of JrF d-series hydrophones mixed with Aquarian Audio H2a (kind of LCR hydrophones setup).

 
The gurgles reminded me of a fountain I recorded some time ago visiting medieval palace garden.
I love finding and recording sounds with character.

It was the first time when I took out my new mics – hydrophones and contact mics made by Jez Riley French.
I have Aquarian H2a hydrophone which I liked. It’s a heavy duty mic, so I have tried it in rough conditions – recording in boiling water or freezing it. It always worked great. What is nice is that it’s quite heavy so it’s easy to dip it in rapid current streams.

But I was shocked by the quality of sound of JrF hydrophones – they have wide frequency range and much less internal noise than H2a.
I was amazed with the sound of tadpoles – they sound like they would like to devour my mics. It could work nice for sound of piranhas.
Here are tadpoles in pond, recorded with both hydrophones:

And another take with a pair of JrF hydrophones, much more intense:

And some samples of recordings in a mountain stream – I’m always fascinated with variety of sounds which I can get in one location with hydrophones, changing its position slightly:

There is never enough birds in the library. Listening to the birds singing is totally relaxing experience for me. Plus I love recording sounds with natural reverb of places.

I left my Neumann MS rig on balcony, recording dawn chorus from 4am. It’s stunning to listen how forest wakes up. And always something unexpected happens:

Later I found this beautifully singing cuckoo in the forest:

And Tawny Owl at night (it was very distant, so I had to use RX on it):

During the day I did comparison test between my trusty Sony PCM D50 (mics in wide position) and Zoom H6 (with MS capsule) recording thunders and rain. They sound quite similar, yet Sony sounds brighter.

During the windy day I attached DPA 4060s to the tree branches to record super close perspective of leaves rustle. Being omni mics they record less wind rumble than cardioids making them good choice for this kind of recording.

As a bonus I recorded heating radiator hiss in a house we stayed with DPAs and a pair of JrF contact mics. Below are different takes of DPAs, JrFs and a mix of them.

In August, I spent two weeks in beautiful places, having recording kit with me of course.
There is no better place to rest for me, than close to the nature. So we decided to go to the mountains.
I learn, that being involved sound editor, every year my listening abilities evolves. I am noticing more specific sounds for the places I visit. And there is no better time than vacation, when there is no rush, to focus on experiencing the world around.
Because I recorded many sounds which I would like to show, I decided to split it in parts.
So this post will be about some interesting sounds and objects, which I found.

First we visited Slovakian mountains. I took some recording gear with me.
Hiking through gorges I enjoyed acoustics of high rock walls. There were many beautiful mountain streams and waterfalls. Here are some sounds of it recorded with hydrophone.

It’s always so surprising to me, how much placement of the hydrophone changes the sound. In one spot so diverse sounds can be recorded.

And here’s one which you can download for free:

Another sound I will always remember from this vacations is the cable railway interior. I did one recording of cable railway before. I liked it much and was very curious how it would sound recorded with contact mic.

So here is two track recording of it: contact mic and DPA 4060.

And another cable railway recording from the past:

Up on the mountains, it was very windy. Inspired by Chris Watson’s amazing wind on wires recordings released recently by Soniccouture, I wanted to try to attach contact mic to metal towers. I found a few, every of them sounding totally different.

Some time ago, I did the same, attaching contact mic and hydrophone in suction cup to lighting tower when there was heavy wind. Absolutely loved that eerie and resonant sound (Left channel – Barcus Berry contact mic / Right channel – Aquarian hydrophone in suction cup).

On the mountains top, there were small mountain pines, which grow above some altitude. Since it was very windy and it formed an obstacle for wind, it sounded amazing. I putted a pair of DPAs 4060 into it.

In the village we stayed, everyday I was woken up at dawn by the rooster. But who would thought how this tiny one will be sounding when pitched down (you can download it for free too):

More sounds to come soon…

Kind of a black hole in the city center. Because of amount of water in it, it makes many splashy, gurgling sounds which resonates inside the container.

The installation was located close to busy road, which made contemplation of it much harder and made it harder to record too. I wanted to try recording with hydrophone and contact mic plus some close shotgun mic takes.

So here is how it sounded from above, walking on and hitting it:

[Neumann KMR 81 & KM 120 MS pair | Sound Devices 702]

It came up that contact mic attached to it didn’t record anything really interesting. Just bumps, shakes of the surface and friction of wires. No water at all. I think it was because it’s built from something like gum, which is too thin and elastic. Contact mics prefer harder surfaces and even though it’s kind of membrane, it didn’t pick up anything useful. Using contact mics is always experimenting, which is amazing and fun.

But hydrophone worked great. We slipped it inside through valve and it gave us what we expected:

[Aquarian Audio H2a | Sound Devices MixPre | Sony PCM D50]

But speaking with the author before recording I came up with an idea of using physical resonators and putting mics inside of them. I wanted to create sound of being inside of something, to express in sound the idea of a hole in the city center.

Inspired by David Lynch technique used for recording music for Lost Highway pointed by Tim Prebble, I took some bottles and carafes of different shapes with me to record ambience of the place. Inside I slipped DPA 4060 mics. At the moment we wore headphones to check levels, we felt in love with the sound.

Every bottle gave different tonality:

[DPA 4060 | Sound Devices 702]

And mix of all resonators (no additional processing used):

I’m a big fan of using convolution reverbs, but reality can be much more interesting. And process of getting those sounds is the same exciting.

I attached contact mic to the window and recorded some nice thunders rumble:

[Barcus Berry Plenar Wave 4000 | Sound Devices 702]

And since it started raining heavily, I put hydrophone on balcony handrail, which gave nice slappy rain falling on metal sound:

[Aquarian H2a | Sound Devices 702]

There were big raindrops, but from this perspective it sounds huge.

And here is a mix of both tracks:

And a close thunder strike, both tracks mixed (thank you Sound Devices for pre roll record):