Bus Comes Alive! (Field Recording #5)

Near the intersection of 2nd and Everett Street, there was a very eerie progression of noises. It started off with a low whistle, then a sound as if mass amounts of steam were pouring out the rivets of a machine, more squeaking, then finally a giant lurch as the behemoth rode off into the distance.

As one can tell by listening, the recording may sound a bit overmodulated...not my technical best, I can admit. However, it is still one I enjoy more than most of the other recordings I took, primarily because of the squeaking sounds, as well as that booming departure which comes at the end of the clip. It's quite nice, I say; one really gets a sense of physical progression, given some imagination...

Simply put, a bus stopped, picked up people, then started again. Beautiful sentiment though, no?

To hear this tender moment of reflection for yourself, click here.

The Walls in the Mall (Field Recording #4)

To escape from some bitter winter winds, I ducked into Grand Avenue Mall for a little R & R. While in there, I realized that this would be a good place to record, since everything else I had done thus far was outdoors.

Notice how this sound byte has a definite feeling of space (rather, space limited by walls [contained, i guess, is the word]), compared to the others...

To enjoy this clip, click here.

Grate Times (Field Recording #3)

This was by far my favorite sound. I decided to try placing the microphone on the top of a bridge, connected to its metal grate. It's a really cosmic sound, almost sounds like a car noise was run through a flanger several times...

To decide for yourself what this sounds like, click here.

Seagulls Howl? (Field Recording #2)

Standing next to the highway along the river, I could hear a few things. Cars, Cars, cars, a lot more cars....and birds? Yes, several seagulls squawked superbly during this recording, along with a nice bit of real howling wind (something I had hoped to capture at some point, and was able to get a lot of, seeing as how I recorded right along the Milwaukee River under notably windy conditions).

To listen to a fowl howl, click here.

Potty Sounds (Field Recording #1)

This is not as vile as the title might have made it out to be...
To see what the general murmur of the Third Ward might sound like in an enclosed environment, I sat in a port-o-potty next to a construction site for about 6 minutes. Just sitting, listening...
As you can hear, it was quite windy outside of the port-potty...I too am confused as to why it was picked up so strongly...but this was too rare and enjoyable of a sound byte for me to leave out.
The sound you hear comes at the tail end of my time in the crapper, as a worker with an active bladder began to get anxious for the toilet. What you hear is him knocking, and knocking, and knocking. That's correct: I exerted a level of viciousness to retrieve an interesting sound.

To hear the effects of this cruelty, click here.

Drift 1 Strategy

For my first drift, I will start on the western bridge between the third ward and Milwaukee and work onward. My strategy will be this: for every person that passes me on the street within twenty seconds (after I'm done capturing a sound or when i decide to 'start') I will make one turn to the left (so if three people pass me, theoretically, I'll have made a 270 degree turn. Once the twenty seconds are up, I'll begin walking until I stop to capture a sound. Once I do that, I'll repeat the process.

Google Map/Route Link

See a map of my Soundwalk as well as the route I took here!