Getting Out a Bit

Like a lot of us, I've not been out of the house much (today is the 91st day of quarantine/social-distancing for my family and me).  As I've written recently, summer is my time of year, so being stuck "on the compound" (as a friend of mine recently said) is especially depleting now.  I've gone out for a few drives in the country, though, and today I had the idea to investigate a bridge I discovered on one of those sojourns.  It's in a lovely little bit of verd that follows Little Gunpowder Falls in northern Baltimore County.  It's a steel bridge, but it doesn't have the corrugated decking that makes tires hum in that marvelous way (which I love so much); instead has plates that rattle when driven over, so it makes rather a racket in the midst of the woods' symphony.



There's a small pull-off of the narrow road to the north of the river and I was delighted to see well-trafficked trails leading off along it when I arrived.  Unpacking my field recorder, I trekked up and down the first hilly quarter mile or so and back before I decided that the most interesting sounds were to be found in the middle of the river in direct line of sight of the bridge.  I may have ruined my sneakers. 

What I like about this recording is the constancy of the water's play over its stones punctuated by the almost rhythmic rumble of the bridge.  As the recording goes on, the ear begins increasingly to notice and appreciate the gaps between crossings.  Different vehicles leave, of course, different sonic trails, some more and some less subtle (and occasionally disturbing).  The birds sing nearly as steadily as the river and you can almost hear the soft greens and deep browns of the glen as shiny metal boxes hurtle across the gray structure and along its carbon ribbon feed. 

This was recorded on a Zoom H4nPro (seen in the track art).  It is unedited except for about five seconds I deleted from a long silence during which I banged my water bottle 🤦; it is otherwise unaltered.  My aim here was to get as close to the sound I wanted in the original recording so as to require little or no tweaking in the studio (the equivalent of "in camera" effects in film).  I would have liked a little more panning as vehicles crossed the soundscape, but getting that brought me closer to the rumbling steel plates and away from the river's plash, so this balance represents my best compromise.  Initial review was done in Audacity and editing and export was done in Ableton Live 10.