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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Chi-Town Sounds: Chicago Through My Ears

Downtown Chicago at Night

Click play>>> <<<Click play

Overview:

So, this is the final post for Chicago: Through My Ears; my personal web project for Writing for the World Wide Web at Columbia College in Chicago. My intent with this post is to keep it short and leave all of you with the final compilation of the audio that I have recorded throughout the semester. This piece of audio does not include each recording in its entirety, but you can most definitely tell which sound came from which recording over the past weeks. This has been a fun experience for me so I hope all of you have enjoyed hearing Chicago through my ears!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Medical Helicopter (Recording: Part #7)

Medical Helicopter  in Flight
Click to Play Audio>>> <<<Click to Play Audio

Why This Sound?
  • Unique "chopping" sound of propeller blades
  • Heard all over Chicago
  • Reminds me of Children's Memorial Hospital (Top-rated hospital in Chicago)
Living near Children's Memorial Hospital, the sound of medical helicopters arriving and departing has become a sound that I hear pretty often. It can be depressing thinking about the child who is suffering in the helicopter, but we try to stay positive around the house so when we hear the chopper hovering above us we tell each other that it is delivering something to save a child's life! Regardless, in the six months or so I have lived here, the sound of a helicopter overhead is a sound that will forever remind me of Chicago.

Recording Location:

 The actual recording of the helicopter was taken from my front porch, but the helicopter was just above the heli-pad on top of Children's Memorial Hospital. The recording captures just how close my apartment is located to the hospital.

Technique:
  • Timing
  • Mic-placement
Again, the hardest part of this recording was capturing the sound of the helicopter (which I hear about 2 times a week) in the short amount of time that it hovers above the hospital. Timing has proved to be one of the key factors in this kind of field-recording that I have been doing over the past few weeks. As for mic-placement, I chose to not use the external condenser mic and just use the built-in microphone to capture more ambient sound. To record I simply faced the portable voice recorder in a horizontal position with the face of the recorder pointing up towards the source (the helicopter).