Recording process and the beetle
March 8th, 2009 by lunaman
The Beetle - Penguin editions
Just finished reading The Beetle by Richard Marsh. I purchased it for the beautiful cover as much as anything, but it does fall into line with one strand of my reading at the moment – late 19th/early 20th century horror literature. It drags on a bit, especially in the detective-style last section, but there are some wonderful phrases in it, not least my favourite line:
“I am not proficient in the modus operandi of the hankey-pankey man”
Meanwhile, here’s a typical morning with the sound kit:
- Awake at 4am to drive off to Cothill nature reserve to catch dawn chorus
- Insert two Sennheiser ME66 mics into their respective zeppelins and cover with fluffy jackets (for the wind you see)
- Locate and insert two XLR cables
- Pick self up from floor after tripping over said cables
- Strap Edirol R-09 recorder to Sound Devices MixPre pre-mixer
- Find two batteries for pre-mixer and test power
- Find bl**dy adaptor for headphones for pre-mixer
- Insert XLR cables from mics into pre-mixer
- Locate PC line-in cable (the green ones) and link from Edirol Line-In to pre-mixer Tape Out
- Find another one and link from Edirol headphone socket to pre-mixer Tape Return
- Have a cup of tea
- Test microphones outside the back door – premixer/Edirol combo slung over shoulder, microphones on tripods on the balcony, headphones on ears and ACTION!
- Batteries run out – all replacements are found to be discharged
- Get back indoors, stick batteries on charge for the next 20 hours and read a book until it’s a decent hour of the morning
Yes yes, there’s a moral – get everything ready the night before you go out idiot.
Back in 1762 meantime:
“Intended to have given Mrs Rock an airing but She declin’d going as Mrs Harcourt had been lately troubled with a Fit.”