Tag Archives: field recording

Brendan Most beautiful sound in the world competition winner Marc Anderson

We checked in with Marc Anderson, winner of the recent Most Beautiful Sound in the World Competition sponsored by The Sound Agency and Beautiful Now, to ask about the winning sound – a recording he calls “Dusk by the Frog Pond”, recorded on site in Kubah National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia.

“It was just by chance I came across the frog pond in Kubah National Park. It appeared to be an ideal location to record, so I set up my microphones and recorder and left them for an hour or so. The forest was pulsing with life – cicadas, frogs, birds, insects. I don’t know if I’ve heard a richer natural chorus than that afternoon in Kubah. Interestingly, one of the frog species which you can hear on the recording was only discovered in 2010.”

Marc describes himself as having, “always had a love for nature. At about the age of 14, I made birdwatching my hobby, enjoying the discovery and satisfaction that comes with seeing new species for the first time. Since then my interest has only grown and I still feel like a big kid with lots to learn.”

In addition to be a professional photographer, in recent years Marc’s become fascinated with the sounds of nature – bioacoustics: “While photography captures one dimension of nature, sound recording opens up a new world of discovery. With the excellent sound equipment available today, I love being able to capture what I feel is even more evocative and more accurate than a visual image, an audio image of a particular location and moment in time.”

You can hear more of Marc’s recordings on his SoundCloud profile, check out his new project called Nature Soundmap, and hear his interviews with Shira White of Beautiful Now and Julian Treasure of the Sound Agency, below.

Jane Creating with Constraints: Recomposed

2013 :: Recomposed is the work of Gilles Helsen, a musicologist and sound artist from Geel, Belgium. With a lo-fi voice recorder, Gilles records the sounds of his daily surroundings. “Every single sound is taken from real life and recorded the very same day as I recompose them. In a way, I rewrite a part of my life in music,” he says.

Similar to writing thoughts in a diary every day, Gilles attempts to compose in a quick, spontaneous way. “My collages are the result of a daily, unpretentious and superficial creativity without having the ambition of constructing autonomous and well-organized compositions.”

Gilles finds organizing the recordings into sets on SoundCloud an easy way to revisit previous recordings. “Sets are a good feature to sort my collages by month. The automatic waveform of the SoundCloud player is a simple but welcome graphical representation of my music (which often plays with dynamic contrasts).”

Hear June’s compositions reorganized into new meanings without the use of additional equipment, software or sound clips. Listening with headphones are recommended.

We’re continuing to profile more creators involved in creating sounds with constraints. Stay tuned on the blog, Tumblr and Twitter this week.

SoundCloud Found Sounds: Competition

Competitive fever is spreading world-wide, so this week we’re trying to capture it in sound.

After calling for submissions, these gold medal sounds made their way to the new Found Sounds group:

yaykitteh gives us the inside scoop:

Colin Hunter captures a crowd’s excitement:

And takes us back to where it all began:

Next week we’ll explore the sound of the World Wide Web. So, think outside the box and submit any sounds that express the nature, feeling or experience of the internet, to the Found Sounds group. The best of the bunch will be showcased in next week’s post!