It's the time of year again when us Brits celebrate the failed plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament by blowing stuff up. So as usual I set out with my recorder to try and record some of this pyrotechnical mayhem. After a bit of advice from Chris Sweetman I decided to set up a few hundred feet away from the fireworks and people using a shotgun mic and tried to capture some of the reflection of the bang as well as the bang. I ended up with some good stuff and some bad stuff, quick selection of highlights below.
Recorded @ 192k/24bit with a Rode NTG-3 and a Fostex FR-2
I encountered a few problems with recording fireworks that hopefully I'll be more prepared for next year;
- Fireworks are LOUD, this may seem obvious but they are. On some of the larger fireworks the pre-amp on my FR-2 was clipping with the pre-amp trim at its lowest level. (time to invest in some in line pads)
- Be reaaalllyyy far from the crowd. I thought I'd be far enough away from the crowd but I wasn't, the more eagle eared of you lot will also notice a dog bark on one of the recordings. This was due to a terrified Labrador running round the field I was in. Who takes a dog to a fireworks display?
- There's no indication when the fireworks are going to start so if you have it have Pre-Record on and be ready.
So as usual its the general public that run everything! Don't they know we're trying to record sound. If only it was this easy to shut everybody up.....
Thanks to Charlotte for taking the pretty firework pictures.