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Hello, I’m Richard Alan Hannon, an audio field recordist based in northeast Ohio. I love searching out and recording unique high-quality soundscapes and sound effects near and far. As a former newspaper photojournalist who concentrated solely on visuals, I find myself smitten by sound in ways I never experienced before hitting the record button. Let me share my ear-opening passion with you.
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Introducing the Sounds of Idaho. Sounds featured in the library include: Greater Sage Grouse on their lek during mating season; the roar of Idaho and Shoshone Falls during high water events; the flowing Snake, Payette and Boise Rivers captured from varying distances; the sound of wind scraping across the tallest single-structured sand dunes in the U.S., captured with a spaced pair of hydrophones below the surface; a wetland marsh jam-packed with birdsong; dry yellow quaking aspen tree leaves swaying in the breeze on a beautiful fall day; and finally, thousands upon thousands of clamoring migratory Snow Geese on a stopover. Quite possibly the noisiest of all waterfowl, they take flight in unison in front of my microphones.
Telephone Booths features the sounds of indoor wooden and outdoor aluminum telephone booths. From the early 20th century until the last decade, these booths could be found inside hotels, restaurants, offices, state capitol buildings, highways and rest areas throughout the United States. In addition, the library includes sounds of pay telephones that would have been used inside these booths. These include hand crank, 3-slot rotary and 1-slot push-button Touch-Tone telephones.
I used a variety of microphones along with several miking techniques (X/Y, OFTF, and binaural). You’ll hear bi-fold doors sliding open and closed in stereo, sometimes accompanied by an annoying squeal. You’ll listen to coins being dropped into the phone and receivers being picked up and placed back on their cradles. And of course, you’ll hear numbers being dialed. On a rotary phone, each number takes slightly longer to circle the dial, with one being the shortest and zero being the longest.Â
Printing Presses showcases a variety of high-powered and dynamic mechanical sounds from three massive web-offset newspaper presses operating at high speed. In addition, you’ll hear unique mechanical sounds found inside a newspaper’s plate room and packaging department before and after a press run. Plus, I recorded three letterpresses. Each sound is captured with multiple microphone setups at various locations providing detailed and overall perspectives. Listen to presses increasing in speed, humming along at running speed and then coming to a stop. Sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly. I’ve also created condensed versions of entire press runs as they can be long, presenting them as ‘sequences.’ In addition, some sounds have been meticulously edited and presented as seamless loops.
Introducing Vintage Combine, featuring high-quality stereo sounds of a fully operational 1970s-era John Deere 4400 combine harvester. For this library, I found a willing farmer in his late 70s harvesting a small corn crop at his family farm in northeast Ohio. His combine was set up with a four-row corn head. It looks like a set of hair clippers, only much bigger.Â
I made the recordings on a beautiful October afternoon, placing a Sony PCM D100 inside the combine’s cab to capture sounds like door slams, idling and harvesting. The farmer was a real trooper and refrained from making noise during the recording.Â
Several exterior sounds include a pass-by, idling and throttling at different RPMs. Plus, there is an exterior onboard recording of the machine harvesting the field, traveling slowly up and down rows of tall, dried-out field corn. I used a boom pole to suspend a pair of Line Audio CM3 microphones in ORTF over the moving harvester head. From this perspective, listening to corn stalks being chewed up and spit out into the combine’s grain tank makes for a fun recording. Seamless loops of certain sounds are included as well.
For your next farm feature, consider using Vintage Combine.
Bowling features a wide variety of high-quality stereo sounds from the sport of 10-pin bowling, captured from multiple micing perspectives at three different bowling alleys across the United States.
I visited a 40-lane, a 24-lane and an 8-lane alley, all at different times of day and night to capture sounds during league practice (with no music) and sounds with no one in the house besides myself and the manager. I was given fantastic access, allowing me to record from various perspectives. These include from above, behind and beside the mechanical pinsetter machines and next to the pin deck at the far end of the lanes. I also set my mics down next to the foul line, the ball return behind the approach, behind the settee area (where bowlers sit), the concourse area (where bowlers find the snack machines and bar) and halfway down the service aisle beside the first lane. I followed a robot-like lane machine as it traveled back and forth along the lanes, laying down oil at just the right spots. It works a lot like an inkjet printer putting words onto a page.
​​I was permitted to turn pinsetter machines off and on at the back of the house, which was pretty fun. Each one has a switch in the back. Who knew? This allowed me to record just one machine in isolation, or several working at once. I rolled (delivered is the term used by the United States Bowling Congress) a few frames down an alley with no machines running. Machine noise can mask the woosh of a ball passing by. Rolling with the machines turned off allowed me to get this delicate sound like I wanted.
So get yourself an oat soda and a limitless bowl of pretzels. Slip on a pair of two-toned suede bowling shoes, you know, those kind with their size stamped on the heel for all to see, and enjoy Bowling.
Introducing Antique Engines. In it, hear expressive examples of restored late 19th and early 20th-century stationary and moving engines. Some appear to hiss, spit and cough. Others puff and snort. Some just wheeze, gasping for air like their mechanical lives depend on it. My favorite pant like tired old dogs stretched out atop a Louisiana levee at the end of August.Â
I was able to record some engines from start up to shut down. Others were caught during the middle of their displays. Files with too much competing noise were discarded.Â
Each sound is captured at 96kHz/24bit with either a Sony PCM D100 recorder (and its built in microphones in XY) or Line Audio CM3 mics in ORTF using a Sound Devices 702 recorder or Sound Devices Mixpre-D/Sony PCM M10 combination. Also, there are 31 meticulously crafted seamless loops, in case your project calls for them.
Introducing, Vaults, Safes, Keys and Locks. This library contains sounds of massive steel-doored vaults slamming shut, plus a wide variety of safes, keys and locks. In short, there are plenty of tiny clicks, spinning tumblers, jingling keys and loud bangs to use in your next bank heist production, or something slightly less illegal. All recorded at 96 kHz/24 bit with both contact and ‘regular’ microphones.
Certain sounds evoke memories of our childhood homes. By listening to them again, whether by chance or intentionally, we can magically be transported back to that time and place. For me, one sound that is forever engrained into my memory is that of an old vacuum cleaner. Vacuum Cleaners is my attempt at rediscovering the unique sound of the machine I remember from when I was a kid. To my imaginative, adolescent ears, it sounded like a rocket ship, a blimp and a race car. I couldn’t get enough of it.
Included are 35 machines: stick, canister, upright, robot, handheld, hand pump, industrial and central vacuum cleaners, plus antique and modern sweepers, a steam mop, carpet cleaner and shampoo polisher. To my ears, each motor’s unique voice sounds like something way beyond a simple vacuum cleaner. Vintage uprights howl and roar like rocket ships, classic space-age canister vacuums whine like futuristic hovercraft. There’s a central vacuum that can suck the life out of you and an antique pump vacuum that gives off eerie breath-like sounds.
I recorded some machines while sweeping back and forth in front of my microphones. For others, I captured them in place, in line with my belief that these motors sound more like rocket engines than vacuum cleaners. I created loops when a file allowed for it. To record a wooden Adler-Royal sweeper at an antique store, I asked the owner if I could walk around the store and sweep the aisles. She said yes, so I slung a Domke bag over my shoulder and gaffer taped a pair of contact mics to the sweeper. The result sounds like a muffled boulder going down a hill.
Machines Recorded
• Adler Royal Zephyr wooden sweeper
• Bissell ProHeat upright carpet cleaner
• Craftsman 9-gallon Shop vac
• Dirt Devil Plus handheld vacuum
• Dust Care sweeper (the non-motorized kind you see in restaurants)
• Dyson DC 25 upright vacuum
• Dyson DC 41 upright vacuum
• Electrolux Diamond Jubilee 1521 canister Vacuum (1984)
• Electrolux Sanitaire upright vacuum
• Eureka Airspeed One Turbo upright vacuum
• Fairfax Fax-O-Matic canister vacuum (circa 1992)
• Filter Queen Model 200 canister vacuum (circa 1939)
• Hoover Constellation model 842 canister vacuum
• Hoover Constellation model 858 canister vacuum
• Hoover shampoo polisher
• hydro vacuum excavator pushing out 62000 cubic feet of air per minute (current)
• Jaeger Jr. hand pump vacuum (1913)
• Kenmore 10341 stick vacuum (current)
• Kenmore 31140 upright vacuum
• Kirby Dual Sanitronic 80 upright vacuum (1967-1970)
• Kirby Heritage II upright vacuum (1984-1989)
• Kirby Sentria upright vacuum (2006-2012)
• Miele C3 Cat and Dog canister vacuum (current)
• Miele Dynamic U1 Twist upright vacuum
• Miele Powerplus upright vacuum
• Miele Quickstep stick vacuum (current)
• Riccar handheld vacuum (current)
• robot vacuum (current)
• Royal 501 Prince handheld vacuum (circa 1980s)
• Sebo Airbelt D4 canister vacuum (current)
• Sebo Automatic X4 upright vacuum
• Shark Navigator upright vacuum
• Shark steam mop
• Simplicity multi-use stick vacuum (current)
• Vacuflo Acclaim 12 Electric Powerhead central vacuum (current)
Evocative Sound and Visuals presents Abandoned Prison, featuring sounds captured at the historic Ohio State Reformatory (OSR) in Mansfield, Ohio. Included are nasty squeaks, loud bangs and deep thuds from the cavernous empty prison’s cell block doors and massive chapel door. Files are recorded from multiple perspectives with contact microphones and omnidirectional mics in a baffled-omni setup.
Periodical Cicadas features the sounds of millions of periodical cicadas singing en masse. There are extended drones and screeches, up-close wing-fluttering pass-bys and multiple pharaoh, or mating calls. Two broods, XXII and V, were recorded in 2014 and 2016 respectively.
Hear cicadas fluttering inches away from the microphones. I climbed an 80-foot tall fire tower to be where the cicadas sang their loudest. I also positioned microphones atop wide vistas and open fields adjacent to woods to capture the cicada’s near-deafening drones.
Except for cicadas fluttering back and forth directly overhead, landing on me, and having to keep calm, quiet and still while recording, I thoroughly enjoyed making this library. It’s a small library packing a big sound. I can’t wait for the next brood to emerge in southeast Ohio next year. I hope you enjoy using this cicada-mania wall of sound for your next project.
Evocative Sound and Visuals is pleased to announce the release of Electromagnetic Fields. This library contains 163 meticulously crafted and mastered sounds from 68 devices and structures captured in high-quality stereo with a Sony PCM D100 recorder and two small induction coil microphones. Included are hums, drones, beeps, bleeps, buzzes, glitches, pulses, static and more strange sounds I cannot describe.
With few exceptions, we mere mortals can’t hear the electromagnetic fields (EMF) surrounding us. If we could, we’d go crazy, especially in our ever-expanding electronic environment. We can tune our ears into this other sonic world using induction coil microphones. I never knew quite what to expect when placing mics on an object. Having two microphones with fairly long cables allowed me to find the most sonically interesting parts of an object to focus on. Two mics spaced apart also allow for a nice stereo spread.
Have fun experimenting with and inserting these hi-tech sounds (some captured in 96kHz/24-bit and others in 192kHz/24-bit) into your next science fiction and otherworldly creations. Please don’t take the device’s sound literally. That SLR’s motor drive may just be your next rapid-fire laser cannon.
Wind and Metal explores the awesome ways metal responds sonically under the influence of wind. Large objects like wind turbines, windmills, a geodesic dome, an overhead power line transmission tower, a fire tower, flag poles and a giant crucifix, were recorded under varying wind speeds from airy breezes to howling gusts. Each structure produces resonant tones unique to its design, location and weather affecting it. There’s the sound of wire fences too.
Here you’ll find haunting, eerie low-end drones plus piercing and painful high-end squeaks. There’s animalistic groaning and scraping. Some serious banging and thumping. Plus rattles and rumbles, deep impacts and rhythmic whooshes.
Create something soothing, eerie, impactful or in between by inserting Wind and Metal into your next project.
Cover your ears. It’s going to get loud, introducing, Oval Track Racing. This high-octane stock car racing library features cars of various makes, models and performance characteristics in nine divisions circling a quarter mile (.40 kilometer) oval ‘short’ track in Idaho. Pass-bys, overalls and on boards were captured from multiple perspectives inside, outside, and alongside the asphalt track with a variety of microphones and recorders.
Oval Track Racing features plenty of pass-bys captured right next to concrete retaining walls on straightaways and through turns. To give you options, these pass bys are broken out two ways. Use the ‘one shot’ sound files consisting of just one quick pass by (thank you Paul V. for this suggestion). Or choose to use the overall race/practice session consisting of multiple laps.
This meticulously crafted library also features a selection of overalls captured from high in the stands, inside the pits, from the center of the infield and outside the gates. For instance, I was able to capture 48 laps (11 minutes worth) of an 85-lap race featuring eight rumbling Big 5 Late Model cars, recorded clean and free of public address announcements, 250 feet (76 meters) outside the ‘bullring.’ The crowd cheers for the winner at the end. Onboard recordings feature the growling sounds of a Street Stock car (1975 Chevrolet Nova), both in the pits and on the track.
Evocative Sound and Visuals is pleased to announce its latest sound effects library entitled, The Amish. It is a rare collection of high-quality recordings featuring life among an Old Order Amish community in northeast Ohio.
The library features these sounds and more:
• The beginning of class in a one-room schoolhouse, including the morning bell captured from the outside and inside.
• Early-morning barn chores captured inside, including cow milking and tending to stalls. Bonus sounds include cows peeing and pooping right next to the mics. This was not a pleasant experience for me, but one that elicited much snickering from the youngsters.
• Hitched teams of large draft horses, snorting and whinnying as they plow a muddy field, with pass-bys and follow-behinds.
• The relaxing sounds of rain and rolling thunder captured from inside an old metal-roofed barn on several occasions.
• The peaceful sounds of clothes swaying on a line in an afternoon breeze.
• The sound of cornstalks blowing in the wind in autumn and in winter, when they’re dry and brittle.
• The tink, tink, tap, tap as a farrier putting new shoes on a horse.
• Bringing in dry hay at the end of the growing season, plus putting it into a silo.
• Interior and exterior perspectives of two working vintage sawmills.
• Inside a leather shop, where an Amish farmer makes hand-made flyswatters with his children.
• The rhythmic sounds of a squeaky old metal windmill spinning, along with water that gurgles from the pipe as it comes out of the ground.
• Wagon and buggies (onboard and pass-by perspectives)
Visit www.evocativesound.com to find out more!
Typewriters is a sound effects collection chock-full of vintage typewriters making sounds beyond the simple click-clack-clunk heard in so many TV shows and movies. I was curious if there was more to the sound of these old machines than meets the naked ear. Would recording them with high-end Barcus Berry contact microphones help bring out the best in them sonically? After recording 20 typewriters for this library, and performing a variety of keystrokes and actions on each in isolation, I can definitively say, yes.
Included are standard, portable and ultraportable machines from the early 20th century to the mid-1970s. Each machine, metal or plastic, emits sounds that are almost musical in nature. These files can enhance your next sound design project in nuanced ways that exceed the usual clickity-clack-clunk-thwack-smack we associate with typewriters. You’ll get a variety of zips, rips, twangs, growls, bounces, snaps, zings, rings and dainty end-of-line warning bell dings.
Wind Chimes is a collection of meticulously captured wind chimes purposely recorded with a pair of high-end Barcus Berry 4000 (Planar Wave Piano and Harp Pickup System) contact microphones. By using this type of mic instead of traditional ones, the attack, sustain and decay of each tube struck by its clapper are experienced in ways unheard by the naked ear. Every tinkle and plink, every clang and rattle sound a bit more removed from its environment than normal. Harmonics are heard alongside fundamental frequencies. Every recording is unique to its moment in time. Each note is as random as the wind that plays it. These chimes are anything but showroom new. Some are weathered. Some are outwardly neglected. A few sound pretty, others not so much.
Commercial fireworks: Up Close and Loud is a collection of commercial-grade fireworks – the big stuff – shooting from mortar tubes not 20 feet from my microphones. Each thunderous burst is heard directly overhead. Many feature a long decay at the end. The result is an assemblage of sounds filled with power and punch. Every round leaving its tube gives off a solid gut-thumping boom. Only such nearby access can provide this perspective.
If fireworks aren’t your thing, that’s cool. These files could have been used for any number of WWII movies I grew up watching and will put you right there on the battlefield again today.
Irrigation is a collection of water flow ambiances captured in and around the Treasure Valley of southwestern Idaho, where the Payette, Boise, Weiser, Malheur, Owyhee and Burnt rivers drain into the Snake River. Follow the flow of crystal clear water as it travels from mountain-fed streams and rivers down into large reservoirs. Listen as water courses through the pipes and along the canals that carry it to sprinklers large and small. Finally, irrigated water fans out onto verdant golf courses, people’s front yards and farmland.
Be inches away from the sweeping spray of center-pivot irrigators. These create acres and acres of green circles in an otherwise barren landscape, making agriculture here possible. As a sonic side benefit, they produce cadenced sounds that will lull you to sleep.
Water allocation, i.e., who gets how much when there’s not enough to go around, is a huge, polarizing issue confronting residents, industries, politicians and wildlife in the western United States. Farmland is turning into subdivisions at an alarming rate.
Use these recordings, captured in pristine 24-bit/96 kHz quality by field recordist Richard Alan Hannon, to illustrate subject matter that will be in the headlines for years to come. Seamless loops have been meticulously crafted from sounds that allow for it. Giving you more opportunities to utilize these sounds in your projects.
In Hydroelectric Power, witness the power of water in this collection of recordings captured at historic hydropower plants and massive concrete dams in the United States.
In the American West, water scarcity and allocation are hot topic issues. Gain access inside a working powerhouse along the Boise River as one of three generators, producing over 1,000–kilowatts of power, crank up from a cold start in advance of the irrigation season. Get hit in the face with spray from Shoshone Falls, a waterfall taller than Niagara Falls, during a high water event. Stand 100 yards downstream from the massive Bonneville Lock and Dam along the Columbia River in Oregon as 3,487 Kgal/sec rush past, generating 624 megawatts of power. Listen to the thunderous sound of Gorge Dam along the Cuyahoga River. Yes, the river that caught fire. This decommissioned 60-foot tall, 400-foot-wide dam has sat idle for over 50 years.
These recordings, captured in pristine 24-bit/96 kHz quality by field recordist Richard Alan Hannon, will complement your documentary, film and game design needs until, unfortunately, the rivers run dry. Seamless loops have been meticulously crafted from sounds that allow for it. Providing more opportunities to utilize these sounds in your projects.
With A Sound Effect, Asbjoern has created a web site where our international community can browse, learn, and share the vast fruits of our labors. Together we are accelerating the very real potential power of sound design as a recognized art form.
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