A Burning Man Thought… audio recording

Hmm, I could make an audio recording of the entire 7 days. At 1 MB a minute, the whole thing, 24 x 7 would only be 10 gigabytes.

Hmm.

But I’d want some video as well. Recording video the whole time would be a big bother though.

Hmmm…

8 Comments

  1. dff says:

    Dunno if it’s your bag at all, but instead of audio-recording the whole thing, in a transcript kind of way, why not just record as much audio as you find it convenient to record, and then create interesting audio mixes of different bits? You know, audio collages? Maybe mix in some music, etc.

    Less room dedicated to audio would leave some room on whatever media you’re considering for some video.

    Just a thought.

  2. dff says:

    Actually, your 1MB per minute sounds like MP3 audio. Can you record straight to MP3, or do you have to record to something like WAV first, then encode it when you’re done recording? You’d either need 10x the space, or you’d have to take compression breaks along the way. More and more frequently.

  3. Lee says:

    A lot of mp3 recorders go straight to a lossy format… I think I could buy an iPod or similar to get the job done.

    But it’s a silly idea. Isn’t it?

    I don’t know, it still has a crazy alure. It’s like a person that says they have a map of a place with a scale of 1 mile : 1 mile.

  4. WTL says:

    Well, recording 1 CD quality mono audio stream will set you back around 2.5 megs per minute, ~155 Megs per hour, 3.72 Gigs per day, or about 27.1 Gigs per week, depending on how long you want to record for.

    So, an empty 30 Gig iPod should be able to manage it. The trick would be to keep it powered for a week – and it would be an *excellent* stress test of the device.

    I wouldn’t bother recording in stereo – you just want to get an idea of the audio around you for your stay – then, heck, when you get back, you could convert it to Apple Lossless, upload it and let *other* people listen through it for the bits *they* find of interest.

    That sounds kind of fun, actually. I’ll sign up for that. ;-)

  5. Lee says:

    Oh if I did it it would definitely be in high quality stereo. I’d want to be able to put on headphones and be there. But I’ve got a lot on my plate these days. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get to this…

  6. Lee says:

    Update Reverse that. I will likely be making a recording to be played for the entire 7 days of Burning Man :-)

    The egg part of the serpent mother needs sound effects for all the daylight hours it will be out there. Thats like…. 12 hrs/day * 7 days.. 84 hours of sound. The idea being that it’s alive and murmering all day and at night it wakes.

    So I’ll start recording stuff soon!

  7. Lee says:

    A Google Blog search for “mp3 player recorder “external microphone”” turns up some good links on this…

    Maybe I’ll get a setup like this or this

    Or maybe just walk around with the craptastic mic that came with… I don’t know where… it was in my electronics box, plugged into my laptop.

  8. WTL says:

    Just stick the microphone outside the window of your apartment and record it.. call it sounds of the city for people who miss “home”

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