Freesound Forums

Hey folks,

I'm curious! what's the most embarrassing or awkward thing that ever happened to you while field recording?

I’ve had a few weird moments myself (happy to share), and I figured it’d be fun to hear from others. Whether it's people giving you strange looks, a recording session gone totally wrong, or something unexpected happening in public.

What I found very uncomfortable in field recording is that I was unpacking everything and noticed that I had forgotten the microphone. Oh well, then back home. End of exercise.

Going out without the SD card, not too embarassing but not preasent either.

Not realising my H5 was set to mono after hours of recording trying out different mic positions on a piano.

Nothing to bad but that's what I got

Sadiquecat wrote:
Going out without the SD card, not too embarassing but not preasent either.

Not realising my H5 was set to mono after hours of recording trying out different mic positions on a piano.

Nothing to bad but that's what I got

Hi! There's one case that's not really about me. But then I just witnessed (or eavesdropped on) a funny scene in which a shepherd cursed his cows and their mistress. Apparently he had
a particularly bad day. In fact, I stopped to rest at the top of a small hill with a small rocky cliff,
which were located on the edge of a wide forest clearing. I was standing under an umbrella, leaning on my bike and pressed record to record either a light rain or a passing plane. And at that moment, a herd of cows appeared from behind the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. And then there were shouts and the shepherd's voice. The cows were walking very quietly, and only when he called them stupid did one of the cows mumble faintly, as if she understood his abuse, and timidly answered the offender. At that time, the young shepherd's assistant was climbing up to the hill where I was standing. Apparently his old colleague
had already fed up with him during the day, and he decided to keep his distance from him.
When he passed by, I just greeted him.
This is probably the funniest story that has happened to me.
By the way, if you're interested, I can post that recording. I don't think it would be immoral or wrong.

Oh yeah! Post it please!

Okay, my turn. One time I was recording on a busy sidewalk with my Zoom H5, just holding it up to capture some street ambience. Out of nowhere, an older lady walked by, stoped dead in her tracks, and gave me the look! You know the suspicious one! She asked me if I was filming her. I tried to explain, “No, no, it’s just audio, sound only!” I even showed her the recorder, the mics, everything. But nope. She was convinced I was filming her, and no amount of explaining changed her mind.

Similarly,
An awkward / worrying moment, I was recording the ambience at a train station, in a hallway.
A police patrol walked past, then 20s back to me and there were several of them around me, quite a uncomfortable situation to be in.

Asked me if I was recording video, I told them no just audio and not any private conversation just the general ambience to share in the public domain here etc...
They had a think, figured nothing mentioned about banning audio, and probably figured out I'd buzz off anyway and let me go.

So nothing more but eh, not my best time out field-recording.

I guess the embarrassing part is there were friends witnessing the trouble from afar x')
They mentioned how normalised sound recording is when they think of me, but from afar if you don't know someone and see them recording it's kind of creepy.

sounds_from_palestine wrote:
Oh yeah! Post it please!

You're right though. sound recording feels normal when you're the one doing it, especially if it's part of your regular thing. But to outsiders who aren’t used to seeing it, it can come off weird.

Have u ever tried to record while you're hiding your mics? If so how did you do it and what were u recording?

Sound designer Ben Burt said that one day he heard a strange "sneezing" sound of a jackhammer being used by a worker on the street. It looks like the tool was broken, or something like that. He approached the worker and asked him not to fix his instrument while he ran to get his microphone. Of course, the worker looked at him like he was crazy

>Have u ever tried to record while you're hiding your mics? If so how did you do it and what were u recording?

"in ear microphones" like the Soundman OKM 1 with a recorder in pocket / backpack is a stealthy setup.
People think it's just earphones and is hidden in plain sight.

I use it for general urbain / public transport recordings. Naturally, people are curious or trolls etc... So a stealthy setup avoids interruptions in the recordings and gives a more natural recording of the scenery.
I do cut out any lengthy or private audible conversations and try to keep people as passer-by.

Having said that for shorter recordings, having the mic visible can be beneficial.
Because it kind of acts like a "be quiet" zone, people notice it and pause their conversation around the mic, so you have like the general more distant ambience, and avoid any loud 1-1 passer by talk. Making it a better "crowd" recording without any loud local noise, if that makes sense.
Then someone might interrupt and say something funny just to be recorded, so for a <5min recording it's typically suitable.
Example a big tripod setup in a park, might reduce walkers/runners conversation so one can focus more on the wildlife and stream. Or, as for my example with the policemen, in a hallway between to lounge area, to have the distant reverbary crowd of both areas on either side, but avoid conversations of people walking past me in the hallway.
Etc...

I guess what I'm trying to say is, stealth / visibility can be a tool for the sound itself.

sounds_from_palestine wrote:
Okay, my turn. One time I was recording on a busy sidewalk with my Zoom H5, just holding it up to capture some street ambience. Out of nowhere, an older lady walked by, stoped dead in her tracks, and gave me the look! You know the suspicious one! She asked me if I was filming her. I tried to explain, “No, no, it’s just audio, sound only!” I even showed her the recorder, the mics, everything. But nope. She was convinced I was filming her, and no amount of explaining changed her mind.

Sadiquecat wrote:
Similarly,
An awkward / worrying moment, I was recording the ambience at a train station, in a hallway.
A police patrol walked past, then 20s back to me and there were several of them around me, quite a uncomfortable situation to be in.

Asked me if I was recording video, I told them no just audio and not any private conversation just the general ambience to share in the public domain here etc...
They had a think, figured nothing mentioned about banning audio, and probably figured out I'd buzz off anyway and let me go.

So nothing more but eh, not my best time out field-recording.

I guess the embarrassing part is there were friends witnessing the trouble from afar x')
They mentioned how normalised sound recording is when they think of me, but from afar if you don't know someone and see them recording it's kind of creepy.