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Hello there,

I'm considering doing some walking sounds. As in a "Balade"/stroll not a "foot steps".
Like a hour long walk between villages or in a city etc...

I'm not much of a walker on my free time, those recordings would be taking up the hours rather than be an addition to walks.

Is there any use or interest for those type of sounds?

Compared to a static recording, I suspect it's much less use for research or a film-makers. So I'm suspicious it might not be of any use.

I'll still record one or two. But id like to know if a "balade" style of recording is of any use to anyone or if I should focus on static recordings.

Cheers.

Hello Sadiquecat

Hard to comment on the usefulness of the sounds - depends exactly what they will be.
But, for example, a recording of walking through a forest could be useful in almost the same way as a static recording of a forest. - someone making fil or cartoon where a character walks in a forest might even benefit from the recording including the sound of steps over leaves, grass, twigs... rather than have to manually dd separate sounds for those effects.

But I will comment more on the technical aspects.
I have done several 'walking recordings' but I have usually been annoyed by the fact that these include the obvious sound of my footsteps. On occasions I have been able to avoid that by walking very gently, but this is only feasible for a very short period (such as when I am expecting an interesting sound to happen, like a car driving over a manhole for example). Otherwise becomes unpractical to walk at that speed.
So these walks usually end up being a series of movements with stops at locations of potentially interesting sounds. - So, it is not so much that I am recording on the move, it is more that I am moving between several recording locations. I might leave the recorder running, but the parts where I move between locations usually get discarded.

The other 2 points relate to where to place the recorder and how to protect it.
Waking with the recorder in my hand will create a lot of handling noise, rendering most recordings unusable. Might also get some odd looks, and may also spoil the chance to make the recordings in the first place.
I do not have a dedicated bag, so often I place the recorder in my jacket pocket or my backpack. This means the recorder is protected from wind, but there is usually a lot of motion noise when I walk.
If you are planning to record on the move, how are you planning to tackle motion noise?

Recording on the move presents one more challenge. On a static recording, you can try to pick the best spot for the recorder, considering wind and the direction, distance and sound volume of what you are aiming to record. When recording on the move you might move between very different conditions (e.g. walking out from a shipping mall into a windy street) and sound levels quiet streets, busy streets, construction works... So you are also likely to end up with recordings where some parts are too quiet or too loud.

Having said all that, here are some pointers for some targets for 'walking recordings' that I have made personally made very sucessfully in the past.
- slow walk at the beach / seaside. You are likely to get really nice sea and seagull sounds. The sand damps step noise and you can walk slowly or even stop to record. watch out for unwanted wind noise, but usually placing the recorder in your jacket pocket would work.
- Walk to a park or plaza with some benches. Sit at a bench for a while and record. Want to be there for a bit longer? Take a book or newspaper, but be aware of page-turning noise. These are easy recordings to make the recorder in your pocket or backpack. You might get kids playing, people walking their dogs. Some plazas have markets or buskers playing. Someone might sit next to you on the bench and start a conversation (!?)...
- I have already mentioned forest walks...
- Shopping - As you are likely to move slowly when browsing in a shop or queueing to pay, there will be very little motion noise. Also no wind. In addition to people talking and general shop hubbub there are some interesting sounds to consider: tills, shop speaker announcements, and one of my personal favourites: lifts and escalators. Some escalators make amazing squeaky noises. - best to get to the shop early, preferably at a weekend, and record those before the get muffled by the general sound of people at the shop...
- Coffee shops. - A natural place to sit down . Many offer al fresco sitting where you can record the sounds of the street while enjoying your favourite drink.
- Another favourite of mine are train stations.

- I finish with this one. - The best way to deal with a disadvantage, is to turn it into an advantage.
To me, the biggest disadvantage of 'walking recordings' is that the sound of footsteps usually ruins the soundscape being recorded. However, there are times when the footsteps themselves are the stars! Think of quiet empty streets, museum or shop galleries, passages under bridges, tunnels, etc where you get amazing sounds from echoing footsteps!
These also make for fantastic spooky sounds that I am sure will be popular - especially at Halloween.
Underpasses and tunnels, such as the ones under train stations, roads and the subway itself can include great examples. - the challenge now is to find a quiet time so you record the footsteps and nothing else
(Make sure to keep safe and don't go to 'awkward' places in the early hours of the morning for the sake of making a recording....)

They there AlienXXX thanks for the detailed response!

Q : "If you are planning to record on the move, how are you planning to tackle motion noise?"
R : I would be using some Soundman OKM 1 in ear microphones; they look like earbuds so are very discrete. They're decent with wind and with handling noise on the move.
As for the difference in levels, I have a friend who owns a Zoom H1 Essential which has 32bit recording; I might borrow it. The combination of the two work like a charm for a lightweight, discrete, easy to use, "just hit rec" setup!

What would the recordings be? Please let me first explain what I currently do.
I currently do 10-30min recordings of places for a sort of history of the soundscape. In the idea that future people might be interested in how a neighbourhood sounded like X years ago, when Y was still a thing and Z wasn't.
Not all petrol cars are allowed in some cities anymore. As electric vehicles and scooters are on the rise the soundscape is changing.
Also weirdly enough culturally people get more or less in/out in the streets. I saw a photo of a small village from the 1960s and it looked busier that I ever saw it today. (People stay home more, and moved to larger cities etc...) Who knows maybe 20years down the line people will be bored from the internet due to "dead internet theory" and go out more, making places significantly more busy? Or maybe everyone will work from home, and VR meetings and social life will make people go out even less and places will become quieter.

I would have loved to hear what some places sounded like decades ago.
So I try to leave something, either for the curiosity of future generations or for scientific research for whatever they might look for in the recordings (amounts of planes? Drones flying? Electric or diesel car count? Crowd density?, birds count? Other?)

So far I record static, either in surround or MS/XY using the Zoom H2N (contemplating a 3d sound setup for VR use. Not sure how useful up/down is compared to the H2's surround mode) or binaural stereo using the in ear mics.

A moving recording to showcase a city's soundscape is perhaps good for curiosity kind of audience, comparing then to now. Maybe there's an audience for everyday experiences like : going shopping, walking though a forest, move though a city, cycle though one, etc...
For research and film-making, I presume a mobile recording would hider that usage.

Is it even worth recording those sounds without a visual element to contextualise what we're hearing and where we are?

All in all, I'm wondering if there's an audience at all for a "walk-though" kind of recording, or if I should focus on static recordings.
There needs to be a bit of everything OFC. Surly a walk-though recording will interest someone somewhere sometime for some project. So OFC it's never lost to record something niche. But I wonder if I should dedicate 1% of my time to it or 5% or whatnot. Is it a once per year project or a do it every location I go to, kind of deal.

Cheers!

Interesting...

Another user, klankbeeld, does a lot field recordings with the intention of creating a "sound museum" of the Netherlands.

Google maps has an interesting feature. In addition to displaying 360 degree photos of a street as it looks now, it is possible to roll back to previous photo records of the same place and see how that street looked years ago. Their cars have been mapping many streets for years, so I believe there are places where you can roll the clock back 20 years. Maybe even more.

Maybe I should know this, but is it possible to pin sound recordings on google maps just the same as it can be done with photos?

I think doing several recordings of a walk down the same path at different times and on different days, over the years could be fascinating. It would be relatively easy to put these recordings on a pack and keep adding to it.

I love seeing old photos of the town I grew up on. Either photos that will show me buildings and streets as I remember them, or even ones that will show buildings that I only saw in ruins as a child.
The same way these photos trigger memories, so would sounds.
The trains now sound very different...
The train crossing at the station does not exist anymore the train lines have been raised above ground level and the station is underneath, there isn't even a road across anymore.The only way to pass from one side of the station to the other is on foot. I remember the sound of the bells when the barriers come down every time a train was comming. And the train blowing its horn as it came around the bend.,,,
Even longer ago, there was a tavern next to the train station. Nasty place. Often there was shouting or even fights outside.
Does anyone still sell roasted chestnuts in the street in Autumn anynore?

These are just some examples, sounds that I would remember from my childhood.

30 years from now, others will listen to your recordings, and remember!....

I don't know about google in particular.
But there is a sound map here on Freesound https://freesound.org/browse/geotags/?c_lat=24&c_lon=20&z=2

I'm proud to have added a few where there were no recordings!
It's somehow very rewarding for me, yet simple enough to go out for a day and record places.

Klankbeeld has done soo much and I have a lot of respect for what they do!
To this day they almost have 3k mapped recordings! With weather report, and images. It's a step above the effort I'm currently putting in and quite inspiring.

Barcelona also has quite a collection, probably because that's where Freesound is based.
It would be nice if even more people got to rec/map sounds!
Currently there's only 1 in Madagascar, not much in Russia, Canada, center Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Wester Australia.
The Greenland and south poles has some things tagged there, but they seem like mostly "spam" and not actual recordings of the places.
There's so many places that are "undocumented" sound-scape wise here on Freesound. I highly encourage you dear reader, to record your village/city for 5min! Even if it's just on a Iphone, I have heard impressive and perfectly usable recordings on those!

Cheers!