Field Recording With A Vintage Film Sound Reel-to-Reel

I always wanted to use my Swiss-made Nagra 4-S reel-to-reel recorder in its intended role: as an outdoor field / film sound recorder. So when my friend Wouter asked me if I want to try out his new mics with him I took this venerable and very heavy tape machine with me. When I hit vari-speed everything came together.
Find Wouter's mics here: www.sonicartefacts.com/
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[@Hainbach]

Check Wouter's video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m2SvYmeEe5KCq5Isi=nslxOA6rmRzPTKrQ

[@wouterjaspers]

That was a great afternoon! We found a fun way forward for our new recordings with Odd Narrative!🎤🎤

[@PabloRodriguezwhyCharlieWhy]

you were at Funkhaus?

[@bazedjunkiii_tv]

@@wouterjaspers just as a side question - what is the speed control x pitch range of these old professional walkman devices? i somehow internalized the narrative that the first djs in goa / india started to dj at their beach parties with pitch adjustable walkmen in the 80s because india is simply too hot for vinyl to not warp and i wonder if those pioneers used and abused the model you brought for this video. also the story goes that proper beatmatching was not an option with these devices and therefore the older generation of goa x psytrance djs and producers just blends their in- and outros at parties still. probably also due to the use of DAT tapes which became more popular within that scene later.

[@wouterjaspers]

@@bazedjunkiii_tv 4%, very little, better to use reel to reel for that when you want to have dramatic changes!

[@bazedjunkiii_tv]

@@wouterjaspers interesting. reel to reel might be a little bit fumbly in an open air party by the sea situation, especially for djs UTI ;) thx, for getting back.

[@PeteGostelow]

Birdsong can sound amazing half, quarter, eighth speeded. Something like the humble blackbird is transformed to a rainforest bird of paradise, through primordial swamps, and eventually to whalesong. Plus their calls are incredibly complex, something we take for granted because they are commonplace.

[@PeteGostelow]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/boGaZqN3jN9lecksi=vFzm-AcoLHEI-09T

[@bricelory9534]

"We had to take a break at a biergarten" - the sacrifices we make for art! Beautiful sounds! Well worth the hard work of the biergarten ;) Seriously though, what a great trip and collected sounds. The humming and buzzing of industry is so tangible. And reducing the speed is such a dream-scape experience.

[@curtishoffmann6956]

"Take a break at a beer garden"? Oh, the hardships! The hardships!

[@Hainbach]

Suffering for art 😄

[@briankehew579]

Audio people have known of the excellent quality of Nagras forever. Polish design. Mr Oizo used to mix down to his and those records sound HUGE.

[@StubbyPhillips]

I'd love some long-form (hours long) "sonic urbex" recordings from large abandoned industrial sites (factories, power plants and what-not.) If you find the right site, a day (or night) with intermittent gusts of wind will provide lots of random clanks, bangs, flutters, rustles and thumps.

[@olegfischer1285]

This building indeed makes crazy noises which often sound like some sort of techno beats, when you hear it from the Plänterwald side.

[@jayverkamp8745]

Nice Nagra episode!!! From an old production sound recordist/musician I can really appreciate this episode. Especially the weight of the gear. My back was starting to feel the effects of carrying around my sound gear on film and TV sets for many years. Hiking up mountains, along beaches, through conventions and events, chasing actors anywhere you can imagine actors and TV presenters, and reality tv characters would go. Which is everywhere. Nice one, Hainbach!

[@wouterjaspers]

It's in moments like this you realize that the miniaturisation of electronics and the proliferation of chips has saved many artists' backs over the years ;-) The SONY is 20 years old, still weights a lot compared to modern equipment but its already 20x lighter than the NAGRA!

[@jayverkamp8745]

@@wouterjaspers No doubt! So true. Right now I have my audio bag filled with a Sound Devices 788, 6 Lectrosonics 411 receivers, IFB transmitter, extra Lectrosonics transmitters, wireless micing supplies, and a boom mic with a boom pole. All of that put together is what really takes a toll on the back after a 12 hour day. Film and TV shoots are a minimum of 12 hours in the US, so yeah, it’s a lot.

[@stuartdennis8506]

What a nice day out

[@fmoll8748]

Ahhh ihr habt den Plänterwalddinosaurier vertont :)

[@ecks8214]

Just as i was getting into field recording. Nice

[@slowbro1337]

What a fun field recording outing

[@jonesthestone]

That was cool, we need more of this,

[@HotStrange]

Fantastic stuff. I recently got a 404 mk2 and have been having so much fun mangling my field recordings with it. It’s such a fun way to work and you’ve been a big inspiration for me to do that, so thank you ❤️

[@alicmschons]

This is amazing! I always love your work!

[@GerenM63]

Those Nagras were used a lot in field television production as well. Wonderful machines!

[@peterwhitehouse]

Wonderful soundscapes

[@landscapetalknet]

What a wonderful video! Peaceful place in the middle of a city. I have never been to Berlin but have family in that area going back many generations. I also just checked out your video on the Axel simulator and started a search to find one in the wild...to no avail! And then realized you have a plugin for it! I bought it and your whole plugin package! Thanks so much for creating these! Not many artists who will do this for a rather unknown genre! Thank you!

[@Hainbach]

Thank you so much!

[@smacksalad]

Beautiful.

[@thirstyCactus]

Interesting soundscapes! Playing back at half-speed seems to give more bass response than normally would be heard using through-air recording of the OP-1's small speaker.

[@neuzethmusic131]

That was unexpectedly wholesome!

[@powaytheband]

sparked an idea for me. thank you

[@p_________]

wholesome and inspiring!

[@ferrifet7267]

This is bloody good ❤ I feel your pain, carting a nagra around with batteries is hard work, uhers are heavy enough! And they are "small" 😂

[@markhewins8517]

beautiful thanks

[@kgbinfo]

this looks like such a fun day of exploring and music making! I want to have a friend who will do things like this with me.

[@wouterjaspers]

Everything is better with friends :) Bringing mics to weird places is usually a cue for others to ask questions, it filters out all people who are interested in the same things, so also a good moment to make new friends!

[@adamgunn2885]

A Nagra is the one thing i've wanted for so so long and i've never splashed on, I regret it in some ways, even after spending 10's of thosands on Eurorack (then selling it all), buying multiple other reel to reel machines (uhers & revoxs's), buying multiple vintage synths (junos and jupiters) i've still not just bit the bullet and bought a Nagra. This video however has made me consider selling as much of my gear as possible to buy a mint mint Nagra and have fun with it. Stop tempting me Hainbach.

[@Hainbach]

You won't regret it, they are just wonderful to work with.

[@exoner6110]

Very nice video, thanx. Finding interesting sound-spots in Berlin without a carpet of traffic-sound is not that easy. On my list are the BEHALA, the industrial area in Spandau ('Freiheit') and the recycling-center at Gradestr. These spots are all in private property with working companies on it. I can understand that the companies have problems to give access to someone with headphones on walking among the working people and their machines. But these areas are full of wonderful sound-scapes.

[@wouterjaspers]

BAHALA has some great sounds with the cranes and warning sirens, and some good vantage points to record from across the water, you need to go when the traffic is low though! We tried to get to a Deutsche Bahn railyard at Rummelsburg too, but unfortunately there was no good spot to sit down and record. I always feel you can have a 100 spots in your mind before you leave looking for sounds, but the best ones you find when you are not looking for them (like the tenniscourt in this video) :)

[@ringsystemmusic]

Dang I should do this with my microcassettes.

[@audhen1]

Der Preis für die Mikros ist ja mal echt attraktiv - ich hätte jetzt Boutiquepreise erwartet. Cool! Prices of the mics are really attractive - I'd have expected more like boutique prices.

[@wouterjaspers]

Thanks! I always think it's better when good things can be enjoyed by many :)

[@nigelprice4799]

....lovely stuff.....mind you, a prime consideration for me when I go out with my (expensive-looking) camera gear is assessing the likelihood of getting robbed at knife-point, pity I know, but the most interesting locations often come with strings attached..........(cue strings)....

[@abrakadeep8810]

Thought this was a @redmeansrecording showing up as yet another synthesis being in one of your videos. Wouldn't have surprised me all to much :)

[@ALT-pg3ee]

Very nice! Have you ever tried Line Audio OM-1 (as stereo pair)? Curious how they compare to these microphones since the OM-1's can be quite noisy when recording tiny sounds at high gain. Also, blackbirds are MVP, they all have unique accents!

[@momorarr]

more outside videos :DDD

[@PaprTape]

Now I want to do this with my Sony TC-5550-2, but it's also pretty heavy 😭

[@DasDoktorchen]

👍

[@wolfunplugged]

eine sehr geile exkursion! diese mit band downgepitchten sachen klingen exzellent. wird wahrscheinlich digital in der gleichen quali nicht möglich sein, oder? tolles video, vielen dank!

[@Hainbach]

Klingt anders - selbst wenn du mit 192khz aufnimmt. Nicht unbedingt schlechter, aber etwas weniger interessant.

[@jasonnicholas4336]

I learned field recording on a Nagra in film school in the 1990's. I was a lanky kid carrying around the Nagra, a bunch of tape and microphones. I probably have permanent spine damage as a result. It's a beautiful machine regardless (I wonder if there is a way to retrofit it with a lighter battery pack? Perhaps add a little USB-C port. :)

[@wouterjaspers]

You should be able to run that from a much lighter Li-on battery pack, even something that would fit in the battery compartment, its all about cleaning the switching power coming from those batteries up and giving the nagra a clean steady linear signal. Probably would save 1 kg there already.

[@wouterjaspers]

Ah, and hope your spine holds up for many more years!

[@jasonnicholas4336]

@@wouterjaspers Thankfully the industry has evolved and I'm now working with SoundDevices recorders (and was just recording something earlier today on the wonderful little CEntrance MixerFace recorder which I can toss in a backpack and forget). The tools available now should save the spines of generations to come.

[@herrrastakrautpasta1599]

Can you get more into microphones and positioning and types like kunstkopf or sounfield

[@Hainbach]

Sure I have two Kunstkopf videos: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nXqkfnqrnLyMpNUsi=zBoidxmZBZyRRWsu kzbin.info/www/bejne/qoSvcqCNnbaenqcsi=EMgWG-n1fqKh4G3X

[@-umbrarium]

Great sonic explorations! How did you manage the ''irregular'' tuning of Bistab with the op-1?

[@Hainbach]

I had samples from the Srine on the the OP-1. But else the it was all Wouter finding the right notes.

[@kacychavez5827]

Can we start getting some Kontact or decent libraries?

[@Hainbach]

I have Decent Sampler libraries as well as samples and loops on Patreon.com/hainbach. And this: www.audiothing.net/instruments/noises/

[@NealCaen]

are your buddy’s recordings mono? Isn’t that sony walkman mono? I’m sorry for my ignorance.

[@Hainbach]

They should be stereo? But ask him

[@wouterjaspers]

@@Hainbach they are stereo, yes.

[@VirtualModular]

Personally, I would have stayed in der biergarten die ganzen tag and sacked off the field recording. This is maybe the difference between me and a successful artist. Also, I'm fluent in Denglish 😂

[@RaeucherLaX]

Der kleine Klugscheißer in mir muss jetzt leider ergänzen dass da nicht Tennis sondern Padel gespielt wird 😅

[@Hainbach]

Was ist Pedal? Oh Mann jetzt fühl ich mich extra alt

[@RaeucherLaX]

@@Hainbachach was, man muss ja nicht jeden neuen Kram kennen 🙂 de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padel-Tennis

[@juliantaylor5956]

I hate to admit it but you would've probably been arrested in America for being on private property. Like someone else would've probably escalated it

[@TrondGjellum]

I would really love to buy a set of these microphones, but it is impossible to get in contact with @Sonic Artefacts When I click on Support/FAQ, I get the message "Non-existent changeset UUID." I get the same message when I click Cancellation Policy and imprint. I can not find any way to get in touch with the maker. I want to ask if it is possible to order a set of Matched Pair of Cortiça Condenser Microphones and pick them up somewhere in Berlin. I'm going to Berlin for Superbooth 24, so that would be nice to be able to do that.

[@Hainbach]

Strange. You can get them at Patch Point in Berlin