"Found" sound

[Peterson]

Found sound: mysterious, odd, obscure, indiscernible stuff found on thrift store, family hand-me-down, etc. -type tapes, CDs, etc. Personal example - strange-looking old c40-length cassette with recording from military-communications-type radio of Bible sermon, with incidental/unintentional harsh noise and feedback from moving around the room (presumably). Fake Arabic writing on J-card which native speakers couldn't read or translate.

Anyone use strange found material frequently? Know of any titles or tracks entirely composed of strange, found sounds? Any decent examples of strange sounds you've found somewhere on some recording?

[Soloman Tump]

I work in a steel fabrication warehouse.
We get some amazing sounds in there - plenty of natural reverb too.

9" angle grinders make a great racket
The TIG welder has a great pulsing sound, especially when welding aluminium
CNC plasma cutting sounds great too.
We have a big bandsaw that cuts steel beams - when the blade is worn it makes a weird rhythmical drone every time the blade cycles

Yes - I am saving up for a decent field mic and I will be working late one evening to record then sample it all.

[Andrew McIntosh]

I've got a couple of recordings of things I have no memory of making, from obviously plundered sources, and for that reason they're odd to me. When I first got broadband I got stuck into a lot of "weird" recordings from the WMFU blog which managed to access a great deal of very interesting material. I've also used op-shop tapes for various recordings, although most of them have been purged long ago. Nonetheless, amazing what you can find if you nose around.

A friend of mine, Clinton Green, had a project called Undecisive God for years. He told me the first recording was the sound he got from a walkman that was accidentally turned on in his bag one time. He's been a big fan of accidental and found sound over the years.

[Euro Trash Bazooka]

I use a digital recorder to record band practices. Recently, the recording device stayed on in my bag for 12 hours. The recorded content included a band practice, various car drives, some nap time, walks in the street and a 3-hour bus ride recorded from the trunk of the bus. Interesting...

I also used to have the same toy tape recorder as the one on my profile picture as a kid and would carry it around with a tape in it and the recording on all the time. I'd record my days on tape, watching cartoons, playing in the fields, etc... i wish i still had some of those tapes...

[insolent]

Anyone use strange found material frequently? Know of any titles or tracks entirely composed of strange, found sounds? Any decent examples of strange sounds you've found somewhere on some recording?

I've found a few odd tapes in the charity shops here, one about diagnosing headaches and migraines that I edited to just the umms, errs and breathes as a ghostly backing for a track.

My favourite find though was of what I can only guess to be fake recordings of in-flight cockpit transmissions complete with auditory buzz and hiss. It's excruciatingly dull to listen to though.

As an aside has anyone used sounds from those old Spectrum or Commodore cassettes? I'm not sure what the non-UK equivalent would be as the rest of the world seemed to use the Atari! I once made a track from sounds from a Grand Prix simulator game but it lacked a little something

[Cementimental]

I've used various found recordings as source material over the years, tapes and also online stuff... guest vocals on this track came about because I was browsing animal noises on freesound with my rough mix playing in the background https://seagrave.bandcamp.com/track/lotssa-yella-knees

Into the idea of entirely 'found' noise release tho haven't done that much yet. lots of machine/engine/rocket-related stuff on youtube have good readymade accidental Noise soundtracks :)




i found this found-/-vapor label recently https://axxxxxb.bandcamp.com/      ???