May 5, 2027 01:00 PM to 04:00 PM
Do you want to get outside for your interviews and focus groups, ecological study, or creative practice? While some interviews are best held indoors in a studio like those at Lyons New Media Centre, there are a million reason to leave the recording studio behind. This can include capturing natural or ambient sounds, making a podcast richer with audio from daily life, or going to an interview subject's home turf so they feel a bit more comfortable. This 3-hour intensive will give you hands-on experience with field recording for a range of purposes.
A trifecta of experts will boost your technical and creative decision-making:
- Sam Hansen brings experience field recording for their podcast productions, working with the BBC, NPR, CBC on tape syncs, and setting up mics outside the studio.
- Lyons' own Carlie King will introduce you to their field recording equipment kits (with H6 and H4 zoom recorders) and share details on microphone recording patterns.
- Danica Evering will give practical overview of approaches to recording with future editing and artistic choices in mind.
This session is designed for absolute beginners who have no experience with field recording but we also welcome audio enthusiasts who want to find community. We will intentionally keep this very interdisciplinary to reach anyone looking to record audio: from Health Sciences researchers recording interviews in busy clinical settings to ecologists and biologists looking to study bioacoustics of bird song to iArts (Integrated Arts) undergrads working on a multimedia project. Come record with us!
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Record intentional audio outdoors and in unconventional indoor environments.
- Select appropriate microphone and recording devices for their desired use case, as well as windscreens and other peripherals
- Locate campus resources for field recording
- Prepare to make creative decisions with field recordings
Details: Any preparatory work for the session can be found on its information page. This workshop will not be recorded.
Certificate Eligibility: This workshop is eligible for the Sherman Centre's certificate program. For more information, visit scds.ca/certificate-program. It is also eligible for the Canadian Certificate for Digital Humanities. To learn more, visit ccdhhn.ca or contact scds@mcmaster.ca.
