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Tip: press play to see the sound's live frequency spectrum in blue over the waveform.
Recordist's notes
On several occasions I'd noticed that the cables inside a lamp post on the A33 clang interestingly in the wind. It is as though long cables travel inside the lamp-post, and clang and swish around in high winds... it's quite a subtle sound and because it's on a dual carriageway, bordered on each side by dense, fast-moving traffic, I thought that isolating the sound from the environment by using a contact microphone might better help me to hear it. In this recording I attached a contact microphone to the lamp post with blu-tack and recorded in mono to my EDIROL R-09. I think it's amazing - you can really hear the wires twisting about inside the lamp-post, and whipping in the wind. I recorded from outside too, so you can hear the contrast, but I love knowing that this sound is happening whenever there is wind. I also love that it seems like a mistake - none of the other tall lamp posts make this sound, so maybe something isn't secured. Maybe one day someone will mend this and then the sound will disappear... but for now it's here to enjoy when the wind is blowing.
About the place
Reading is a city of about 318,014 people in England, United Kingdom. OttoAnna lists 153 field recordings from here.
Equipment mentioned: Roland / Edirol R-05 & R-09 and Contact microphones. Compact Roland/Edirol recorders that were popular for early sound-map contributions.
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Clanging wires heard with the traffic of the A33 road
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Sources & credits
- “Traffic island, A33 road, Reading, UK - Clanging wires inside a lamp post” by Felicity Ford – CC BY-SA 3.0 · radio aporee ::: maps via Internet Archive
- Reverse geocoding: GeoNames – CC BY 4.0