Freesound Forums

I am going to record two messy things: Water Splashing and Breaking Glass.

My set-up is a Laptop, a Little Mixer, and a AKG Preception 200

Regarding the water, I want to record water splashes in my bath tub and a sink. I am obviously afraid of water splashing my microphone and breaking it.
Regarding the Breaking Glass, I don't know how to do that in my apartment. What I want to do is to throw glasses of different shapes types of glass to different materials. The idea is nice but I got two problems here. The first one is the mess itself. Once I am finished I have my apartment full of sharp pieces of glass. Second is I am throwing a glass to something, the microphone must be close to that. I can damage the microphone...

My questions are. What techniques would you use to protect a mic from water splashes/physical damage, compromising the sound quality the least possible. And how would you prepare the room, so I don't get my place full of broken pieces of glass?

Thanks.

Hey demian,

I'm no expert (at all), but I would use a window screen between the mic and the surface to protect the mic from glass, drop the pieces of glass straight down, and record it from above. I'd imagine that most of the glass would shatter to the side and the pieces that fly up aren't going to go too high. You want to keep the glass from hitting the screen, as that would affect the recording. As far as keeping your apartment clean, I'd lay down a large piece of plastic (like a *big* tarp) underneath the material that you're breaking the glass on, or rig some sort of a box around where you're dropping the glass.

Also, wear safety goggles.

For the water splashes...just be careful and splash away from the mic. I'm assuming you're using your hands? Maybe you could stretch a piece of plastic wrap over some sort of frame (maybe use a wire coat hangar?) and stick that in front of the mic. A piece of plastic that thin shouldn't affect the sound quality too much.

Again, I'm no expert, but that's probably how I would do it.

Hope this helps.

-Will

Thanks thetruwu,

I think the window screen idea is awesome. I am definitely using that. The plastic protection underneath the material is also interesting.

For the water, I want to use different materials. I will use my hands, but I would love to throw heavy stuff to create more aggressive sounds. That is going to mess my bathroom for sure. I don't mind about the water in my bathroom; however, the mic, laptop, and the mixer must be safe. The laptop and the mixer will be wrapped in plastic and they will be fine, but as I pointed out the mic is the problem. I think the idea of a framed piece of plastic seems doable. I have to make some experiments before I see if it works.

Thanks for your advise .

I read somewhere a condom can be used to protect the mic from water, although I never used one myself (to this end)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condom

"In his book entitled Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams reported having used a condom to protect a microphone he used to make an underwater recording. According to one of his travelling companions, this is standard BBC practice when a waterproof microphone is needed but cannot be procured"

I just finished recording. It was pretty much like a condom. What I did was using an office trash can like this one:

http://www.wellnesscoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/trash-can.jpg

And then I placed the microphone inside and covered the trash can partially with kitchen plastic foil. The trash can was held with regular strings tied to the curtains' rod. The results were satisfying, I don't have the sounds here and I can't show you right now. Thanks for your ideas.

I will do the glass recording when I move to another apartment.

dobroide
I read somewhere a condom can be used to protect the mic from water, although I never used one myself (to this end)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condom

"In his book entitled Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams reported having used a condom to protect a microphone he used to make an underwater recording. According to one of his travelling companions, this is standard BBC practice when a waterproof microphone is needed but cannot be procured"

Hahaha, that's an amazing idea. I'll have to try it sometime.

Aboud the breaking glass sound experiment.
My suggestion would be to have a frame (this could be improvised using something like a chair or preferably a table). From this frame use rope to hang a "weight" ( the ideal choice for this would be a hammer) to that it can swing like a pendullum and will pass above the floor at a convenient height to it the target object (a glass, bottle, etc).
Once you have setup the pendullum you probably don't want to be fidling with it, so I suggest you leave enough clearance to the floor for the largest object. Smaller objects can then be placed on top of, say a thick book, to adjust their height.
You can place a heavy object behind the targe (for example a brick) to hold it in place and make sure the hammer will smash it rather than hurl it forward.

The mixer, laptop and other gear may be conveniently placed above the table.
To protect the mic from flying glass pieces I would use a mesh of some kind, as this will provide adequate prottection and not interfere with the sound at all. A piece of cloth hanging from the top of the table (possibly held in place by a couple of heavy books) will also work nicely.

Obviously a large piece of cloth or plastic covering the floor will help the cleaning up afterwards.

Happy recording !

For the water recording, I would check out digifish's recordings on here. What he did was made his own pair of binaural mics using the panasonic capsules and a pair of stereo ear buds and a little epoxy. The sounds are great and if they do break, its only $25 or so.

The condom trick for water works perfectly. I have not done it myself, but colleagues have, on smaller mics, to make excellent underwater recordings.
For breaking glass, you can try foleying it by spanning a piece of cellophane plastic over a glass cup and pushing a metal key through it. It is said to be a working method. Try it, play around.

For glass smashing and other 'destructable' sounds I've got a large box that I've lined with carpet (to deaden it) and have a couple of jaged bricks and concrete pieces sitting in the bottom of it. I then stick a mic stand over the edge and get my mics nice and close to where things are breaking and position them to one side, aim them at the centre of the box and use a pop filter for protection. I can drop glass, bottles, plates, cups, small animals etc all day long without making a mess. It also allows me to make a nice noisy bed of fragile things I can through other objects at as well. After I'm done I take the bricks out, walk out to the bin with it and tip it upside down... easy.

I have what I call a 'stunt' mic, which is a relatively cheap microphone (SE-1) which I don't mind putting in dangers way. Of course I use protection (shouldn't we all!) as as a condom (non lubricated...vip!) or pop shield (you can make custom sizes out of ladies tights which work very well).

Good luck!