One of the things that grabbed me about the disused factory, was its tremendously strong metal pillars that made up the skeleton of the remaining structure. I couldn’t help but do some recording that involved them.
Here is a recording made of the metal pillars being hit in sequence all around the factory. You can hear the difference in positioning and resonance.
I picked a central pillar and decided to do some contact microphone work with it. I had two microphones with me I had made, one slightly larger than the other, and I felt this was the perfect opportunity to compare them.
Above: photograph of the positioning of the smaller contact microphone for the recording.
Here is a quick clip of the smaller microphone:
And a similar clip of the larger microphone:
Both were taped in the same spot, but picked up completely different frequencies in the recording, which was really interesting to listen to. The pillar that was being hit was actually the one next to it, over 3 metres away, so it shows how well the sound travelled through the structure.