Hay there.
This is my first poste.

I am particularly asking 1 question...

Could SFX bible or someone else explain why it is that most of SFX bible's samples are here, but there is 1 London Underground sample that is only available on:
http://www.audiosparx.com

Which is bullying people in to paying for it, where as other samples are both here and on audio sparx. Will SFX bible please now move to make this file available here to put this inconsistancy right?
I would appreciate a reply poste.

OK; I look forward to John uploading his when uploads are re-enabled! Thanks anyway!

matt

Always look on the bright side of life.

Tasos, I have just had a look at your profile. Wow I never knew you actually lived in London for a time! Do you still do so? If so, perhaps you too might be able to collect some sounds from London Underground and upload when you resume uploads?

Look forward to your reply

matt

Always look on the bright side of life.

Matt wrote "John, I look forward a lot to this. Are you based in London then? If so, may be you could go out again now or in the near future so you have more to upload in that spell?"

Matt

I think that your request says quite a bit about how you view the collection of sound effects and why you might object to paying. I'll try and explain what's involved in what looks to you like a simple request.

First of all, if I want to make more recordings on the London Underground, I have to apply for a permit. This involves filling out a fairly complex form, having a photograph taken and then submitting the form and the photo to the appropriate Transport For London Media office. This takes up maybe half a day and of course the photo has to be paid for. Then there's a wait of a week or so while the application is considered and, assuming that permission is granted, a permit will be sent to me in the post. I have to designate a time and location for each recording session that I do and I may need to apply for more than one permit on different days to record different lines.

Next is the matter of the equipment. I use high-end professional equipment to make my recordings, costing thousands of pounds to buy in the first place and hundreds annually to maintain and insure. I use Rycote windshields, which are extremely expensive, and special shockmounts to reduce handling noise and structure-borne vibration. I record direct to hard disc using state of the art recording interfaces and specialist microphones that allow me to record in full surround. The main microphone costs in excess of £3,000 and the recording system rather more. To be totally portable and mobile, I need to buy special battery packs to power the system as I can't plug in to a convenient 13 amp outlet. Then I have to fit the whole lot into a special case to protect it from damage. This is also rather expensive.

Next comes the actual recording: I reckon I'm lucky if I get a usable minute for every twenty that I record when I'm in a public space. There's a link elsewhere on this site to description of recording session in the Paris Metro, where I got about three minutes of useful material in a total of about four or five hours of recording time. Once the microphone is in sight, you're fair game for nosy passers-by, children, wise guys, beggars, touts and drunks, all of whom have the potential to spoil a perfectly good recording and most of whom cannot resist the temptation to do just that. "Is this for TV?" "Hallo Mum!" "Blerggghhh.." "What you doin' mister?" "Have you fed that dog?" "Cough, cough, hack, spit, spare any change mate?"

Assuming I make it back from the location with something suitable, it then has to be edited down into useful bits, cleaned up and, if I'm feeling fancy, the metadata is embedded. This takes more time: probably the process might take up to a week before it's ready for consumption.

Now, I'm a freelance, which means that if I work for myself, no-one's paying me, so during the time I'm out recording the underground for your listening pleasure, I'm not doing anything else, so I'm not getting paid. At the end of a week, I might have twenty or thirty well recorded and edited effects that I then upload to Soundsnap. These are then checked and OK'd by the Soundsnap people and uploaded onto the server where they are made available for download.

Now, I don't know about you, but I think that that amount of work for one set of effects has to be worth a buck or two.

That said, I probably will do such a session at some time in the future, because the London Underground is rapidly becoming a place of interminable announcements, and if I don't get some more recordings in soon, it'll be too late to get anything useful. When I've done them, edited them, annotated them and uploaded them, you'll be the first to know.

I have mostly Northern Line, including Angel sation pre-modernisation and the Camden Town wooden escalators. Quite a bit of Jubilee Line open-air at Kentish Town. Also some stuff from the Waterloo & City Line. Platform recordings, on-train recordings, bad weather announcements, etc.

They will be in the first batch of sounds uploaded here as soon as Tasos resumes allowing uploading, which I believe will be at the beginning of March. Of coure, they'll have to be reviewed and passed before they're made available on the site, so it could be some time after that.

Regards,

John

I have quite a lot of London Underground recordings, both past and present. Can you be more specific about your requirements?