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i was going to go out and record sounds for use in my music (a bit like burial) and i was thinking of using my mobile to record them as it might give a rougher edge.
Does anyone know if this is worthwhile or will i just end up with some fucked up unusable samples?

Cheers

Depends if it saves it as really high quality?

Like 24bit wavs?

any sound you use in your song should be the best quality to start, use effects to ruff it up.

I use a ten dollar hand held recorder, works well

yeh those handheld TAPE recorders cant really go wrong because they use TAPES. good stuff

i used to use my cellular to record myself beatboxing when i had an idea before i tanked the cellular crap altogether, hate those damn things

the quality was absolutely atrocious to the worst degree

jasonk definitely has it on point about starting with good quality

just use a filter to narrow the frequency range and fiddle with various types of distortion, maybe sample some static from your decks spinning the end of a record or a dead tv channel or something and layer that in

Legendary wrote:Depends if it saves it as really high quality?

Like 24bit wavs?

lol a phone that records 24 bit wavs? good luck......


to be honest it'll prob sound shite off your fone, but it could work if thats wat ur goin for....depends wat ur doin.....why cant you just use a mic?

I didnt fancy usin a mic cos i dont usually know when im gonna record stuff i just do it randomly plus i fancied tryin my phone as like something different bit it isnt soundin too great ...

yeah phones are sick for getting samples
my old school nokia can record phone calls and play them back...shit hot.
nothing funnier than ringing someone you don't like, then putting the sample of them in a tune they wouldn't like!

just have a go, innit!

a phone will probably record pretty low quality, and i'd imagine it would be honkingly midrangey and trashy from the low bitrate - but you might get something interesting out of it to chuck in the background of a tune. it's not like you're going to be recording your snare or sub through the phone so just give it a whirl....

I have to be honest, recording on a mobile phone would certainly add much distortion. Cell phone mics and speakers only are able to record about 3khz-6khz. So no matter what using this method, you will probably lose more of the signal then you intended to and you'll end up with no low's or highs in your recording. You have to bear in mind that mobiles are only intended to transmit human speech which is the reason they only transmit the 3-6khz range. You could get a similar effect with less loss of signal just by using eq or compressing the fuck out of your samples, which essentially recording with a mobile would do but then you would have no control over your frequency ranges.

Time Nice wrote:I have to be honest, recording on a mobile phone would certainly add much distortion. Cell phone mics and speakers only are able to record about 3khz-6khz. So no matter what using this method, you will probably lose more of the signal then you intended to and you'll end up with no low's or highs in your recording. You have to bear in mind that mobiles are only intended to transmit human speech which is the reason they only transmit the 3-6khz range. You could get a similar effect with less loss of signal just by using eq or compressing the fuck out of your samples, which essentially recording with a mobile would do but then you would have no control over your frequency ranges.

human speech in the 3 - 6K range? do you talk to dogs?

Indeeed "Time Nice" is absolutely right. Just use a 3-band-eq. Use 2 bands to limit your signal into the 3-6 khz-range [aproximately...just try out the right borders] and a third band to add some overdosed-highQ-notch-resonance. this will result in a pretty perfect phone sound.

£10 Bag wrote:yeah phones are sick for getting samples
my old school nokia can record phone calls and play them back...shit hot.
nothing funnier than ringing someone you don't like, then putting the sample of them in a tune they wouldn't like!

My mates rang up a random number and a cockney geezer picked up, they asked him for crack and he asked "youuuuuuu what?! Is this a fucking wind up or what you silly tnuc?"
Best sample
ever

Your using it to make base beats? or just to store ideas?

A dictaphone might be better for the analogue appeal and as people have said the source material should always be the best you can get it. Old skool answerphones are good too, did a track years ago using samples from an amusing message, even synched up the clunk click of the phone being put down to the beat

setspeed wrote:

Time Nice wrote:I have to be honest, recording on a mobile phone would certainly add much distortion. Cell phone mics and speakers only are able to record about 3khz-6khz. So no matter what using this method, you will probably lose more of the signal then you intended to and you'll end up with no low's or highs in your recording. You have to bear in mind that mobiles are only intended to transmit human speech which is the reason they only transmit the 3-6khz range. You could get a similar effect with less loss of signal just by using eq or compressing the fuck out of your samples, which essentially recording with a mobile would do but then you would have no control over your frequency ranges.

human speech in the 3 - 6K range? do you talk to dogs?

You must be confused, dogs (and many other animals for that matter) can hear above 20KHZ which is the highest frequency that the human ear is capable of capturing (the human ear can capture from around 20hz-20KHZ), this is why humans can't hear dog whistles... the frequencies they produce are well over 20k. I assure you that human speech is in the 3-6k range. These are all aproximations and I'm no expert but I have studied frequency ranges in detail and have been working in the mobile industry for 7 years. I know very well that mobiles greatly limit bandwidth to the range of 3-6k to avoid transmitting un-necessary data through the hardware.

Time Nice wrote:

setspeed wrote:

Time Nice wrote:I have to be honest, recording on a mobile phone would certainly add much distortion. Cell phone mics and speakers only are able to record about 3khz-6khz. So no matter what using this method, you will probably lose more of the signal then you intended to and you'll end up with no low's or highs in your recording. You have to bear in mind that mobiles are only intended to transmit human speech which is the reason they only transmit the 3-6khz range. You could get a similar effect with less loss of signal just by using eq or compressing the fuck out of your samples, which essentially recording with a mobile would do but then you would have no control over your frequency ranges.

human speech in the 3 - 6K range? do you talk to dogs?

You must be confused, dogs (and many other animals for that matter) can hear above 20KHZ which is the highest frequency that the human ear is capable of capturing (the human ear can capture from around 20hz-20KHZ), this is why humans can't hear dog whistles... the frequencies they produce are well over 20k. I assure you that human speech is in the 3-6k range. These are all aproximations and I'm no expert but I have studied frequency ranges in detail and have been working in the mobile industry for 7 years. I know very well that mobiles greatly limit bandwidth to the range of 3-6k to avoid transmitting un-necessary data through the hardware.

i wasn't being entirely serious about the dogs thing

that's really interesting tho - i used to work with landlines, and back in the day, UK landlines used to limit frequencies from 170Hz - 3kHz. so i just made an assumption based on that, and the fact that the fundamental of any human voice tone is clearly far below 3kHz. but then (i was bored) and i did a couple of tests and a 3-6K bandwidth is surprisingly intelligible... also i guess it corresponds more to the A-weighted frequency curve so requires less power to reproduce the signal at the other end. you learn something new everyday....

setspeed wrote:

Time Nice wrote:

setspeed wrote:

Time Nice wrote:I have to be honest, recording on a mobile phone would certainly add much distortion. Cell phone mics and speakers only are able to record about 3khz-6khz. So no matter what using this method, you will probably lose more of the signal then you intended to and you'll end up with no low's or highs in your recording. You have to bear in mind that mobiles are only intended to transmit human speech which is the reason they only transmit the 3-6khz range. You could get a similar effect with less loss of signal just by using eq or compressing the fuck out of your samples, which essentially recording with a mobile would do but then you would have no control over your frequency ranges.

human speech in the 3 - 6K range? do you talk to dogs?

You must be confused, dogs (and many other animals for that matter) can hear above 20KHZ which is the highest frequency that the human ear is capable of capturing (the human ear can capture from around 20hz-20KHZ), this is why humans can't hear dog whistles... the frequencies they produce are well over 20k. I assure you that human speech is in the 3-6k range. These are all aproximations and I'm no expert but I have studied frequency ranges in detail and have been working in the mobile industry for 7 years. I know very well that mobiles greatly limit bandwidth to the range of 3-6k to avoid transmitting un-necessary data through the hardware.

i wasn't being entirely serious about the dogs thing

that's really interesting tho - i used to work with landlines, and back in the day, UK landlines used to limit frequencies from 170Hz - 3kHz. so i just made an assumption based on that, and the fact that the fundamental of any human voice tone is clearly far below 3kHz. but then (i was bored) and i did a couple of tests and a 3-6K bandwidth is surprisingly intelligible... also i guess it corresponds more to the A-weighted frequency curve so requires less power to reproduce the signal at the other end. you learn something new everyday....

Nice, I do enjoy some good learning myself I start two recording classes for this semester tomorrow. Should be a good time!