Q: Do you ever have a very specific idea of what you want (maybe like a specific graphic, visual effect, sound effect/tone, etc) but you don't know how to actually go about executing your idea? For reference, there's blogs and vlogs but I want to make condensed what I'll call "slogs" (sound blogs) where I record all the sounds around me (speaking, car sounds, music, radio, footsteps, cooking sounds, animal sounds, literally any sound that can be picked up by a mic) for 24 hours.. then I went to take that 24 hour recording, splice it into 10 second fragments (or maybe 5 seconds or 15 seconds, haven't decided) and layer all the spliced clips on top of eachother and play it all simultaneously so you have this cacophony of 24 hours worth of sounds smashed into 10 seconds... but I don't think recording softwares can handle that much audio files, and cpu or phone batteries don't last 24 hours.... I really want to do this, but I don't see how it can be done...
. and it
's wildly frustrating for me.
A: i think the challenges you mentioned are very possible to overcome. use a digital voice memo recorder. the one i use can hold 17 hours, and the battery life lasts for probably 10 hours but maybe more. i bought it 8 years ago, so i'm sure they're better now. but i was going to suggest you use 2. with a little practice and planning you could alternate between them. it is likely that you would only need to switch once. the next challenge is editing, but i think you can use multiplication to your advantage. and you will probably use different programs, depending on what does what better... or maybe you can do it in one. i'm pretty sure there are programs that will open a 24 hour file. really you just need to use that program to break it into 24 pieces. make sure volume is at 0 (even, not plus or minus anything), and there is no master compression or anything (garage band for example has some automatic compression i think but that will mess you up for this project). then once you have it down to 1 hour pieces, i would suggest opening them up in a program like logic or protools, and just put them all in on 24 tracks. that should be reasonable. again, no compression, and from here on, make sure that all tracks are set to about -15db, because the noise is going to stack up. export this 1 hour of 24 tracks stacked together. then open a new file and import this, and cut it into let's say 30. 30 tracks of 2 minutes each. make sure you set your time settings to be by time, and grid snap to minutes, OR if it is on a musical bars/measures setting, just set your tempo to 120 bpm (which it likely already is by default) and 2 minutes should be exactly 60 bars. so cut every 2 minutes, that's the beginning of bar 61, 121, 181, 241, and so on. stack them all down vertically, so you have 30 tracks of 2 minute regions. export this. again, NO master compression, and i think from here on you can keep your volume at 0 -- the trick is to make sure that it was low enough on the one where you lowered it. maybe even -20 would have been good, to be safe. so now you should have 1 file that's 2 minutes long that has everything. repeat the process, you are almost done, split this into 8 if you want 15 second final length, split it into 12 if you want 10 second final length, or split it into 24 if you want 5 second final length. at 120 bpm, 5 seconds is 2 and a half bars. 10 seconds is 5 bars, 15 seconds is 7 and a half bars. (that's if you are in a musical program measuring by bar. otherwise just set it to time grid). split it up, stack it up, no compression, keep the volume at zero, and then you should be done. I think this process is actually within reach. the exporting could take a while in the first round. but i think if you try different programs and perhaps toy with the values in this system, i think you can get there. Now, here is the bigger challenge, which i don't really have a solution for -- you're going to have an insane amount of walking noise, pocket noise, or even if you keep the thing out of your pocket the whole time, there is going to be loud unwanted noise any time you touch the device, or if you set it down, basically unless you are holding it the right way in your hand for the entire time. that is probably going to be the bigger challenge. because i think over 24 hours, all that noise will add up and that will be all you hear. you won't be able to hear any of the ambient noise you're looking for, because the direct mic contact noise will be about 5 times louder and i think it will fill the whole time when stacked 144,000 times. now it might be possible to use a noise gate that actually silences anything above a certain db. i'm not sure if these exist, i only know of noise gates that silence anything BELOW a certain level, or just flatten anything above a certain level, which is not what you want because you will still hear all the mic contact noises. but if you can get a noise gate that can silence anything above a certain db, i think that could be just the ticket, with some experimentation. i would recommend putting that on at the 1 hour level, applying it to all 24 1-hour tracks. i hope that helps