It’s been a wee while since my last blog update so this post will cover a few things that have developed in the project from June. I have collected some additional field recordings over the last two weeks including some great recordings of walks, four footed friends and a mistle thrush to use. I also got some additional contributions from Glen Finglas volunteer Gill Walker who’s spoken word materials include a quote from John Ruskin and her descriptions of Glen Finglas throughout the seasons. We also did some field and spoken word recordings together.
Once we entered July, I paid another visit to Gwen Raes the site ranger at Glen Finglas. As I now have over 9 recordings completed we wanted to try out a selection on the Blackbox player that will be located on site for visitors to use to play the work. The device works by copying and hosting a selection of up to 8 audio tracks which are then played back through an internal speaker. A visitor selects their chosen track number and winds the dynamo to power up the machine. It is weather proof and we found out that it can play back pretty loud!
Armed with our sound selections we began our first upload to the device with the aim of then taking it outside to the listening post so hear the audio work in situ. Unfortunately our great plan was thwarted as the Blackbox player was unable to communicate with the USB drive as this was password protected. Gwen and I will meet again next week to try again with another USB drive and hopefully we can get our upload completed successfully.
…and it was all going so smoothly…
