I was quite happy today when, after nearly two hours at the local food bank working on my Soundslides 3 project about hunger in America, I had several interviews, some nat sot (natural sound on tap), and lots of photos done. It was a good start to the project, I thought, until I got into my car and listened to my audio. Thankfully, my main interview was there, but some secondary ones I did with guys who unload the truck at the food bank were not. Neither was my nat sot. Curse the audio gods!
It was lunch time, I was hungry, and I didn’t want to just do the interviews again only to end up with the same result, so I left, determined to find out the reason for my missing audio before I returned.
What could have happened? There were two audio files full of silence. I know I didn’t fail to push record because the recorder created the files…for some reason, there just wasn’t any sound. My only thought is that perhaps I just held the mic too far away? But I wasn’t standing THAT far away from the interviewees or the sound…I didn’t think I’d end up with nothing.
Anyone have any thoughts/tips? I’m frustrated and feeling a little stupid.
Were the silent files the full length of the interviews? Or were they super-short?
If you press the REC button twice, you will pause the recorder.
I always check to see that the seconds are ticking upward on the recorder display — that assures you that it really is recording.