Ambient Sounds?

[FoxxFur]

Hey everyone;

Pretty much for my own amusement I've begun working towards putting together a couple of music tracks in a Magic Kingdom pre-EPCOT project. One thing I'd love to try to accomplish is to aurally rebuild something of the sound texture of areas long since gone, like how Caribbean Plaza sounded back when everything in that area actually worked and with the original BGM. This will be more artistic than literal. After all, it is for my amusement.

To this end I've wondered if anyone has bothered capturing live Magic Kingdom sounds. Certain things are just going to have to be good guesses (since I can't go capture the specific sound of, say, the Adventureland fountains), but I figured somebody at some point has gone and recorded things like Jungle Cruise boat motors and trains pulling into stations. Thought I'd check here before I ventured out with my lousy little digital voice recorder and tried to better that.

 

[Club 33]

Hi Foxx-

Could you perhaps be a little more specific about the sounds you're looking for? I don't have much in the way of Adventureland recordings but as I will be at the parks in about a week and a half (and I always carry my $400 digital recorder and microphones with me) I could certainly try capturing some sounds for you if you're interested.

In the spirit of things and as a matter of reference here's a recording of Snow White I made back in July:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/0lgwjd

 

[FoxxFur]

Could you perhaps be a little more specific about the sounds you're looking for? I don't have much in the way of Adventureland recordings but as I will be at the parks in about a week and a half (and I always carry my $400 digital recorder and microphones with me) I could certainly try capturing some sounds for you if you're interested.

A $400 recorder with microphones would certainly best my measly efforts! In the best situation, these would be fairly free of background din so as to be "mixable". Here's a full list:

Monorail overhead pass-by
Seven Seas Lagoon Ferryboat horn
Seven Seas Lagoon Resort Launch horn
Seven Seas Lagoon lapping water
"Your Attention Please" - WDW Railroad Main Street Station announcement
WDW Railroad - train pulling in
Main Street - Jitney, Omnibus, Fire Truck sounds

Adventureland - Tiki Room facade waterfalls
Adventureland - Tiki Room preshow waterfall
Adventureland - Treehouse waterwheel (out of luck )
Adventureland - Jungle Cruise boat motor (no narration)

Frontierland - TSI gunshots

Liberty Square - Riverboat bells, whistles
Liberty Square - Riverboat paddlewheel leaving dock

Tomorrowland - Space Mountain lift hill sounds

....that will do it. :3

 

[eyore]

Could you perhaps be a little more specific about the sounds you're looking for? I don't have much in the way of Adventureland recordings but as I will be at the parks in about a week and a half (and I always carry my $400 digital recorder and microphones with me) I could certainly try capturing some sounds for you if you're interested.

A $400 recorder with microphones would certainly best my measly efforts! In the best situation, these would be fairly free of background din so as to be "mixable". Here's a full list:

Monorail overhead pass-by
Seven Seas Lagoon Ferryboat horn
Seven Seas Lagoon Resort Launch horn
Seven Seas Lagoon lapping water
"Your Attention Please" - WDW Railroad Main Street Station announcement
WDW Railroad - train pulling in
Main Street - Jitney, Omnibus, Fire Truck sounds

Adventureland - Tiki Room facade waterfalls
Adventureland - Tiki Room preshow waterfall
Adventureland - Treehouse waterwheel (out of luck )
Adventureland - Jungle Cruise boat motor (no narration)

Frontierland - TSI gunshots

Liberty Square - Riverboat bells, whistles
Liberty Square - Riverboat paddlewheel leaving dock

Tomorrowland - Space Mountain lift hill sounds

....that will do it. :3

Interesting list and something perhaps we don't think about enough. I know there are a few areas in DLRP that have bird sounds on a loop (although I did have to track down the speakers to make sure they were not real birds).
It's finding the will to sit and record it though "chirp chirp chirp".
It's these little "extras" that can really bring back the feel of being there.
I have to be honest, a $400 recorder would make me uneasy in case I lost it and I'd be checking it was still there all the time but I bet the results are well worth it.

 

[exetor999]

This is very interesting. Over at DL, I recorded the Mark Twain, the railroad station at NOS, the rafts going over to Tom Sawyer island, and put them together, just to get some background ambient sounds that I remembered and loved from my youth. I found online a newly recorded fan production of the main street railroad, where the person who did the recordings took other sounds from other steam engines, and really added to the sounds of the train leaving the station. sounds of the conductor hitting the metal wheels on the train, walking down the lenghth of the whole train, and yelling "Board", and then the engine whistle blows, which is much more dynamic than the real train whistle. I had spendt most of my adult life looking for any authorized Disney release which had this. I remember an old record from Disneyland, which had a story of the jungle cruise, and they had a narrator telling the story, which had the sound effects in the background, and some low level music as well. I grew up listening to this and dreaming of spending the day at Disneyland. I used to spend the whole summer working odd jobs just to get enough money to spend the last weekend before going back to school, at the DL park with my friends. Ahhhhh, the memories.

 

[Club 33]

Well unfortunately I showed up to WDW with my videocamera, tripod, digital camera, and audio recording equipment in hand only to be totally rained out. The entire weekend was rainy and overcast, either pouring or threatening to rain at any second. Not ideal recording conditions to say the least- even if I wasn't worried about my equipment being wet the recordings would be mostly the sound of rain and thunder. So it goes.

So I wasn't able to record any sounds this trip, sorry Foxx- but I will be back in a couple months time for a longer trip so I will try again then.

 

[FoxxFur]

Thanks anyway. I'd still love to hear your efforts when you can get around to it - I'll record some temp ambient sounds as well and we'll get this whole thing patched together.

 

[exetor999]

Club 33, I find that rainy days are the best days to record, even video. Best time to record the haunted masnion, and stuff like that. I video'd the mark twain riverboat in the rain, lite rain with ducks running alongside the boat, it was great.

 

[Club 33]

Club 33, I find that rainy days are the best days to record, even video. Best time to record the haunted masnion, and stuff like that. I video'd the mark twain riverboat in the rain, lite rain with ducks running alongside the boat, it was great.

You have a point there- many of the attractions at DAK and the Studios were nearly empty on the Saturday in particular, so I suppose those would have been good times to record. But c'est la vie. I'm going to be back home visiting my native Disneyland before long so I'll have some recording to do there too. In the mean time I just booked my flight to Orlando for a week just after new years.

Incidentally, here is one of the few recordings I actually did complete this trip; the boat ride from Wilderness Lodge to the Magic Kingdom. I was going for the narration, though its also a start for anyone who's interested in what music they play on that board route.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/4y8uxh

 

[FoxxFur]

I'm going to be back home visiting my native Disneyland before long so I'll have some recording to do there too.

While at Disneyland could you get some recordings of the vehicles, especially the omnibus horn? It would be a huge help to me.

 

[Club 33]

I'm going to be back home visiting my native Disneyland before long so I'll have some recording to do there too.

While at Disneyland could you get some recordings of the vehicles, especially the omnibus horn? It would be a huge help to me.

Sure thing!

 

[exetor999]

Yes, some of the background sounds are really important to set a mood....I remember growning up, the sound of the main street bus, and the smell of the exhaust of the bus, would bring back such memories....Now i have to go to disneyland and smell the bus and the cars...LOL

It would be nice if there was some disney recording that had some of those sounds. just for background sounds while listening to the mark twain nararation, with the boat whistle and other sounds as well. there never has been any recording like that, the mark twain, or the disneyland railroad with various sound effects adding to the talking.

 

[eyore]

It would be nice if there was some disney recording that had some of those sounds. just for background sounds while listening to the mark twain narration, with the boat whistle and other sounds as well. there never has been any recording like that, the mark twain, or the disneyland railroad with various sound effects adding to the talking.

Some of those sounds could be quite easy. The whistles etc should be a part of numerous videos and easy to rip. I suppose we just don't actually remember they are there (because they are in the background, so to speak or because we consider them a nuisance because they block out the narration). Difficult to record in isolation because they are unplanned (generally). The distinctive honk of the Main Street vehicles, for instance unless you stand in their path with a recorder :lol:
I'm sure I have many of them as live recordings on my videos anyway. Must have a look. I certainly have the hooter from one of the boats as I remember being annoyed as it was spoiling the music.