Keep up to date with Evocative Sound and Visuals here on our Stories (blog) page. Learn about new sound effect libraries and soundscape album releases, photography, how-to, behind-the-scenes and more.

  • Photography

    Limitations of Using Legacy Lenses

    Last Friday afternoon, while photographing my great-niece performing during a technical rehearsal of The Nutcracker ballet in Kalamazoo, Michigan, I sadly ran up against the limitations of using legacy lenses with my mirrorless Fuji XT-2 camera. I own five different … Read More

  • Field Recording

    Recording a Newspaper Press and Typewriter

    Last week, I found myself recording a newspaper press and typewriter as I was allowed once again to visit the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s printing facility in Cleveland, Ohio. My primary reason for the visit was to capture the sound of … Read More

  • Field Recording | Ohio | SASS

    Fireworks with a Gorgeous View

    I had high hopes for the soundscape you’re about to hear in the YouTube video below. Off and on for several years, I have been recording the sound of exploding fireworks, both up close and distant. Examples of my up-close work can be heard and purchased via my blog post entitled Commercial Fireworks: Up Close and Loud. As you’ll hear, I’m still working on the distant fireworks library. On Independence Day, or rather, that night, I convinced my wife to drive with me down poorly-lit gravel roads to listen to fireworks with a gorgeous view. The view in this case is from the gorge overlook at Mohican State Park.… Read More

  • Field Recording

    Recording the Gorge Dam

    Yesterday, I drove down to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, to record the sound of water pouring over the Gorge Dam. This massive 70-foot-high concrete dam, constructed in 1913 by Northern Ohio Traction & Light Co. to generate hydroelectric power, was decommissioned … Read More

  • Field Recording | Ohio

    Dawn Chorus in Southwest Ohio

    Over Memorial Day weekend 2025, my wife and I stayed in the guest house at the Murphin Ridge Inn, a bed and breakfast 13 miles due north of the Ohio River as the crow flies. Below, hear the dawn chorus … Read More

  • Photography

    Millions of Midges

    Watch as millions of midges swarm above Headland Dunes State Nature Preserve along the shore of Lake Erie in Mentor, Ohio around sunset on Sunday, June 1, 2025. … Read More

  • Field Recording | hydrophones | Ohio

    Underwater Sounds of Rocky Run Creek

    Capturing the underwater sound of Rocky Creek before it crests over Greenwood Falls in Greenwood Village of Sagamore Hills, Ohio on Friday, April 4, 2025. A pair of Aquarian H2A hydrphones were used, dropped into pools both large and small, deep and shallow, that form around eroding Berea Sandstone layers. … Read More

  • Field Recording | Sound Effects

    Printing Presses

    Printing Presses showcases a variety of high-powered and dynamic mechanical sounds from three massive web-offset newspaper presses operating at high speed, unique mechanical sounds heard inside a newspaper’s plate room and packaging department before and after a press run, plus three letterpresses. Each sound is captured with multiple microphone setups at various locations, providing detailed and overall perspectives. You’ll hear presses increasing in speed, humming along at running speed and then coming to a stop. Sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly. I’ve created condensed versions since press runs can be long, presenting them as ‘sequences.’ In addition, some sounds have been meticulously edited and presented as seamless loops.… Read More

  • Amish | Field Recording | Ohio

    Amish Country Steam Train

    Listen to the distant sound of a turn-of-the-last-century steam train whistle reverberating through the valleys of Ohio’s Amish Country during the Fall Steam Festival at the Age of Steam Roundhouse on Saturday, September 29, 2024.… Read More

  • Field Recording | hydrophones | Ohio

    Rowing on the River

    Submerge yourself in the relaxing sounds of a modern-day rowing regatta in this latest soundscape album by Evocative Sound and Visuals. For Rowing on the River, listen to the graceful rhythms of single-scull (1x) and eight-person (8+) sweep rowing crews … Read More

  • Field Recording | hydrophones | Ohio | Sound Effects

    Sounds from a Rowing Regatta

    What would it be like to be able to listen to the 28th annual Head of the Cuyahoga Regatta with your head above and below the water at the same time? Let’s first assume for the moment that you’d even want to do this. Granted, the Cuyahoga River hasn’t caught fire in 55 years. That’s due in large part to many groups, both government and volunteer, doing positive and determined work to clean it up and keep it pollution-free, mostly. Even so, yuck. Let’s say however, that with the aid of a pair of underwater microphones, or hydrophones, one can achieve this simultaneous perspective. Well then, it would sound a little like the video below. Put on your snorkel tube and enjoy sounds from a rowing regatta.… Read More

  • Field Recording | Sound Effects

    Antique Engines

    Introducing Antique Engines, Evocative Sound and Visuals’ latest sound effects library. In it, hear expressive examples of restored late 19th and early 20th-century stationary and moving engines. Some appear to hiss, spit and cough. Others puff and snort. Some just … Read More

  • Field Recording | Sound Effects

    Vaults, Safes, Keys and Locks

    I’m pleased to announce the launch of my latest sound effects library, Vaults, Safes, Keys and Locks. This library contains impactful sounds of massive steel-doored vaults slamming shut, plus a wide variety of safes, keys and locks. There are plenty … Read More

  • Louisiana | Photography

    Who Was This Katrina Victim?

    Today marks the 19th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. Every few years, I put out a passionate inquiry asking the question, who was this Katrina victim? I firmly believe, after all these years, it’s worth … Read More

  • Field Recording | induction coil microphones | Ohio | Sound Effects

    Recording at the Scene of the Northeast Blackout of 2003

    Tomorrow marks the 21st anniversary of the history-making cascading power failure that put much of the northeast United States and parts of Ontario, Canada in the dark. On August 14, 2003, a series of events occurred that switched off the lights for much of the eastern seaboard. High afternoon temperatures that day in much of the region lead to an increased energy demand on the power grid. This caused power lines to sag, some of which came in contact, or flashed, with overgrown trees below. … Read More

  • Field Recording | Idaho | Ohio | Sound Effects

    Abandoned Prison

    Evocative Sound and Visuals presents Abandoned Prison, featuring sounds captured at the historic Ohio State Reformatory (OSR) in Mansfield, Ohio. Included are nasty squeaks, loud bangs and deep thuds from the cavernous prison’s cell block doors and massive chapel door.… Read More

  • Field Recording | Sound Effects

    Periodical Cicadas

    Periodical Cicadas features the sounds of millions of periodical cicadas singing en masse. This library has extended drones and screeches, up-close wing-fluttering pass-byes, multiple pharaoh (mating) calls and distant cicadas singing from the treetops. With my latest recordings captured in May 2025, three broods are now featured: Brood XXII was recorded in south Louisiana in 2014, Brood V was recorded in Ohio in 2016 and Brood XIV was recorded in the hollows of West Virginia in 2025.… Read More

  • Field Recording | induction coil microphones | Sound Effects

    Electromagnetic Fields

    Evocative Sound and Visuals is pleased to release Electromagnetic Fields. This library contains 163 sounds from 68 devices and structures captured in high-quality stereo with a Sony PCM D100 recorder and two small induction coil microphones. Included are hums, drones, beeps, bleeps, buzzes, glitches, pulses, static and more strange sounds I cannot describe. They’re all lovingly recorded and meticulously mastered.… Read More

  • contact microphones | Field Recording | Idaho | Ohio | Sound Effects

    Wind and Metal

    Wind and Metal explores the awesome ways metal responds sonically under the influence of wind. Large objects like wind turbines, windmills, a geodesic dome, an overhead power line transmission tower, a fire tower, flag poles and a giant crucifix, were recorded under varying wind speeds from airy breezes to howling gusts. Each structure produces resonant tones unique to its design, location and weather affecting it. There’s the sound of wire fences too.… Read More

  • DIY | Field Recording | Idaho | SASS | Sound Effects

    Oval Track Racing

    Cover your ears. It’s going to get LOUD, introducing, Oval Track Racing. This high-octane stock car racing library features cars of various makes, models and performance characteristics circling a quarter mile (.40 kilometer) oval track in Meridian, Idaho. This track distance is referred to as a ‘short track.’ The sounds were captured from multiple perspectives inside, outside, and alongside the asphalt track with a variety of microphones and recorders.… Read More

  • Amish | Binaural Microphone | Field Recording | Ohio | Sound Effects

    The Amish

    Step back into a simpler time when farm living was a non-mechanized affair. No GPS-guided, 17-foot wide combines with air-conditioned cabs. No crops that are doused from the air with pesticides. To where cow’s milk is hand-squeezed into metal buckets before the break of dawn. Where horse and human work side by side. Evocative Sound and Visuals is pleased to announce its latest sound effects library entitled, The Amish. A rare collection of high-quality recordings featuring life among the Amish community of northeast Ohio. … Read More

  • Field Recording | Louisiana

    Mounds and Sounds of Poverty Point

    In August 2015, with the imaginative hope of listening to a time long since vanished, I visited Poverty Point State Historic Site, a series of prehistoric earthworks made up of five mounds of varying height and concentric half-circle-shaped ridges dating back 3,400 years.… Read More

  • contact microphones | Field Recording | Sound Effects

    Typewriters

    Typewriters is a sound effects collection chock-full of vintage typewriters making sounds beyond the simple click-clack-clunk heard in so many TV shows and movies. I was curious if there was more to the sound of these old machines than meets … Read More

  • Field Recording | Ohio | Sound Effects

    Commercial Fireworks: Up Close and Loud

    Fireworks: Up Close and Loud is a collection of commercial-grade fireworks – the big stuff – shooting from mortar tubes not 20 feet from my microphones. Each colorful burst can be heard directly overhead with a healthy decay at the end. The result is an assemblage of sounds filled with power and punch. Every round leaving its tube gives off a solid thump. Only such nearby access can provide this perspective. But if you’re not into the patriotic thing and are just looking for mortar round sounds for a battlefield scene, this library has you covered too.… Read More

  • contact microphones | Field Recording

    Wind Chimes

    Wind Chimes is a collection of meticulously recorded wind chimes purposely recorded with a pair of high-end Barcus Berry contact microphones. By using this type of mic instead of traditional ones, the attack, sustain and decay of each tube struck by its clapper are experienced in ways unheard by the naked ear. Every tinkle and plink, every clang and rattle sound a bit more removed from its environment than normal. Harmonics can easily be heard alongside fundamental frequencies. Every recording is unique to its moment in time, each note as random as the wind that played it. These wind chimes are anything but showroom new. Some are weathered. Some are outwardly neglected. A few sound pretty, others not so much.… Read More

  • Binaural Microphone | Field Recording | Idaho | SASS | Sound Effects

    Irrigation

    Irrigation is a collection of water flow ambiances captured in and around the Treasure Valley of southwestern Idaho, where the Payette, Boise, Weiser, Malheur, Owyhee and Burnt rivers drain into the Snake River. Follow the flow of crystal clear water as it travels from mountain-fed streams and rivers down into large reservoirs. Listen as water courses through the pipes and along the canals that carry it to sprinklers large and small. Finally, the water fans out onto verdant golf courses, people’s front yards and farmland.… Read More

  • Field Recording | Sound Effects

    Hydroelectric Power

    In Hydroelectric Power sound effects library, witness the power of water in this collection of recordings captured at and inside historic hydropower plants and massive concrete dams in the United States.… Read More

  • Binaural Microphone | Field Recording | hydrophones | Idaho

    Soak, The Soothing Sound of Idaho Hot Springs

    Put on your swim trunks or bathing suit, turn your thermostat up to 100 F (38 C) and listen to my latest blog post on making Soak, The Soothing Sound of Idaho Hot Springs, featuring the soundscape of Pine Flats Hot Springs along the South Fork of the Payette River in south-central Idaho. Recorded in April 2021, the 55:42 album transports you down a 100-foot jagged algae-covered cliff to the source of the springs, where hydrothermal water comes from the underworld at 138 F (59 C), onto a relaxing and comfortable waterfall-fed soaking pool, then finally to Class II rapids along the blue-green river.… Read More

  • DIY | Field Recording | SASS

    DIY SASS Microphone Rig

    I came across a vintage brown plastic file box back in 2020 while scrounging local thrift shops for flexible plastic to build my second DIY SASS housing. The price, $1.99. My first attempt at building a DIY was with using a 70s-yellow Samsonite train case, also a thrift store find. The first one was fine, but heavy and more labor-intensive to build that what I present below. Currently, DIY SASS version 2 holds a pair of Audio Technica 3032 omnidirectional microphones. These microphones have been discontinued, but have been replaced with AT’s 4022.… Read More

  • Idaho | Photography

    Shooting Two Comets and Counting

    In April 1997 Life Magazine’s Director of Photography David Friend called out of the blue asking me to photograph comet Hale-Bopp, which at the time was streaking through the sky above sparsely populated Wyoming, where I had lived and worked … Read More

  • Binaural Microphone | Field Recording | Idaho

    Sage Grouse Serenade

    Join me as I spend a cold April night under a full moon in the wide-open sagebrush steppe of southwestern Idaho. Listen to the bizarre sounds of male Greater sage grouse performing their annual courtship displays on ancestral mating grounds … Read More

  • contact microphones | DIY | Field Recording | Idaho | Ohio | Sound Effects

    Wind Chimes

    Tinkling. Plinking. Clinking. Clanging. Rattling. Ah, the beautiful sounds of wind chimes blowing in a gentle breeze. Here are 16 of them, in all shapes and sizes. Some are old. Some are new. Some are borrowed. Sorry, none are blue. Each one is meticulously recorded and layered in a unique way that will have you thinking they are all hanging from your back porch, and you are in the middle of it all.… Read More

  • contact microphones | Field Recording | Idaho

    Drum Roll, Please

    Drum. Drum. Drum. For several mornings earlier this month, that sound is all I heard. A Downy woodpecker was using a cottonwood tree I walk past on my route to see the morning newspaper as its sounding board. The woodpecker … Read More

  • Field Recording | Photography

    Give Me Steam

    There is an adage of late in the photography world; the best camera is the one you have with you. I’m not exactly sure where this pithy saying came from. It’s not something I recall quoted from the mouths of … Read More

  • Field Recording | Idaho

    Dusk to Dawn on the Camas Prairie

    It is late May 2019. The camas are at the peak of their bloom, creating a sea of blue-violet wildflowers that stretch toward snow-capped mountains to the north. The western horizon bursts into flames as the sun peeks out from behind cottony clouds. Thick dark water flows past my ankles. Sights and sounds build in layers with birdsong ringing out across the marshland. Mother Nature has arranged a perfect feast for the senses this fine evening and I am in the center of it all, recording from dusk to dawn on the Camas Prairie.
    … Read More

  • Field Recording | Idaho

    Aspens in Autumn

    Listening to the wind blowing through the trees is one of life’s simple pleasures. There is no better time to lay down and relax beneath the branches than in the fall when deciduous trees trade their greenery for vibrant displays of yellow, red and orange. Here in the Rocky Mountain West, the Quaking aspen puts on the show. The unique sound their leaves make before falling to the earth is not to be missed. … Read More

  • Idaho | Photography

    Finding Frames at the Fair

    I love looking for frames within the camera frame. We look into frames all the time. Take for example car windshields, television screens, smartphones, doorways and alike. Be it a square, a rectangular, or whatever, the camera frame is a … Read More

  • Idaho | Photography

    Making Music Among the Pines

    “Please do not underestimate the mountain roads. Do not follow your GPS. BE SURE TO BELIEVE THE SPEED MARKINGS AT THE CURVES!” So warns the website for the Yellow Pine Music and Harmonica Festival where musicians come from all over, … Read More

  • Field Recording | Idaho

    For the Birds

    Walking our dog along the Boise River Greenbelt every morning generates many rewards. One of the greatest has been in meeting new people. This past winter, when Maggie and I dressed in double layers of wool to combat morning temperatures … Read More

  • Field Recording | hydrophones | Ohio

    Evocative Sound is Happening

    Thank you for reading my introductory blog post for my new website and business Evocative Sound & Visuals. I’m so glad you’re here! Let me begin by shouting out the launch of my latest multimedia story and first-ever album entitled … Read More

  • Field Recording | Ohio

    Beneath the Crooked River

    To uniquely commemorate the 50th anniversary of the June 22, 1969 Cuyahoga River fire, I traveled the length of the river – from headwaters to Lake Erie – recording its underwater soundscape during a nine-month period in 2017 and 2018. Dipping hydrophones (underwater microphones) into the water opened up an otherwise unheard sonic world. Now I was able to listen to the subtle sounds of barely audible aquatic life, to the natural sounds of flowing water where a dam stood for years before, to rhythmic sounds of kayak paddles cutting into the water, and finally, to the penetrating noise of tug boats and lake tankers motoring through the Flats. What I discovered is that this once polluted environmental disaster is back from the dead.

    I hope you enjoy the journey.

    … Read More