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.
Riding Along the Detroit People Mover
Riding along the Detroit People Mover. This nearly 3-mile elevated people mover forms a loop around downtown, with brief stops at 13 stations and some sharp curves along the way. … Read More
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
Seashells and Sound Waves
Capturing the sound of Lake Erie waves – as heard through a pair of conch shells – at Fairport Harbor Lakefront Park on Saturday, December 16, 2023.… Read More
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
Interview with The Natural Curiosity Project
Interview with Richard Alan Hannon of Evocative Sound and Visuals for The Natural Curiosity Project podcast.… Read More
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
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
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
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
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
Strong Wind Makes Geodesic Dome Sing
Strong Wind Makes Geodesic Dome Sing. Recording the sound that strong wind makes as it runs across a geodesic dome.… Read More
Trains in the Valley
Trains in the Valley is a 55:19 nature recording album featuring the sound of both steam and diesel-electric locomotives traveling through Cuyahoga Valley National Park.… Read More
The Tinkling Sound of Tiny Icicles
The tinkling sound of tiny icicles along a bridge in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
… Read More
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
How to Record Ultrasonic Bat Echolocation
This post deals with how to record ultrasonic bat echolocation using a variety of microphones and recorders, specifically the Sony PCM D100 recorder.… Read More
Sights and Sounds of the Beaver Marsh
Look at and listen to sounds of the Beaver Marsh at Cuyahoga Valley National Park in northeast Ohio. For a different kind of recording, I used a pair of high-end contact microphones clipped to the boardwalk that spans the 70-acre marsh. You hear the 70-acre wetland from the wood’s perspective.… Read More
Beneath the Crooked River during Blazing Paddles Paddlefest
Listen to the underwater sounds of the Cuyahoga River as contestants paddle upstream past Scranton Flats during the 3rd annual Blazing Paddles Paddlefest, on July 24, 2021, in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cuyahoga River, famous for catching on fire many times, … Read More
DIY SASS Microphone Rig for PIP Microphones
How I turned a vintage plastic file box … into a DIY SASS microphone housing for plug-in-power (PIP) microphones. Why have one DIY SASS microphone rig when you can have two? I came across a vintage brown plastic file box … Read More
My DIY SASS Microphone Rig
My DIY SASS Microphone Rig. How I turned a vintage Samsonite train case purchased at a thrift store for $3 into a SASS (Stereo Ambient Sampling System) microphone rig.… Read More
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
How Oil from BP’s Deepwater Horizon Spill Looks 10 Years On
A recent move has unearthed the dormant sand collection I keep inside my grandmother-in-law’s vintage American Tourister blue train case. The satin-lined case, complete with a fancy little mirror on the inside, is stuffed from top to bottom with bubble … Read More
Rumble of the John A. Roebling Bridge
Field recording of the Rumble of the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge which spans the Ohio River.… Read More
DIY Crush-Proof PVC Zeppelin Travel Cover
My vintage Rycote Zeppelin and matching Windjammer came in the mail yesterday. This eBay purchase cost $25. I know, I got a sweet deal. Upon delivery, It had a few cracks where the back cap meets the body. Hence the … Read More
Deep South Memories
Come, and take a 500-mile sonic journey with me through the Deep South in August. It’s the time of year when the humidity is so thick it smacks you right in the face morning, noon and night. That time of … Read More
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
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
Say Hello to Binaural Bill
A couple of months ago, I decided to do something about the two big limitations of using my Luhd PM-01 AB microphones. These small, low-noise, high-sensitivity handmade electret microphones run on plug-in power (PIP). I paired mine with a Sony … Read More
Mohican Through the Seasons
Mohican Through the Seasons is a four-part album series highlighting the natural soundscape of Mohican State Park in north-central Ohio and its vast surrounding forest during winter, spring, summer and fall. Recording note: All recordings were captured in hi-quality stereo … Read More
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
Minidoka Visitor Center Grand Opening
Photos from the Minidoka Visitor Center Grand Opening in Idaho.… Read More
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
Dusk to Dawn on the Camas Prairie
A sea of blue-violet wildflowers stretches toward snow-capped mountains to the north. It is late May, and the camas are at the peak of their bloom. The western horizon bursts into flames as the sun peeks out from behind cottony clouds. Birdsong begins to ring out across the marshland. Sights and sounds build in layers. Mother nature has arranged a perfect feast for the senses this fine evening. And I am in the center of it all, past my ankles in thick dark water, here on the Idaho prairie, recording the wonderful soundscape.… Read More
The Secret Sound of Snags
Field recordings of the sound of snags, downed trees, captured with special contact microphones that allow you, the listener, to hear the tree from the inside out. … Read More
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
Supper Worth the Sting, a Squirrel Stirs up a Hornet’s Nest
Sharp-eyed striders walking the Greenbelt in Garden City this summer most likely saw, if they were looking up that is, a hefty quantity of gray paper nests hanging from the cottonwoods that line the riverbank. Crafted by bald-faced hornets, these basketball-sized, … Read More
Capturing the Sound of World War II Warbirds
Field recordings to capture the Sound of World War II Warbirds.… Read More
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
Making Music Among the Pines
“Please do not underestimate the mountain roads,” it says. “Do not follow your GPS.” “BE SURE TO BELIEVE THE SPEED MARKINGS AT THE CURVES!” The road to the Yellow Pine Music and Harmonica Festival is not for the faint of heart. … Read More
Sounds From a Simple Life
Sounds From a Simple Life. Field recordings of the Amish of north-central Ohio.… Read More
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
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
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.