fieldmuzick faq

Here you will find some useful informations about field muzick, the idea behind and how to take part.

about fieldmuzick

field muzick is aims music in it's widest sense and environmental recordings. It's about expand your reality, it's about listening to music on open windows, while sounds from outside interact with your current situation.
There is primarily no academical approach. Sure it refer to acousic ecology if field recordings are used, but always in sense of music with the quality to be memorable.

field muzick is specialiced to release an edition of limited mini cd-r in an unique way. the roots are in do-it-yourself scene so there is no commercial idea behind. fieldmuzick releases are for people who interested in, and just for them. so that's the reason why the releases are limited to a small amount. there is no need of 300 factory produced records and there is no need to send out a lot promos.
beside producing cd-r releases, field muzick gives the chance to listen to each release for free, online and mostly you will get an exclusive free bonus track from each artist.

you are welcome to contribute to the field muzick website in writings or sounds if you like the idea or you've got a similar approach.

about demos

fieldmuzick is looking for artists who create a unique and unusual sounding music with environmental recordings or concrete sounds. Field recordings are from the beginning an important part of the idea, but not only. It's about music in it's wides sense. Sure mostly experimental music in genres like ambient, soundscape, avantgarde, but I imagine, that's not all.

What about a post-rock outfit, which use field recordings to expand their work, or some drum'n'bass with concrete sounds? What about selfbuild recording devices (good old wax cylinders or selfbuild micophones with unique sounding?) or what about a hippie freakout in the woods or your local shopping centre?
I know there are a lot of artists who exploring field recordings, who record places around the world, that's interesting too, but fieldmuzick want not only aim acoustic ecology. It's about music you can listen to, that is memorable.

So if you have an own idea to this blurry facts, feel free to contact me and send demos. The best way would be mp3 links in your e-mail request. Please do not attach files. If you have no own webspace for hosting files, use filehosting-services like mediafire.com.
All demos are listened to and if there is an interest, you will get an answer for sure. As always in DIY fields - fieldmuzick is not a fulltimejob, so everthing needs it's time and other resources, to prepare a release.

about field recording

I often get e-mails, with questions, how to start doing field recordings and which equipment could be used. So I will shortly outline my personal experience.

First if you start, it depends on you personal idea. As always, you have the chance to spend a lot of money to high quality equipment, but if you have no sense for the things you will do, it is not worth.

When I started in 1996 I bought a cheap portable tape recorder and a very cheap condenser mic. I recorded everything that sounds interesting to me, and after lsitening to it, I found out which sounds work better and which not - it always depends on my recording hardware.

Later I switched to MiniDisc - a long time semi standard for field recordings. the quality was better and it was more comfortable. I still used low priced condenser mics, but it was good to me, to catch atmospheres of my environment or concrete sounds. It fit my needs. As long as I don't want to record very special sounds, like distant birds or stuff like that.

Today I've got my perfect setup. I replaced the good old minidisc with an Zoom H2 recorder and the unhandy condenser mics are repleaced by the nice OKM In-Ear Mics, which provide a very good quality for environmental recordings, plus, they are very easy to wear.
The digital recorder got a good setup of four mics, so it works as standalone device very good. It have some limitations in handling, but it works very stable and fast and in comination with the OKM mics it's unbeatable.
This combination (or the Zoom H2 alone) is a very good starting point, to explore the wide field of environmental recordings.

If you've get a sense for this and know what you want, you can update your equiment, to fit your needs.

That are my personal recommentations and each field recordist may tell you a different story. So it's up to you how to start.
I would say a basic setup of condenser mic + MiniDisc Walkman recorder (with mic input!) will cost you not a fortune.

Good Luck!

Thanks for your interest so far!

last change: 2008/08/26