North York Moors Railway

[fh1805]

I posted a link to this sequence in one of the threads about sound recording because it demonstrates the capability of digital sound recording equipment. I'm posting the link here to bring it to the attention of a wider audience.

The railway runs between Whitby and Pickering through some of the finest moorland scenery in North Yorkshire in the north east of England.

The voice-over and the location sound recordings were all done using the Zoom H4 digital sound recorder, captured as WAV files at source and post-processed using Audacity. The A4 Pacific whistle was recorded with the unit lying on the ground in a clump of sedges for additional wind baffle while I did the photography. The station ambience was recorded with the unit held in my hand.

File name: NYMRailway.zip; file size: 33MB. The link is here: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7836f6f...2db6fb9a8902bda

Following added at 1620GMT on 9 October 2008:

The audible problems with the voice-over are attributable to the fact that I had a slight cold when recording it. I normally wouldn't do the recording in such a situation but I had broken my own rule and accepted a commitment to show the sequence to an audience before I had got it finished. In order to meet the deadline I had to record whilst still being a little "under the weather".

The show is built to run from a PTE Menu sequence. Because of a problem associated with running PTE sequences under Windows Vista, all my sequences have to be built to run "Windowed mode" and not "Fullscreen" mode. They are built to be projected at 1024x768 and triggered off a menu sequence. That explains the overall image size and the way it appears on larger resolution monitors.

All comments very welcome.

regards,

Peter

[dpeterso]

I posted a link to this sequence in one of the threads about sound recording because it demonstrates the capability of digital sound recording equipment. I'm posting the link here to bring it to the attention of a wider audience.

All comments very welcome.

regards,

Peter

An interesting and enjoyable slideshow Peter. I liked the mixture of transition effects and how you carefully timed them with the melody and beat of the music. Your voice was easy to understand and added to the show. However, the voice sounded as though it was coming from a barrel—a little too much echo.

Your photographs were exceptionally clear with very nice compositions. It would have been even better for me if the pictures were much larger, like in the 1680 by xxxx range.

You must have really enjoyed shooting these photographs. It looked like such a fun place to be.

Thanks for sharing your work Peter.

Regards,

Dave

[fh1805]

Dave,

Thanks for the comments. They're much appreciated. See the edits made to post#1 for the explanations about my voice and the image size.

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

PETER'S SHOW WAS ENTERED

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....ost&p=57363

I have listened for this warbling sound that is mentioned and i can't hear any warbling - if somebody could give me a time when it appears, maybe i can be more attentive otherwise maybe i should go to an ear Dr., as well as the eye surgeon and get an ear job

thks

ken

[fh1805]

Ken,

I'm sorry to have to say this but I think it's your age. Them old ears aren't what they used to be! I can hear it myself and I knew it was there when I posted the sequence. It is most obvious during the first 20 seconds or so when the only soundtrack material is my voice. As I explained elsewhere I knew I had a cold that day but I had a deadline to meet so went ahead with the recording. As I made the recording I was conscious that my vocal cords were heavily coated with mucus and that I was speaking with almost a gargling sound.

However, since Brian (Conflow) pointed out in the thread on "H4 Problem Solutions" exactly what he had found in this recording, I have since found the same in several other voice-overs done with the Zoom H4. It would seem that the H4 and my cold have merged to give an especially unpleasant effect to this particular recording.

I'm working on a piece of local history research at present with a deadline of Wednesday morning so don't have time to do much with PTE or Audacity this weekend. Once I've got the research complete I'll be getting in touch with Brian to delve a bit deeper into this and improve my knowledge and understanding.

regards,

Peter

P.S. Have a great Thanksgiving weekend!

[Ken Cox]

well it doesnt sound warbly to me

just a bit FROGGY

i'll have to hear you on MSN and compare and discuss it

ken

[cjdnzl]

Hello Peter,

Well, I enjoyed your railway show a lot, and it provided some motivation for me to do a show based on our TranzAlpine Express, which runs from Christchurch to Greymouth, South Island, New Zealand, a distance of about 150 miles, and is rated as one of the ten best rail journeys in the world. But not today, or tomorrow either, the total journey from home and back would set me back several hundred dollars that I can't afford right now.

I was a little surprised at the pitch of the loco whistle on your engines, as here in NZ they used whistles about an octave lower, a gruntier sound altogether - and the 'WHOOOoooOOO" sound never fails to produce an adrenaline reaction, and a moist eye or two, such is nostalgia for us oldies.

I am reminded of a story from the war years; a number of American soldiers were to travel by train from London to Edinburgh, the 'Flying Scotsman' no less.

As the train was about to depart, the engine driver blew the whistle as usual. The soldiers, used to the deep sonorous blast of the American locomotives, laughed themselves silly at the toy-like sound from the Scotsman. However, they laughed no more when the train accelerated to its 100 mile-per-hour speed! Or so the story goes.

Cheers,

Colin

[fh1805]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the comments. I'm fortunate in that the North York Moors railway is only a 40 minute drive away. The one-way journey from Whitby-Pickering takes between 1 hour 30 minutes and 1 hour 40 minutes and the cost of an all-day ticket is £20 (GBP20). Believe it or not I haven't yet actually ridden on the train. All my visits this year were to do the filming at the stations and at trackside.

I'm intending to go again next year at the same time of year (April) and this time ride the train and do some filming of the passing scenery. If I get a successful shoot I'll try and incorporate some of the new material into the second half of the sequence.

regards,

Peter