Soundscape for Skate Park
Bay 66 Skate Park ~ Soundscape
The soundscape
The brief was to record and mix a one-minute soundscape..
I find acoustic ecology’s faithfulness to the location appealing and so my aim was to represent a specific place or idea, in this case BaySixty6 skate park in Ladbroke Grove.
BaySixty6 is situated beneath a flyover and is next to the metropolitan line. As such it has a lot of ambient noise. The semi-open acoustic produces an interesting sense of space in the recordings.
This was mixed on Pro Tools and I used an Izotope Ozone mastering plugin (maximisation and stereo width for cd setting). I used minimal eq, some volume boost and fast panning (with ramp-shaped U-curves) to enhance the realism of ramp sounds. I aimed to cram the minute with lots of information about the space, to represent it as fully as possible.
A couple of difficulties recording at a skate park:
It can be a dangerous place with lots of loose boards flying around
Trying to close-mic a very fast moving target is a challenge and again, could be dangerous to us, the riders and the equipment!