Big Water Splashes

Here are some sounds of dumping large amounts of water from my JD tractor onto a concrete surface. When I prepared for the dump everything looked like a go and I would get some nice, big splashes but I soon found out the the tractor was not level so most of the water poured out from one side and not evenly. After some dirt ramp adjustments (With a shovel, Argh!) and some quick checking with my iPhone level App I was ready to go. Here is the thing: ready to go meant driving down a steep hill to my stream and hand filling the tractor bucket with over 200 gallons of water… with a five gallon plastic paint container. Then, slowly make my way back up the hill full of water and trying not to spill it all out. Once in position I let it rip.

At first I did smaller dumps and pours and then eventually just let the whole bucket spill at one time. I also recorded some quick large splats by tilting the tractor bucket loader quickly and at the same time lowered it a bit. This made the water sort of jump out and hit the ground without the extra dripping that was happening during the longer spills. I filled the bucket five times and I was done, really tired and somewhat soaked.

I recorded all the sounds at 24/96 with a MKH-8040ST set to XY at 90 degrees. I had the MKH rig set on a long boom pole and stand so it would not get wet. I used what is called a “Boom Mate” to hold the boom pole on the stand. I have had it a very long time and ir really works well. I do have to add some weights on the stand legs sometimes to keep it from falling over when the boom pole is extended out beyond 6 feet. Some splashes did hit the microphone (unavoidable sometimes because I like to record them close up) but after some careful editing they were gone without any damage to the sound itself.

This session was for a upcoming water library to be released later this summer. All new HD water sounds galor!

Enjoy! -Frank