The vocabulary around environmental audio can be surprisingly broad. I’ve briefly discussed the take/recording dilemma before, and today I’d like to touch on field recording, ambience, and soundscape. These terms are often used interchangeably in casual conversation (well, mostly reddit and youtube, normal people don’t really use them at all,) yet each carries a distinct history, lineage, and theoretical set of expectations.

Field Recording

Field recording is the simplest of the three terms, because it describes a practice: going out into the world and capturing sound with a microphone and a recorder.… Keep reading