Field recording

Field recording is the term used for any recording produced outside of a recording studio.

Field recordings can be either of two varieties. Field recording of natural sounds, also called Phonography (a term chosen to illustrate its similarities to photography), was originally employed as a documentary adjunct to research work in the field and foley work for film. With the availability of high-quality portable recording equipment, it has subsequently become an evocative art in itself. Both processed and natural phonographic recordings are available.

Field recordings can also refer to on-site recordings of musicians, such as those pioneered by John Lomax, Nonesuch Records and Vanguard Records, where the use of a recording studio for these recordings is impractical.

Techniques
Field recording became possible in the early 1960s with the introduction of high-quality portable recording equipment (such the Uher_(brand)\Uher and Nagra portable reel-to-reel decks). Current portable devices utilize DAT (Digital Audio Tape) or completely digital (hard disk/Flash) technology, to reproduce an exact audio replica, or soundscape. Other recent popular means for field recording are the analog cassette (CAC), the DCC (Digital Compact Cassette), and the MiniDisc. The former two are declining in popularity due to the loss of fidelity resulting from their data compression technologies such as Sony's ATRAC. MiniDisc, however, particularly in its contemporary lossless HiMD version, is still used by many.

Techniques have developed to include creative placement of microphones (including contact microphones & hydrophones for example), diffusion of captured sounds and highly individual approaches from recordists.

Ethnomusicology
Field recording was originally a way to document oral presentations and ethnomusicology projects (pioneered by Charles Seeger and John Lomax)..

Bioacoustics
Field recording is an important tool in bioacoustics and biomusicology, most commonly in research on bird song. Animals in the wild can display very different vocalizations from those in captivity.

Music
The use of field recordings was in the avant-garde, musique concrete, experimental, and more recently ambient was evident almost from the birth of recording technology. Most note worthy for pioneering the conceptual and theoretical framework with art music that most openly embraced the use of raw sound material and field recordings was Pierre Schaeffer who was developing musique concrete as early as 1940. Field recordings are now common source material for a range of musical results from contemporary musique concrete compositions to film soundtracks, video game soundtracks, and effects.

Radio documentary
Radio documentaries often use recordings from the field e.g. a locomotive engine running, for evocative effect. This type of sound functions as the non-fictional counterpart to the sound effect.

Politics
During the early years of commercial recordings, the speeches of politicians sold well, since few people had radios. The HMV catalogue for 1914 - 1918 lists over a dozen such records, by Lloyd George and other politicians. Probably the last time such records sold well was in 1965, when the LP "The Voice of Churchill" reached number 7 in the Uk album charts. This was immediately after his death.