At Blue Distortion, we’ve gone frog crazy! Here is a small tribute of electronic media to our little green friends. First, we have some sound samples packs. The first is of a plethora of frogs going through random rhythms. This was sampled in the late summer of 2005. The second sample pack is processed one hits from the first pack.

Frog Ambience – (5.2 MB) A symphony of frogs, random rhythms.

Tree Frog Kit – (0.7 MB) Processed single shots of the frog sounds.

Below are some high quality photography for your desktop, all four are of the Green Tree Frog, also known as Hyla cinerea. All are sized for wallpaper usage.

	1280 x 1024 1152 x 864 1024 x 768
	1280 x 1024 1152 x 864 1024 x 768
	1280 x 1024 1152 x 864 1024 x 768
	1280 x 1024 1152 x 864 1024 x 768

Today, we are going to teach you how to recreate a different version of this sound using common household items. Well, more common than the old projector and television set. The items you will need for this sound experiment is an electric shaver and a water jug (the big ones used in water coolers).

Here is a quick sample of the sound effect. That’s the source sample with no editing or eq work. To get the best audio signal, try placing the microphone right above the opening of the water bottle pointing down. You can adjust this as you begin recording and checking levels. You will have to hold the water jug off the ground. Letting it rest on the ground will decrease the amplitude and muffle the higher harmonics of the sound.

Take the electric shaver and place it against the water bottle’s side towards the bottom. For the best effect, keep the shaver parallel to the ground. You will have to press the shaver hard against the water bottle to create more of the low frequency hum versus the harsh sound of a shaver hitting plastic. Ok, the harsh sound is really nice and dirty; maybe that could be used as well.

Experiment with the placement of the shaver and you will capture far more strange sounds than just the lightsaber-like effects. For example, try placing the shaver directly underneath the jug. Also, try using different items like oil pans and plastic bowls. Use the pictures below as a guide for placement and micing arrangements. Stay tuned for sample packs from this session.

David Dunn, stands nearby at the edge of a grove of needleless, dead gray piñon that look like the backdrop for a Halloween play. Like me, he wears headphones and has a recording machine slung on his shoulder. But the device connected to his recorder is a microphone like none I’ve ever seen.

He apparently uses piezoelectric transducers found inside greeting cards to record these sounds and amplifies them 6 times. It also looks like he is also using a Tascam Portable DAT Recorder, but, I could be wrong. The recording was fairly noisy, but, very interesting considering what the subject of recording was. I recommend taking a listen. Check the link, or, listen to the segment in mp3 format.

Anyone ever experiment with microrecordings? If so, shoot us an email, I’d be interested to hear any samples recorded as I think they would be a great source for experimental / freeform music. David also does experimental music, samples from some of his compositions can be found here.