HHB Communications Ltd. supplied the Glastonbury Festival Sound Archive with a Yellowtec iXm digital recording microphone for this year’s festival.
Producers Lisa Mae and Paul Lund chose the iXm to record field interviews, crowd sounds and clips of speeches from the many Worthy Farm stages, stating that it gave them a clear advantage in the unpredictable festival environment: “An international outdoor music festival is probably one of the most challenging places to record interviews and sound and Glastonbury throws in all the hazards you can imagine. The shelter of the press tent – to sort and organise kit – might not be far away in distance but it is typically obstructed by barriers and guarded checkpoints, and not least by the crowd crush coming or going from the stages. It’s therefore a benefit to have compact – ready to go – recording equipment that doesn’t require extra accessories.”
Traversing the rugged Worthy Farm terrain with professional recording equipment can be a daunting task. However, the robust build quality of iXm enabled them to continue recording in extreme environments: “In such changing conditions you need recording gear that takes up little space, is easy to use and relatively robust when the rain comes and you need to cover up quickly.”
He continues: “We are in the thick of it, day and night, doing our best to capture the diversity of sound and comments from the fans. It’s rare to see another radio reporter or sound recorder doing the same, so either we are crazy or we’re at the forefront of capturing some of the most difficult field audio.
Utilising an intelligent levelling algorithm, the iXm combines a slow-acting gain leveller with a look-ahead peak limiter to avoid ADC distortion and provides automatic level control. Paul found this feature particularly beneficial when recording the noisy festival crowds: “We didn’t have to set levels or worry about the over peak from the occasional scream or shout from passing fans made our interviews quicker to turn around for broadcast for the on-site radio station. Editing would previously take longer as the sound wave would need to be cleaned of all peaks, interruptions, double takes because of wind blow, as the iXm resisted picking up the wind in places we would normally have needed to turn away and shield ourselves from the short gusts.”
HHB recently announced that the new iXm Uplink app for the Yellowtec iXm digital recording microphone is available for iPhone or iPad free at the Apple store.
Almost all the 2015 Glastonbury tracks uploaded onto SoundCloud www.soundcloud.com/build-glastonburyfestival were recorded using the iXm.
Editor’s Note
HHB Communications Limited:
Founded in 1976 and located in London, HHB Communications is a global leader in the supply of professional audio technology. Serving in the broadcast, recording and media production sectors, HHB’s unique expertise is also recognised by major manufacturers and innovators, many of which have appointed the company as exclusive distributors of their products. The specialist division, Scrub serves the needs of the television and film post production industry from premises in the heart of London’s Soho.
