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Theatre Sound Recording

I am a sound technician and musician based in the United Kingdom providing recorded sound FX, music and voice-over recordings for Theatre Productions. The "Sound File Library and "Play Collections" on the menu will give you access to my sound FX library. If you would like to know more about how I prepare my show-tapes, please look at Hard Disc and Minidisc.

Most of my Sound FX work is for local Amateur Dramatics companies such as The Miller Centre Players, of Caterham, Surrey. Such Drama Groups provide a wide variety of venues from small multi-purpose halls, through open air productions to fully equipped professional theatres. Drama groups such as the ones mentioned above are capable of provide challenging and exciting drama of very high quality. From the technical point of view part of this capability is due to the money that can be spent on lighting, sound and stage equipment since there are no staff or manpower costs associated with their productions. The rest is due to the skill and enthusiasm shown by the stage crew and technicians.

As a musician I play guitar in a Barn Dance Band based in South-East England performing traditional English, Scottish and Irish music, with the odd French and Romanian tune thrown in for good measure.

Listen to three mp3 recordings of my band (These recordings were actually made at barn dances):

The Horses Bransle	This is originally a gentle dance of the French court. But, we've made it more interesting! (3.1M)
The Curly Headed Ploughboy/Uncles Jig	A polka and a jig for your enjoyment. (3.1M)
The Yellow Rose/Old Joe Clark/Golden Slippers	Here are some American tunes for you. Note the addition of a second part to "The Yellow Rose of Texas". (3.5M)

Hard Disc and Minidisc

When I first became involved with Theatre Sound, in the early 80's, I only had a Tascam 244 Portastudio and, later a Revox B77 reel-to-reel tape recorder on which, with difficulty, I sometimes had to prepare the most complex of sound tapes. Those days are long gone. The digital revolution has swept the 'old ways' aside. All my 'show tapes' are now prepared and edited on the same computer that created this page.

Computer hard disc recording provides the best method of editing sound. Even the humble desk top PC can easily be configured to edit sound and music in ways that are almost impossible by any other means. But, since hard disc recording is arguably the best method of sound recording available for the foreseeable future, if you need to manipulate sound and you don't need a dedicated professional, studio hard disc system then the humble PC can provide the answer, especially since there are many software sound editors and suitable playback solutions for theatre work.

Sample Sounds

Here are a few .wav files as samples of the sort of effects I might be asked to prepare for a theatre production. File size restrictions dictate that the samples are short and not of the best quality, but they still give you an idea of what I can do.

	For one play I was asked to supply a recording of one of the most famous moments in the history of sports commentary. This is the end of the 1966 Football World Cup ( for the Americans out there - this is the game you call soccer.) I couldn't locate a recording quickly, so I produced my own version of the occasion.
	For another show I had to create the ambience of a television game show, the music and applause as the guests are introduced. This is the result.
	This is a nightmare sequence for Beauty and the Beast.

Here are some fun recordings of a woman's voice for your pleasure.

	Hello gorgeous!
	Someone's left you a message.
	Ooh! Don't do that.
	See you sexy!