A note from the archivist in 2025: This was the text associated with this post in drafts. It doesn’t make any sense with this recording, but it seemed a waste to delete it. It mentions 2 locations that aren’t Steele; and given the contents of the recording (namely the sound of cars), I am unsure the recording was even captured at Steele. If you can decode it, my hat’s off to you. This post was written as a draft in May of 2017.

Location: The Village Mutt is located in a shopping center on Foothill Blvd. In Claremont, right across the street from Harvey Mudd College. It is a pet-wash located right next to an animal orphanage and child day-care. These unique buildings all near each other form a very interesting segment of the greater 5C soundscape. The store itself is filled with animals waiting to get washed and a lot of equipment to clean them. My recording takes place at about 11 AM, so the shop had just started running for the day.

Recording: I made this recording using the TASCAM DR-40 Sound Recorder by putting it on a small tripod that I set on the ground next to an unused machine. The recorder was in the middle of the room and faced a machine about 7 feet away that a student was working at.

Description: For this recording, I chose a place I am very familiar with: the Studio 47 office space. I work there from 7-10 PM on Monday nights, renting out equipment and answering students’ questions about film and TV production at the Claremont colleges. The office is located in the basement of Clark V. The room is roughly 50 x 30 feet, and is carpeted with high vaulted ceilings. I chose this space to highlight the solitude of a campus workspace. My job is fairly boring because we don’t get many visitors, so most of it involves checking equipment, answering emails, and tidying up the space by myself