A note from the archivist in 2025: This was the text/images associated with this post in drafts. The text isn’t congruent with the recording, and neither is the diagram. It mentions locations that aren’t the title; and given the lack of keynotes from the image, I am unsure the recording was captured where the title indicates. If you can decode it, my hat’s off to you.

Location: This recording was taken in the machine shop in Harvey Mudd College’s Libra Complex. The Libra Complex is Mudd’s series of tunnels and halls that lie below the academic half of campus. The halls are filled with classrooms and labs. Specifically the room of this recording is an Engineering machine shop filled with student workers and high-end machines such as computer-led lathes and presses. The shop itself lies underground which separates the sounds in the environment from the areas around them. This also adds an interesting soundproofing between many of the rooms as the noise has to penetrate earth walls between rooms. The room has machines lining the walls, spaces for shop proctors (read: instructors) and for students to work, and a radio on a table at the far end for music.

Recording: I made this recording with the TASCAM DR-40 Sound Recorder by setting it on a small tripod placed on a table about 3 feet off the ground. The table was placed near the middle of the main lobby of the dog-wash, facing toward a sink/hairdryer machine that a dog was being cleaned on. The recorder was underneath a speaker in the ceiling playing music.

Description: The resonance of this space does not cause any echoing, as the intensity drop seems to be linear, without any secondary peaks. The decay time is also relatively fast, which could either be caused by the placement of the recorder, or the acoustic properties of the corridor.

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