One of my favorite podcasts is Random Tape. The description reads, “A cabinet of auditory wonders for the 21st century.”
An older description captures the podcast better, “Random Tape is a radio show that features bizarre voice messages, rants, poetry, music, found recordings and other Random sounds.”
The most recent episode, “Este Mundo“, is a simple two-minute recording of his daughter’s elementary school holiday program. Just a simple thirty-second wish at the start of the episode. And then the rest of the 90 seconds are the kids singing.
Singing in stereo.
I love it.
Man, I love stereo audio. So much richer than mono. Yet, so much of what we listen to is in mono. Our smart speakers are in mono. All audio recorded by the iPhone is in mono. That’s right! If you have an audio recording app on your iPhone, that app is NOT recording in stereo. Just flat mono.
This year my daughter’s daycare put on a little holiday performance. An adorable group of three-year-olds sang a couple Christmas songs. Of course, I got a video recording of it. But that video recording’s sound? It’s in mono.
Thankfully, my podcasting friend Leigh Hanlon gave me an awesome handheld stereo audio recorder.
Next time my daughter’s daycare does a holiday show, I’ll be recording it in the glory of stereo sound.
(Photo of cassette tape by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash)
Some of my recent audio recordings are on Soundcloud, under the username mattmaldre. https://soundcloud.com/mattmaldre/tracks