(pro-)audio/recording folks, any tips for best capturing muffled, diffused low-end sounds? certain mikes, certain settings you would recommend?
we've got a zoom, but are not sure if it will faithfully recreate the sound—we've got a stomper living above us. they did not react well to our suggestion to invest in some slippers with rubber soles for € 5 tops, so now between 11pm and half past midnight, they are doing some extra rounds in their apartment.
@konkrit What’s the goal? If you’re doing some high quality foley or sampling for a song or film, then something like a diaphragm mic (already suggested by others) may be what you want. If you’re trying to demonstrate to a landlord that your upstairs neighbor is being a jerk, you probably don’t need much more than you already have.
Any Zoom recorders I’m aware of will pick up the sound. It’s just a question of device settings and where you place the recorder. Someone suggested gaffe taping it to the ceiling and you’d mentioned that being impractical. If you have windows nearby the sound, the flat, rigid, and comparatively thin pane of glass can resonate with the thumping sound. The quality wouldn’t be what you want for professional audio but to show how annoying the neighbor is it could be quite effective.
@EveHasWords yes, tentatively for a representative recording intended for the landlord/mgmt company, though we are also checking if it could be used legally. if that's the case, obvi the hi-er the res, the better for us.
taping different mics to the ceiling is the next step, will try a diaphragm mike after that. thank you for the tip re glass, i'm doubtful that'll work but it's worth a shot as well. much appreciated!
You might eventually need a calibrated loudness meter with logging capabilities if this story goes into the direction of legal action. These tools are expensive.
@nielso thank you.
so if we sue her, we couldn't submit evidence on our own anyhow.
but i do see the option of calling the cops on that person who could then theoretically press charges, or handle this via the local ordnungsamt—i currently do not know if they could have use for recordings, but if that's the case, i'd like to provide them with some crisp-as-possible ones, obviously.
Well, basically having the cops get to drop by live, yepp… I tried that once.
I once had a Tekkno DJ living in the basement of the house I was living in back then. We would get home from some club around 2 or 3 in the night and then do his own DJing performance until sunrise. Including subwoofers and triggering smoke alarms with a fog machine.
We tried pretty much everything. Then I called the police on a Sunday morning. They showed up 2 minutes after he had stopped his thing.
He'd never open the door, and he'd also put letters back into our letterbox straight aways. Our landlord didn't give a shit.
I failed a complaint with the police on that Sunday morning, and it somehow helped since they apparently were able to reach out to him at some point. It also helped that other people living in the house served as witnesses.
Purely recording the sound however isn't a proper proof, because… well, depending on your microphone and gain setting, how loud had the incident been? It's impossible to tell.
@nielso yep, and if you insist, the police will have to report the incidents to the public prosecutor's office, which will then decide if they open a case against the noisy neighbour.
and you're correct, of course, which is why we will try to combine this with a decible metre. what the recording will definitely prove is that the stomping is audible. and yes, we have witnesses—actually, since i'm not a tenant (it's my partner's place), i am one.
@nielso so in essence, we try to take all kinds of different actions, weigh our options, and try to prepare everything we can get for any kind of possible outcome.
that's also because at my apartment, things aren't much better with the loud drunk downstairs who likes to invite over all of their friends and/or beats up their furniture some time between 10pm and 7am.
basically, we have two apartments but get zero sleep some weeks, and it's been like that for almost half a year. fun times, etc.
Kristoffer Patrick Cornils
Eve Ventually
Nielso