My name is Stosh, I'm a sound designer in Chicago. If you don't know what that is, I won't go into all of the specifics of the job, but at the most basic level I record and create sound effects for films, tv shows, games, etc.
One thing I've recently became fascinated with is tornado sirens. From all of the youtube videos I came across I eventually found this wonderful community. I had no clue there was such a large group of people who were so fascinated!
I've decided to try and record various sirens with my microphones and recorders to come up with a nice library of unique sirens. I'm using some real high quality gear to capture these sounds, and so far in my testing I'm super happy with the results. I've uploaded a rough (unlisted) video of a test recording to youtube here so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about. Here's an ACA P50 in Morrison, IL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc3rnuC82Yw
Notes:
A bit of silence in the beginning
Microphones - 2x Sennheiser MKH 8040s (xy)
Recorder - Sound Devices 744t
Recorded July 3rd, 2018
Through a bunch of research I've found various maps of sirens in my area and marked ones I'd like to record. It's far too many to list here, and I likely won't get the chance to record them all. Part of the problem is so many sirens go off on weekdays for tests and I'm (mostly) restricted to weekend recording. Also the fact that most only test once a month means the process of capturing all of the ones I want is going to be a long term project. On top of that, I'd prefer to record most of them in the cold months as there's a lot less birds out making noise that make the recordings less desirable.
Anyways, I'm hoping some of you here might have some suggestions of unique/rare/cool sirens to record. Like I mentioned, I'm in Chicago, but I've got a budget to work with so really if the siren is cool enough I'd totally be willing to travel pretty much anywhere in the country. Are there any sirens you'd love to see/hear recorded? Very rare ones? Unique ones? Ones that are kind of broken and sound strange? Ones that test with more than the typical 'alert' and instead 'attack' or something else? Really any suggestions you might have will be very much appreciated. I'm new to this passion so I figured chatting with you all would be a great start!
Also, I'm very new to this, so apologies if any of my terminology/siren names are incorrect!
Cheers!
