Chris Watson workshop

Chris Watson was in Edinburgh from the 20th to the 22nd of April 2011 and gave a wonderful workshop in which he was amazingly generous with sharing his tips tricks and techniques on field recording. Having worked for the BBC for years he had brilliant stories and he has been able to develop some really useful and unusual techniques for recording all sorts of things.

I made some parabolic reflectors specially for this workshop and all three were used to excellent effect.


The focus of our activities was to record the dawn chorus in George Square in the centre of Edinburgh, and after a bit of editing we presented our recordings as part of an evenings concert for Martin Parker's Dialogues festival in Inspace.

Chris played a selection of sound recordings and soundscapes through a quadraphonic sound system and I lent him my homemade quadraphonic panner for the gig. He was able to pan the echo-location sounds of Orcas around the audience to create a thrilling underwater soundscape, and the whole range of sounds was absolutely fascinating.