Advice for capturing sounds in the summer months?

[Demkab]

Summers officially here which means people in my neighbourhoods are keeping their windows open at night with the heat. I went walking last night and didn’t capture anything of interest, just the odd bits of chatting and TVs playing. What’s some good advice for finding houses where there’s some good sounds?

[AshenElm]

See who's living there: take note of younger couples walking together and whatnot. See what room has one light on dim at bedtime, it could well be the bed room. Position a USB recorder in the bushes or otherwise hide it in line of sight to the window.
Watch for couples that look like they are going out to it coming home from a date.
Alternatively, just get a dog and walk it a lot, and get to know your area well. Letting your dog lead by smell everything in the neighborhood gives you cover to move slow and listen.

[gibevad]

I was wondering about this also. I have been wandering around the town I live in at about 11pm and on some early mornings, but I have had no luck. My immediate neighbours are quite reliable, but I would love to find somebody new. The odds of finding spontaneous sounds seem very low.

The only likely scenario I can think of is hotel corridors, but that seems very risky nowadays in terms of CCTV etc.

Do any members have any luck finding spontaneous acts they can record? Are there any long play devices people can recommend? I am actually on holiday soon as well, so any hotel specific tips would be greatly appreciated.

[AshenElm]

Do any members have any luck finding spontaneous acts they can record? Are there any long play devices people can recommend? I am actually on holiday soon as well, so any hotel specific tips would be greatly appreciated.

Any of the on/off recorders USB recorders from Amazon well work fine, and they are only around 20 USD, and record for a long portion of the day.
The tough part is that they are labor intensive to sift through the files, unless the only large noises sources are your targets. (More or less, this means a very close placement or a very quiet area.) Personally, I listen to my files at triple speed in audacity at times when I would expect to hear something, then go to normal speed when I hear chipmunk voices.

My luck in hotels had all been random luck, but there are good tutorials from the pros on here.

[gibevad]

Thanks. I will see how it goes!