Recording the Rain

Precipitation meandered through metro Atlanta today as it should this time of year. The atmosphere was mostly a haze of clouds and mist punctuated by brief, dramatic startles of cracking thunder and the incessant pounding of voluminous rain. For a handful of magnificent minutes, spiders of lightning fragmented the sky into sharp shards as plinks of hail nipped away at shingles and shutters.

Sprawled on the carpet with mostly shut eyelids, the sounds of the storm whispered calmness to my inmost parts. The symphony of the moment was nothing shy of perfection; how thrilled I was to have the ability to capture the audio and remember the event.

I strung a cable from my mixer to a condenser microphone pressed against the open windowsill, clicked a few buttons in Logic, and let the tape roll.

The storm track carpets some sparse synth music in the scratch recording below. The looped music is on the ambient side, perhaps even a touch dental. If you listen carefully, you may be able to pick out the high-pitched taps of hail at certain points.