Record a place without inventing silence
Before you begin: A phone or recorder, a quiet place you may record, and headphones for review.
Room tone is the background sound of a location under stated conditions. It may contain ventilation, distant traffic and equipment noise. Calling it silence hides the information you want to preserve.
Keep microphone position and recording settings fixed during a take. Document whether automatic gain or noise reduction was active. These processes can alter the background between recordings and make a location comparison misleading.
Worked example & observations
Original collection protocol: record 30 seconds with the recorder supported, then another 30 seconds after switching off an ordinary fan you control. Keep distance, gain and orientation the same; leave any essential equipment alone. Label the files with date, room, device and fan state. Listen for a stable background change and for handling noise at the start.
Your turn
The second take sounds louder even though the fan is off. Give two plausible explanations and a follow-up test.
Show answer and reasoning
Automatic gain may have raised the remaining noise, or another source may have changed between takes. Check the recording settings and repeat in a short alternating sequence. Compare fixed-gain recordings where the device permits it, and record uncontrolled changes rather than hiding them.
Watch for: A phone’s processed recording is not an acoustically calibrated measurement. Obtain permission before recording people or private spaces.
Published and planned
Published: this starter lesson, worked example and exercise with an answer.
Planned: Actual place recordings and map entries. The protocol is published; the personal audio archive remains empty.
Validation: source review and mathematical checks where applicable. Photography captures, audio listening and device workflows have not been performed for these lessons. Synthetic cases are labelled; no personal media or field observations are implied.
References
Original AUWEN teaching and examples. Sources reviewed 14 September 2026.
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