Three audio files, recorded and mixed using the Compass recorder software and a game controller.
The set up allows to navigate a file structure and play back files while adding new recordings to the mix. This means: no post-mixing in a studio, but looping while walking the streets.

It also means that the audio below is quite rough: mono, recorded on a usb webcam hanging from my backpack in which my laptop is overheating to power the process.

The first on is recorded during a walk through the Brabantstraat, a busy shopping street in Schaarbeek.
The mix is in paste with my walking tempo. Trying to move on and not be obstructed by cars, pedestrians and lots of derivations. 1, 2, 3, 4 …

The following one is recorded in another corner of Schaarbeek, between square Pavillion and Place Verboeckhoven. Although the method is the same, the sounds are very different. Post-industrial, less people, edge off the city sounds.

On Place du Jeu de Balle you can’t really walk, you strawl, stand still linger, hang, turn in circles.
I tried to make that part of the way the mix is made. Less forwarding, more coming back to the same point over and over.

‘Compass recorder’ is software by Michael Murtaugh and can be installed
(on linux:) through svn:
you need subversion (apt-get install subversion),
check that you have python an pygame installed (apt-get install python-pygame),

then in the terminal type:

svn co http://automatist.org/svn/trunk/poc/compassrecorder

then:

cd compassrecorder

python compassrecorder.py

to start it…

“The first time it will ask you to “train” your joystick, basically you
just press the button you want for each of the functions, then it stores
these in a file (compassrecorder.controls) which it will read from again
when you start (or delete the file to re-train).”