About me
Welcome to my blog. I’m Roland Harris: living in Norfolk (UK), I make sound recordings and films, and do the odd bit of live sound mixing. After teenage years playing around with sound, lighting and cameras (as well as much healthier pursuits), I first got my hands on serious kit and met like-minded people at UCL in the mid-1980s, where Film Soc gave me a chance to become familiar with Nagra tape recorders, Arriflex 16mm cameras, studios, editing and, in the Bloomsbury Theatre, projecting 35mm films. I didn’t become Christopher Nolan (who cut his teeth at Film Soc too, just after my time there), though did make films with David Julyan, who went on to be the composer for several of Nolan’s feature films. Leaving UCL in 1987, the sort of filmmaking and sound-recording kit we had use of there wasn’t something available outside the professional world, but, after a long hiatus of about 15 years, the advent of affordable digital video cameras and digital sound-recorders rekindled my interest. Since then I have followed a path from poorly-equipped amateur to a well-equipped and, I hope, more competent sound recordist and filmmaker.
About the blog
This blog records my modest adventures in still more recent years as. As the blog has developed, I have found myself carrying out many gear tests and reviews, especially for sound-recording equipment such as microphones, shockmounts and windshields, so I should perhaps say a few words about this. These pieces of equipment have been ones that have interested me, and, where not items I have bought myself, I have approached the manufacturers directly to see if they might provide an item for testing and a write-up: these manufacturers include Sennheiser, Rycote, and Radius Windshields. The written-up tests in the blog, supported where relevant by sound files and videos, are, perhaps, rather different than those in many a vlog: they are not promotions (or puff pieces!), but, rather, technical in nature (sometimes a bit dry, I admit, though I try to make them digestible) and always underpinned by what I hope is a neutral and objective approach. And, to give them their due, none of these companies has made any attempt to influence what I write or what I do with their products. Along the way, I’ve enjoyed interactions with the various staff, especially the designers and engineers, which has been most relevant for the pre-production gear that I have tested. For example, it has been rewarding to see my suggestion of alignment markings added to the Rycote BD-10 fig 8 mic for the final production version, and I have particularly enjoyed to-ing and fro-ing with Simon Davies at newly-formed Radius Windshields over fine details of shockmounts and windshields in relation to the provision for mid-side mic rigs (one of my favourite forms of recording).
Availability for sound recording and filmmaking
Most of my sound recording and filmmaking comprises projects I initiate, often involving others who either lack the resources or wish to go to commercial studios, or who are interested in my approach. Sometimes the subjects of my recordings and films are extremely wary about such activities, be that based on past experience (e.g. dislike the stress of the studio recording light) or are simply averse to self-promotion, social media etc., and my low-key and non-commercial approach is the only viable means of capturing their performances. As a result, I rarely get paid anything (and then rather nominally), although, obviously, my testing of equipment sees a benefit in kind for those projects. But as a consequence of years of sound recording and filmmaking, including the gear testing along the way, I have gained significant experience and some rather exceptional professional equipment, and am increasingly open to others coming to me with interesting projects and collaborations. So if you have something that you feel might be relevant then please do get in touch via the contact form. Perhaps you are an acoustic musician, or group, and wish to have a sound recording and video made on location, even outside (for which I am unusually well equipped), and, therefore, are not well served by a local studio; perhaps you are an individual or group that would like a short film or documentary made about an activity, professional or amateur, that you do (and this need not be anything to do with music), and find commercial companies a poor fit for your needs (or simply unaffordable); perhaps you are a group of impoverished or amateur actors wishing to film, and need a sound recordist or camera operator (with gear!); or perhaps you need some specific sound effects recording for radio, TV, film or computer games).
The ‘Dr Badphil’ name
Adopting this nom de plume for the blog, rather than the more prosaic and less catchy ‘The Random Jottings of Dr Roland Harris’, is something of a convoluted in-joke – a case of confusion on a band tour in France where post-nominal letters inexplicably became my name. You had to be there…