Interview with Jonas Fasching

Created: Thu Sep 18 2025

Jonas Fasching is a music producer, DJ and artist based in Bern. He uses field recordings of the urban landscape and natural surroundings to incorporate into his musical compositions. He also packages these into sample packs into their individual components for people to use in their own creations.

I first heard of Fasching from a YouTube tutorial on how to build your own DIY hydrophone. It also happens to be that he is located in Switzerland so I went to Bern to meet him in his studio.

His studio space is part of a makers space doing all sorts of creative activities from a wood and metal shop, screenprinting and audio production. He was kind enough to invite me to his studio and also to take me around Bern after our interview.

Note: Below is a transcribed interview using MacWhispher with very minimal editing. If I were to include this in my thesis, I'll select quotes or tidy up the interview.

Interview

Jonas: That's where the rivers come together.

Peter: Yeah, exactly. That's where the rivers come together. And it's really, really beautiful. The park is right next to it as well. So I walk by the confluence every day to get to school. And that's where my inspiration comes from for my thesis. I'm really interested in how to connect with nature on a deeper level. And how sounds contribute to that as well.

J: Interesting, interesting.

P: Yeah but first I just want to say thank you again for meeting with me I was looking for tutorials on how to build a hydrophone

J: Yeah

P: And I came across your YouTube video which is based on like the Instructable online which I also saw and I was like okay then I looked at your website and I saw that you also do like field recordings so I thought you'd be like a great person to reach out to because you incorporate natural sounds into your music and and you're more on like the music side where there's some other people who are like more on like sound art side. If we just like to if you want to introduce yourself a little bit about who you are how you got into field recordings.

J: Yeah so I'm Jonas my name is Jonas. I was born in Switzerland and I'm living in Bern since already a long time so this is really just like yeah my home and I feel yeah I feel very much at home here. And I'm like field recording how I got into it I don't actually even know like where it all started but I'm doing music or like music related things already for a long time. Like I started first with like learning the piano and the drums I played along the drums and at some point I got into like recording music when I was like in eight grade eighth grade I think I produced some like some songs with only acoustic instruments and yeah I was always like interested in between like the like like on the edge between technology and art like this this it always fascinates me like the technology and like computers and everything but also the music and just the emotions that you feel when you listen to it or make it so then I just started to yeah get more into electronic music because I was always fascinated how I can make everything on my own. I don't need a band or anything. I could just make everything in the box in the computer. And I went on a long vacation about eight years ago to Southeast Asia for traveling around for six months. And I also brought a recorder like this or a similar one. And I just brought it with me. And on the way, I always recorded some things that I felt interesting. Or I also recorded my own voice to talk about what's happening. And just do a kind of like a journal or a diary. So I used it also to journal, to do audio journaling. And I don't know, I really found that it was very interesting to listen to sounds when you go to another place. And also hear how the sounds change if you go somewhere else and what it does to you. And I really started to really enjoy listening, even without the microphone. Just go somewhere and just listen. Because, yeah, the sounds are like, they are always like changing. It's never the same. It's never like repeated exactly the same. So every sound is like, it comes and it goes away. And then it's like gone forever. And I actually originally like really enjoyed to record because when I was recording, I always have like the headphones on at the same time. And then you hear everything very loud or amplified. That just yeah really helps me to go into the like present moment and really listen to the sounds even more than just without the microphone.

P: And when you go do field recordings do you have a like a specific like list of sounds that you want to like capture or do you go into a specific spot and then you just like record you listen on to the headphones and see where things go.

J: It really depends like sometimes. I just bring a microphone with me when I’m like for example traveling and I go to a city or yeah like I also like sounds in a city or like whenever I go it doesn't really matter if it's in nature or in the city. I always find it interesting how the songs sound like. And I sometimes I really don't have any plan. I just bring a microphone in case that something interesting will catch my ear or something that that I feel. Okay this I want to record now and sometimes I really do specific recordings if I know that I want to use it for a specific purpose.

Also like I’m also using a lot the field recordings in my music as like background layers or an introduction or something just because it gives this more like organic vibe to the music. And then I sometimes do like more specific recordings. Also like I did now a sample pack for example where I like just also produced some samples for other music producers so then I also really did some particular recordings that were I just for example like there's a metal workshop up there [above his studio space]. And like one full day, I just captured all sounds in there, like just metal sounds. Right. Or another day I was like, OK, now today I want to sample some wood, like some wood sounds. And some other days I want to like capture only ambiences. So without me doing anything, only listening. And then I just look for interesting ambiences that I want to record up for like five minutes or more. So, yeah, it's really different always.

P: We're currently in your studio and you have a lot of equipment, some like high-tech equipment, and then you've also dabbled in making your own hardware phone. So how did you go from like having, you know, top-tier quality equipment and then doing something that's a little bit more DIY?

J: Like I think maybe I have to say that I'm a very much of a believer that you don't need like fancy equipment to do something great in art like that's my very And that's like always that always has been my position even though there's now a lot of stuff in here. I feel that I'm always like I always like try to to actually not get all the equipment that there is and really try to make the most out of what I already have. And I really believe that you don't need a lot of equipment or great equipment to capture something that is meaningful on an emotional level. I mean it's still nice to have good equipment but I think the root of the craft lies more in the listening and more in the experience and not in the like having a great equipment for me personally. And with that said I don't know it's just like I'm like I said in the beginning I was also always interested in on the technical side. Like I was also always interested on the technical side like how it doesn't microphone work and yeah how how do things work and I feel it's one of the best ways to find it out if you just try to build it by yourself and the hydrophone is a very easy microphone to build like compared to other microphones or at least if you buy like the heart which is like a sensor inside of the hydrophone it's fairly easy to build it after that. So that's also why I picked this microphone I mean it's just much more difficult to build other microphones and I don't have the knowledge or the skills to do that. And yeah it's just I I don't know it was just also very fulfilling process to do this to build something and then also actually have it work and record something with it.

P: Do you feel like you have like a deeper connection with the listening and the sounds that you captured knowing that you made the actual microphone to capture it.

F: Yeah maybe yeah that's actually a good good question. I think there's more excitement definitely like there's more excitement to hear the sounds through the device that I built in a way. Yeah it just has a story right it's not just something that you can buy and it has like a specific story. So I think also the other microphones that I own they all have a story in a way and that makes them also special for me. But probably the hydrophone is like yeah it's really special because I built it myself. So I think yeah, it really makes the sound special. Yeah, yeah, it is it is like that.

P: And where are some places that you've gone with the hydrophone? Which areas have you or which bodies of waters have you explored?

F: So like the first like real recording outside I did at at like in Ticino in Tessin. On there there's like the Lago Maggiore it's like at the uh lake near Locarno and Brissago and there's like two islands that Isola de Brissago Brissago islands. And on there I like held the microphone the first time into the waves of the water and funnily actually the first time I used the hydrophone it didn't really work. I don't know why there was like some it glitchy cable or something and it always like stopped working and then it started again and I was like okay now it doesn't work anymore. I have to build another one. But actually like on the next day I did more recordings in the same area and it worked and since then it never happened so it was only the first time where where it didn't really like I don't know why it happens because also when I tried it here in the studio it worked completely fine and since then it's like half a year or a year gone already. And I use it quite a lot and I’ve used it now to record like a lot of the sounds from the Aare so this is like the river here in Bern. And like at various spots because when you swim in the other i don't know if you have ever swum in the Aare?

P: No but in the Rhône I have.

J: Okay so I don't know how it is in the Rhône, but in the Aare it's like very clear water. The water is super like pristine and it's very beautiful experience to swim in there and just enjoy the environment. And the clear water and when you're underwater and swimming you can hear the small pebbles on the ground and you can hear this always. And this is like this very specific sound It always reminds me of Bern. I don't know. And that's also kind of like a sound that I always wanted to capture. So I was really excited when I was able to do that.

After that, I'm now thinking of, it would be amazing to have some device that I can actually take with me when I go swimming. Because now I always have to bring a recorder with me and the recorder is not waterproof. So you cannot go into the water directly. You always have to record from the side of the river. So that's actually something that I'm thinking about a lot. How can I make the recorder waterproof and bring it for a swim and dive down and record all these sounds?

P: Yeah, that's something I've been thinking as well. Because most of the times you're recording by the shore or the coastline. It's like how do you get like further yeah into the river like in the middle of the river.

J: Totally yeah yeah. I mean you can like with a boat you could do that and also record it on boats. It's also really nice experience but for me it's like really how can I get into the most the most into the place where I want to record is to swim right so i'm trying to figure out how i would build this.

P: Yeah yeah it's a challenge to make something waterproof yeah especially for electronics.

J: Yeah I think it's it's it's it should it should work but yeah I didn't get around to it until now.

P: So what inspired you to build the hydrophone then.

J: I maybe it was because like it was a microphone that I didn't own yet like I didn't have any hydrophone before. I only had like just traditional microphones stereo microphones binaural microphones but no hydrophone yet. And I was like yeah either I can just buy one or i can build one because I saw that it's possible to build it they're fairly easy. And I also know this brand it's called LOM. I don't know if you know it they like they're a very specific brand for field recording microphones. And they also sell some DIY kits where you can build, for example, the Geophone. It's like a microphone that you can put into the earth and record the vibrations.

P: Oh, that's cool.

J: You can also use it with a suction cup and stick it somewhere. And I saw that they have DIY kits. And I never bought one of these kits, but it was like, oh yeah, maybe you can do it by yourself. So that's why I did it.

P: And when you listen to field recordings of water at different areas, what are things that you notice? What are some differences in the sounds?

J: So the movement of the water, you can hear that. Like how much does the water actually move, right? If you have more like a current or waves, you can hear that. Also like the pebbles that I explained yeah if you just hold it into like just still water in a bathtub maybe you you actually even there you can hear some things because you cannot only hear the water but you can actually also hear like sounds that get triggered into the water. So for example if I recorded in the lake you can hear the boats like move around so it's like a very deep rumbling sound that is always on the recording. And maybe if you would record in a bathtub maybe you could hear some sounds in the house that gets like reflected in the water. So yeah it's it's always I don't know I forgot the question.

P: Oh yeah what are like some things that you pick up on like you know if you were to record something in the Aare or something but was it Lake Como that you went to?

J: Yeah and it's not Lake Como

P: It's near there?

J: It's near yeah. Yeah I but I don't think it's called Lake Como in English. I think it's but I’m not sure. I’m not sure maybe it is. But yeah it's just like also there's like the Sense it's like a small a smaller river near Schwarzenburg it's like a yeah just like also another river here near Bern. And yeah I feel it always sounds a bit different the amount of water also matters of course like how much water is there. Yeah and how many humans are there around or machines.

P: Yeah in one of your YouTube videos that was about the field recordings because you were just talking about how like you'll hear boat sounds when you're like even underwater or like even humans and it's like very hard to just like capture natural sounds.

J: Yeah that’s true.

P: Yeah in your video like the airplane went by and then you cut out so it's like it's very difficult to just like isolate a particular sound like in nature because you all will be connected to humans in some way. So how do you like navigate between that because like you know, some people are on like a naturalist side, they really want to like just capture something like purely in nature, but like, is that even possible?

J: Yeah, that's an interesting question. So, like, for me personally, I really enjoy all sounds, right? So I also enjoy recording in the city, and I enjoy recording when there are people around, or some languages that I don't understand, or just like things that people do. So for me, it's not always a distraction. But of course, when you want to record the pure nature sound, it can be really annoying. Especially in Switzerland, there's almost no time where there's no plane in the air. And you really start to realize it when you start to record. Because it's super hard to find a moment where you have five minutes of nothing. It's almost impossible in Switzerland. And but I think like as an artist or like as a for using these sounds you just have to get creative with what you get and it's it's it's fine in a way. But it really like makes you like very much aware to how much sounds are there by humans caused by humans. And also how humans like change the sounds in the environment.

P: Yeah I was a I was I walked here I went up to the altar garden [rosengarten] or like where's the very at the very top of the hill yeah and yeah also it's just like recording like sitting there like increments of like five minutes. And like yeah like you can hear the planes going by yeah it's very hard to not catch them.

J: Yeah it's super hard. I mean you really have to if you want to make like an ambience sounds of just forest sounds that is like 10 minutes long it's impossible in Bern. It's impossible. You have to do you have to cut it together with like with the parts that are quiet or you have also like autobahn like the highway there's you can always hear it a little bit like on almost every recording. It's just like this this noise, this constant noise in the background that never really goes away.

P: Yeah you don't really hear it like in your everyday because maybe there's other sounds like blocking it out but like especially but when you have a recorder with the headphones, yeah you can definitely constantly hear it.

J: Yeah that's right in your everyday you're not really attuned or you're not always actively listening right but that's also okay and normal I think because we have we just have to focus on something so we forget about it. But yeah it's interesting to to start to listen to it and also I think I really started the more I do recordings the more I also start to enjoy like silence or just like when it's quiet I really appreciate it more and more.

P: I am very fortunate to live in an area in Geneva where it's super quiet, especially at night. And then when I go back to Toronto, I live in a high-rise, and outside there's generators running, so there's always a constant sound in the city there, and it annoys me so much. Now that I've experienced the other side, where you can have silence.

J: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah it's it's true until you have not experienced yet you don't really realize what it is like like how it could be. Like my old my place where I lived before it was also next to like quite a busy road and for me was like normal. And now when I'm like where I live now it's also quite it's also really quiet and when I go now to a home or to a place where there's like a road nearby I realize it how loud it is and how much it really impacts my emotions.

P: Can we talk a little bit about your practice and how you integrate this, your field recordings, into your music? So what is your process of making a composition that's more musical but has like natural sounds or maybe not natural sounds just like field recordings in it.

J: So they're like sometimes I have a song that's already almost finished and then I just think oh it would be nice to have a recording there and I will just like layer it underneath of it. Sometimes I do a recording first and then I build a song around that. Sometimes I only use like small parts and then like samples like that are maybe only some like act as like a percussion sample or something like that. Also like in house music, often what gets done is that some sound gets looped so you have like a rhythmic feeling with just some random sounds that are not even cause. Just some people that walk around and talk and if you loop it it gives like a very rhythmical feeling and in house music that this gets made quite often. I also tried some compositions where I only used field recordings and I for my bachelor's thesis I actually like went to Berlin and I was like capturing the city of Berlin. And my goal was to capture like all the 12 areas like there's like 12 districts in Berlin and my thought was like can you like recognize a district by the sound of it. So I recorded a lot of sounds and I did like 12 compositions for each district one and then I gave it to people to listen to it and so that was more like a very experimental way of working with it. And I also really enjoyed that.

P: And were people able to identify the districts through the recordings?

J: Yes some, some there were and there are some like sounds that are more typical. So yeah I mean it's it it was also a challenge of like how can I make it like not too, how do you say it like. I don't know the word for it. How do you not too obvious right because there are some sounds, yeah, you just know. Okay this is the train station, okay this must be like.

P: Oh yeah.

J: Yeah right. So like how can you like what are actually the sounds that define this area? So it's but a lot of people actually were able to find it out for for most of the most of the districts.

P: That's interesting because yeah I feel like as as a society and culture we're very like much visual people.

J: Yeah.

P: And it's and especially if you are like walking in a city I’m guilty like I’ll wear my headphones and listen to music so I’m not aware of the sounds that are going so it's that's really cool that people were able to identify still like areas of the district.

J: Yeah yeah I was also very surprised that it was possible and I also of course only gave it or I gave it to people who live in Berlin and who who know the city. So that's of course also matters also but yeah it was also actually during COVID so the sounds are also different right. It's like it also changes and what you say it's also right like people are more visual it's it's normal to know I also know it for myself like it's I feel that visual things are just what sticks the most and what you remember the most most of the time but on the emotional level like sounds really really are very important I feel.

P: Yeah music and tv and film is so important. It could definitely change the meaning, the tone

J: Yeah totally!

P: The pacing even sometimes.

J: Yeah, also when I do now like YouTube videos I sometimes experiment with using music in it my own music or also other music. And it really like even if you just change out the song underneath the video, it really changes the complete meaning of it.

P: Are there any spots that you go back time and time again with your field recordings or is it like you've recorded a place and you're like oh i don't need to go back anymore.

J: You mean like place. I think it's kind of like that mostly I record once and then it's like this place is like done a bit in a way. So I don't often record more times but it would actually be also nice to do that because sometimes the sounds also change and it would be interesting to hear how it changes. So you could think about that. But most of the time I really try to go to new places every time that I record. It's just also a good way to discover the world right.

P: Yeah and one of your YouTube videos you did with the geophone or the contact phone.

J: Oh yeah yeah yeah.

P: I thought that was really fun so you were having a lot of fun just like going to different like objects materials trying to see like what are their like sonic qualities and like tapping on it. Was there like a particular uh metal or object that you're like really surprised about?

J: Yes, like in this video for example, I went to Wankdorf. I go there like I pass there a lot. It's it's like such a normal place too. I’d always drive it by it and there's like this big building and there was like this metal string strapped across like some frame like some big frame. And like if you walk by you cannot see this string. It's just I don't even know what it is for it was just like a metal wire on the building. I don't know what's the purpose was of this of this wire. And I put the microphone onto this wire and I was then able to like play it almost like a base with this string and it sounded really really interesting. And what's also interesting that you cannot really hear it if you have not the microphone attached to it. Like if you just listen to it like from the outside you cannot hear anything and as soon as you like turn put on the the contact microphone, it really like shows its inside or like shows what how it sounds like. So that was really surprising and it always happens like that I record something that sounds really deep. For example, like that has a lot of bass sounds and you don't hear the bass sounds normally because they're just inside of the object somehow and they don't get out of it.

P: That's interesting! Sounds are like inside the object but they don't come out.

J: Yeah in a way it's like that. They're just like hidden.

P: Yeah they're hidden inside.

J: And that's also what I find beautiful like you don't have to go to like very special places to record very interesting sounds. Often, I feel that it is more the opposite. That if you go somewhere that looks extremely beautiful or like sometimes they are a bit in the in the opposite direction. That if you have like something extremely large and a very big eye-catching thing you go there and there's no sounds and on the other side side you go somewhere that seems very mundane and boring and you have the craziest sounds there are the most like complex sounds. So that's also something that really I find very interesting. I always try to go to places that that I think oh there's gonna be a lot of great sounds and I'm there like actually just looks great but there's no sounds.

P: Yeah that’s really interseting.

J: Yeah yeah that's probably because we are so visual right we think on it's gonna be interesting but actually it's just an architecture that looks great but maybe there's no sounds there it’s just dead.

P: Yeah in my like readings I'm doing there's a critique with the picturesque and the landscape model of nature, like how we just see the beautiful in it, and that leads to environmental protectionism, but the flip side is that since we see what is beautiful, we will also neglect what we consider ugly, and even though all the parts of nature that we consider ugly is still worth protecting. So it's interesting that you say that like yeah like you first like right to towards something that is like more visual pleasing but there's actually like something really interesting and like the maybe less appealing environment but you still have to discover what it is.

J: Yeah I mean it's also very much it really come it's really yeah what you say is totally right but I think it's also important to come like to think about what sounds are you thinking about. Are you or like what is the role of the listener right because when I record something, sometimes I also go to somewhere where it's very noisy like on purpose because I want to record a noise or I want to record a machine that does like some kind of sound. And as if I would live there for example, if this would be my natural surrounding, probably this would be noise for me right. So it's not something that is very pleasant for my ears and it really depends also on the framing of the sound. Like yeah something can be noise which can be nice for me in this moment because I want to record it and i find it pleasing. But in the end it's still like loud and it will like hurt your ears and it will make you more stressed if you are constantly bombarded with these sounds. I'm always also like conscious of this that even when I record something that is maybe like a machine or something or traffic or something maybe this moment it's interesting for me but I'm also totally aware that for most people it's not interesting and that it's harmful and it's also okay like that. Like it is not good that is harmful and therefore it should be also removed or at least reduced. Yeah so I cannot ask anyone just listen to these great sounds all the time like for me it's also like after one hour i'm exhausted and then it's noise. So like when I start to record at the first like first few minutes i'm always like super amazed by the sounds but the more you listen listen listen your ears get exhausted after a while and at some point it's not interesting anymore it's just noise.

P: And going back to your bachelor's what was your program.

J: What was the I studied audio production was the was my bachelor program called. And I can actually also send you the link to listen to these sounds if you want to this like 12 districts. It was very time of yeah just this half year I was a half a year in Berlin and I really dedicated quite a lot of time to this project and I did like a full library just of sounds from Berlin that I recorded then. And yeah I still have this library and I use it quite a lot also for myself now but it was really particularly made also for this project. And yeah it was just nice to go say, “Okay which district is today, okay let's go Kreuzberg okay let's go.” And then I always with my bicycle just drive around and put up my recordings. I have a lot of different microphones that I use. So like I said sometimes I want to record some ambient sounds so then it's nice to have a very wide stereo setup for example that sounds very natural. Sometimes you have maybe some sounds that are more closed and you need some kind of like isolated microphone that's like a shotgun mic or a contact microphone. And sometimes also record in like stealth mode you know that people don't realize that i'm recording because it also will alter the soundscape sometimes. Yeah sometimes sees that you're recording they will approach you and talk with you and yeah it's sometimes also tricky to do that to get a recording which sounds like in a train station for example.

P: Yeah this is what I was wondering because yeah if people ever approach you when you're trying to do your recordings.

J: Yeah when I was at places which were very crowded and busy I tried to do like stealth recordings. So the way I did it back then was i have this like i just have these small microphones and I can like clip them onto my headphones like this so I just wear my headphones and then the microphones are clipped onto the headphones and you can barely see them. I mean they are visible but if someone just walks by you don't see it and the recorder is just in my bag or something. So this is actually a really nice way to record because it's like everywhere you go you're recording exactly your frame of reference that you would normally also hear.

There are also like microphones that you could put in your ears like by normal microphones. I don't have any ones that you can put in your ear but when you set it up everything right when you set up the tripod when you set up like the microphone, for sure someone is gonna like approach you.

P: Where would you like to go with your practice in the future. What would you like to do next.

J: Yeah so a lot of things. Most of the time they did the ideas they just pop into my head and then I just have to act on it. So I'm not very good at planning most things so I'm really just like I have an idea and then I will will act on that. But yeah like I want to do some more sample packs for example. Like I really enjoy that. Yeah I mean there's some new microphones that I want to try out. I’ve got to know a guy he builds these like, I don't know if you've saw the video but with these ears like a binaural microphone. So it's like with these ears adjusted to it. So if you make recordings with this microphone it really sounds if you listen to it with headphones it sounds extremely real because if you just do a stereo recording, you have only left and right, right. And if you record with that, if a sound comes from the back it will reflect off the ear and it will sound different. The frequencies will get shaped differently if it comes from the back or from the front from the top. And if you have some good recordings you can actually listen to it with the headphones and you actually have like a three-dimensional feeling it's not only left and right but it's like it's like in all directions.

P: Okay this is really interesting. This is the this is the recorder?

J: This is only the microphone.

P: Oh this is the microphone.

J: Yeah exactly and you have to like put it onto a recorder so I could like put this in your recorder for example. I think if there is even one.

P: Yeah you can try connecting to this if you want.

J: I mean only or I don't know if you're still recording.

P: Yeah, yeah it's still recording, but we can because I'm also, here we go. I'm also recording my phone.

J: Okay. So, yeah. Now, it's recording with this microphone, I think. Let's just get some headphones so you can hear how it sounds like. Because it sounds really nice.

P: What?

J: Do you have headphones?

P: I do have headphones, yeah.

J: You can also use these. We have to be careful that there's no feedback because sometimes when I have the headphones close to the microphones and I plug it in, it's likem “eeeeee”. So you have to be always careful with that. Let's see if that works. Oh there you go yeah. There you go where you have to turn down the volume of the headphones. Yeah there you go yeah so yeah you can try it. This is red is right so this is now me on the left side.

P: Oh, that's crazy.

J: And it's like the sound is like super crisp.

P: What?

J: And yeah, like some sounds you can actually hear it like when I'm here in the front now or I turn it around and now I'm like on the back.

P: That's so cool.

J: If you have it like with some sounds, you can hear it really good. Yeah, and it sounds just very different compared to just these microphones.

P: Can I get a photo with you with this?

J: Yeah, sure.

P: This is cool. What is this object or device called?

J: This is called a binaural microphone. So binaural just means with two ears basically.

P: That's really really cool.

J: And like this guy, I know him, like I'm in contact with him who builds these microphones and he always has some like new crazy ideas on what kind of microphones he wants to build. And yeah, I always like to also stay in contact with him. And he asks me for like what he should improve on the microphone and things like that. So that's really nice.

P: That is really nice.

J: Yeah, the sound is like, it's really nice.

P: Cool, very cool. Do you have any questions for me?

J: Like I find it very interesting your project that you have it's like a very particular question that you have right with this river and with these two rivers that flow together. What are your questions you have and like what are you trying to answer?

P: Yeah so this week in school we were talking about our professional practice but like also how we can use our diploma project to maybe filter that in and see what we could do after we graduate. And they requested us to come up with one question that we want to think about throughout the school year. And I came up with “how can we have a symbiotic sonic relationship with nature?” And for me, it relates to not just taking things from our environment, but like how we can both benefit from it and I'm interested in the confluence as a site of interest because I don't think a lot of people talk about it. People don't know about it that much and and I'm interested in like how we can like connect with the rivers on a deeper level because there are people who enjoy of course going down swimming, the people enjoy it by the coast or on the shoreline. There are measurement stations throughout the river that capture the temperature so there's like a scientific portion to it but I don't feel like there's maybe a poetic way that people have explored yet and I think that's where I'm interested in terms of like the sonic qualities. I'm not sure if I would go down the route of you know representing rivers like through a voice like I'm not sure if that's even a challenge like I feel like it might be challenging because i don't think we can truly like understand nature as humans like we can relate to it on some way but like we always have our human projections onto it. And yeah and I’m interested in like how potentially like there's there's a bridge that goes across the two and that's where you can see the confluence. So I’m like there's always people going back and forth there’s, always people stopping to take a look at it but I’m wondering like how we can then you know go beyond just like looking and how we can actually have a deeper connection with it and yeah to explore like the sonic qualities of the two rivers. And yeah I would like to try to do feel there's also like another spot where you can stand that's closer to the water that where the two rivers meet. And okay the city needs to do a better job of like landscaping because like the trees are overgrown people have complained that you can't even get a good view, so I feel like there's like in terms of even like landscape design there's an opportunity there. But yeah I would love to go to that particular spot so I could do like some recordings.

J: Nice nice and why exactly this spot because you always walk by it?

P: I always walk by it yeah and it's like that was my initial inclination is like how do we relate to an environment and for me I never I was just fortunate to find a spot where I live in Geneva and it happens to be right beside it. And I walk by every day and the first time I saw it I was like this immediately connected to it so I wanted to investigate that like connection. And yeah so then I was like reading a lot about philosophy because my thesis advisor is his backgrounds in philosophy and yeah there's like critiques about, you know, just looking at nature for its beauty. But then it's like the similar vein of people looking at nature as a resource and just taking things from it, but like not giving back to it or taking care of it. So it's the same idea of like just taking photos of the of the rivers and just like appreciating its beauty. But like what more can it offer and what can we also offer to them?

J: And do you think you will also record the river with a hydrophone or something like that?

P: Yeah yeah I bought some materials to make a hydrophone. I’d like to do that. Yeah it's like that's part of my field research as well is to do some recordings. I would also love to like have people like around the area because there's always people like to also like maybe give them the hydrophones so that they can go around and like try to record and see what they pick up.

J: Yeah that's actually something that I’m also kind of interested in or that I’m thinking about. Like doing like some kind of sound walks with other humans and just like in real life like showing them. Because until now, every time when I give someone a recorder and the headphones and I put it on it's like it really it's mind-blowing for most people because it sounds so crazy if you listen to it for the first time. It's like yeah you get really access to a new space that you have not known yet that it even exists all time. And yeah I want to somehow give this also to other people so I'm also thinking about doing some kind of sound walk where I will walk around with people and they all have a recorder and the headphones and maybe talk about some things. Just yeah I want to share this also a bit more yeah this experience. Because I feel it makes you much like attuned to your world around you and more careful also maybe more conscious.

P: Yeah exactly I do think it makes you more conscious because like the headphones immediately like amplifies the sounds that you normally maybe wouldn't pick up but it also like makes you focus on a particular sense, and you can also just like close your eyes and you can then also like I don't know for me i can like visualize things a little bit better even though you're like already in that environment. It's a little bit weird I know but yeah I think we've lost a little bit of like our audio or like listening senses especially when it comes to like an urban environment. One we're always like on a fast pace like we always have something to do we'll always have like we need to go to point a to point b and then we're focused on that. And then two we have our smartphones that distract us. And three we have headphones that we put on that also then eliminates the sounds that we normally be hearing. So yeah I just feel like a lot of things are going against us to like be more present especially with listening.

J: Yeah yeah totally. Yeah I mean it's something that if you start to listen it starts to be also very exciting I feel like. You get more conscious for the moment and yeah it's just something very like I for me it's always like a bit like a treasure hunt when i record. It's like yeah there's always something somewhere interesting and like I said even the normal places or I mean on your normal walk to to work or to your studies you walk by the river but you really saw it and you really heard it. That's nice.

P: Yeah and I'm also there's a company that was created out of the ETH Zurich of her PhD and she created a company called Riverkin. It's a sensor to measure river health so they pick up on like the flow of the river, temperature and water levels and it's meant to be placed in remote areas that don't have ways to access this data. And they don't include like any like sound measures so that's also like really interesting from a scientific perspective because yeah a lot of the data that scientists collect is especially about rivers it's always about like temperature and water levels and stuff like that but never about sounds.

J: Yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah that's that's interesting. Before like three years ago or something I worked at a like at a engineering place here in Bern and they were doing measurements of noise for roads. And I was also doing these measurements and like evaluating them in the office and particularly we were looking at noise cancelling, I don't know how you say in English, noise cancelling streets basically. So it's like when when a car rolls over it the the floor is built in a particular way so that it absorbs the sounds by the car rolling over it. And we were doing these noise measurements and I mean most of these were just data points right or just how loud is it something somewhere on the graph and it wasn't the musical or the actually listening to it but it was more just like the volume basically that we measured.

P: Yeah that's interesting, yes to have like noise cancelling streets.

J: Yeah I mean it's not it's not noise cancelling.

P: But to reduce the noise.

J: Yeah noise reduction pavement right. Yeah that's like noise without with less noise.

P: Yeah there is a study about cargo ships and the noise that they make in oceans and they reduce the noise level when it's like first like emitted from the ship but once it's like further in the water it actually gets louder. It's because of the sound is being reflected off of the or the sound waves are being reflected off the surface which acts as like some sort of like absorption but as it further gets down then it gets louder still. Which was really interesting and also because they retrofitted the cargo ships to be more efficient and able to carry more cargo that and the more weight on the ship then also means that the engine has to go a little bit harder.

J: Yeah that's I mean that so like to calculate something like this it's very difficult I think because with these roads we also made there were some, how was this called, like when you look at a particular problem in society but then you like look at it from a like broader perspective and you look at like if we build now here this road is it actually better for humans. Because the or like does it make more sense to build this road if it costs more or does it make more sense yeah if people just get sick because they are like live next to this road and it's very loud they have to go to the hospital and this formula calculates like all these things together. And I just forgot the word in English it's always a bit tricky for me.

P: Yeah it's like you have to consider like the environmental impact like holistically.

J: Yeah exactly like also with this like oh no the cargo ship it has to like go faster because of this and it has like so much third order consequences that you're not really aware of sometimes. That's interesting that i also found very find very interesting. Yeah I mean sounds it's a beautiful world.

P: I don't have any other questions I don't think unless there's like anything interesting in your studio that you want to share other than that I think that would be it for me.

J: I mean I can show you other microphones but I think this is definitely one that I feel very surprising also when you listen to it first. But other than that I mean I have just some traditional microphones. Yeah, my old microphones that you probably saw on the YouTube videos, so.

J: Okay, can I get a portrait of you at your chair over there?

P: Yes.

J: I’m not sure if you still want to do field recordings outside, but we don't have to.

P: All right.

J: Should I turn off the screens?

P: No, no, you can keep it on.

J: Okay.

P: Going to three. Perfect. Great. Thank you.

J: Nice. Now you have a lot to transcribe.

P: I do, and I was transcribing an interview that I did with a sound artist in Brussels, and I used MacWhisper.

J: Oh yeah, I love that.

P: But I was just using the free version and then...

J: After 2000 words you were capped out or what?

P: Oh is it? Oh I don't know. I... I... No it was more than 2000 words. Okay. Yeah. For sure. Because it was like...

J: But it works really good.

P: Yeah. Except for it was picking up on the... his cadence because he speaks French. So even though he said like some French words, there was like... But everything was in English still. But there's paragraphs that got transcribed as French.

J: That's funny.

P: Which is fine. Like, I can read that. And, like, I also follow along with what he's saying. Like, I just said, I did that. So it just took a little bit longer to clean it up. But, yeah, I thought that was funny.

J: Yeah, that's interesting. But that makes it definitely much easier to transcribe.

P: Yeah. Yeah, it does.

J: That's nice.

P: Yeah. And then, yeah, I know that MacWhisperer is built on the OpenAI API. So, like, if I ever wanted to, I guess I can also build my own.

J: I actually just tried to build something or I did, I built it because sometimes when I do field recording I always say first what I'm recording like I always say like the location where I'm at, the sound that I'm recording and which equipment I use and I built like a little script I can just put the sounds in and it will automatically rename the file because it will listen to the first 30 seconds of the file and it also uses the whisper thing from openai and it just renames the file. So I thought about that would be nice to have something like this.

P: Ah that's really smart because I was just thinking as I was recording earlier I was like oh I probably should say like where I am.

J: Yeah I mean this is a very obvious recording right.

P: Yeah it is, I know but you're like out and then you're recording a whole bunch of stuff.

J: Yeah if you’re recording a lot it's hard to sometimes remember what it was, where it was.

P: Because the the first project that we did in our program we were recording electromagnetic waves so we had like another device to pick up on the signals that i get translated into like audible sounds. And like we just like had so much recordings but the way i was just keeping track was like in a in a spreadsheet.

J: Yeah that also works.

P: Yeah I know but then it gets like yeah overwhelming to like have to like cross check all the time.

Here is a link to his bachelor thesis titled Berlin Soundscape Composition.