What is this?

The aim of dunedinsound.com is to document and archive a vertical slice of the music scene in Dunedin as it happens.

Most of that is done by going to gigs, documenting them via photo, video and audio, then archiving them here.

The Dunedin Sound is often described as a movement from the past. This site is a reminder that great music never stopped coming out of Dunedin.

Are you making money?

dunedinsound.com is completely non-commercial: no sponsors, no ads, no money. The intent is to support the music community and not take anything from it.

The current cost of hosting everything is around $10 a month. I will continue paying this for as long as I can.

If you want to help support this you can make a one-time donation or sponsor the project here.

All works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License meaning you can do whatever you want as long as you mention dunedinsound.com and you’re not making loads of money off of it (contact [email protected] if you want to use it commercially).

I’m not affiliated with any venue or band so consider my audio recordings bootlegs.

Why not just put stuff on Facebook or Instagram like everyone else?

Most social media networks are terrible for archiving.

• They’re not indexed by Google or other search engines
• Finding anything is a chore because they’re more interested in making money off you than providing a good service
• The image and video compression can be very aggressive and makes media look bad

“Anything you put online is there forever” is a common misconception - if you’re posting content on someone elses platform there’s no gaurantee it will be there tomorrow. Trusting a for-profit entity who primarily trades in attention with the important task of preserving history and culture is unwise.

dunedinsound.com is a permanent archive, artists/fans will be able to access it decades from now, and it should be pretty easy to find what they’re after.

The YouTube question

…having said that, all of my videos are hosted on YouTube, which is a platform run by a profit-driven entity which cares not for people, and would happily abandon us the moment the profit incentive went away. I do this because hosting video is very expensive. I retain original copies of all videos though, so if the need arose I could self-host.

What equipment do you use?

In case you’re curious (I would be):

• Custom binaural headset: Two electret microphones, modified to withstand higher volumes without distorting, shoved into a pair of earplugs, and wired up to a battery box. They go in my ears and record sound with the added benefit of protecting my hearing somewhat. This is how I get decent sounding recordings without setting anything up or talking to the sound person. You can read more about this setup here.
• Panasonic S5 camera with an assortment of (semi) pocketable lenses, often vintage M42 mount lenses (Asahi Pentax 50mm 1.4 is my favourite). (I wrote a blog post about this camera here)
• Panasonic G85 as a b-cam for multi-angle video.
• Roland R-05 portable recorder. Built in mics are okay as a backup.

My recording rig is wearable, so I can just stand in the audience and get a pretty good recording. Also, unlike a recording from the soundboard my recordings capture exactly what it sounded like from the audience, which can be really good or really bad or anywhere in between.

Most of the recordings are binaural so that means they’ll sound best on headphones.

Workflow

• Photo: RAW files > DXO PhotoLab (denoising, contrast, and colour adjustment) > JPG
• Video: 4K H264 files (LOG) > Magix Vegas (colour grading, trimming) > 4K H265 for YouTube
• Audio: 44.1khz 24-bit WAV > Magix Vegas (limiting, compression, EQ) > 44.1khz 16-bit MP3 VBR V0

None of the media on dunedinsound.com has been modified via AI.

Can I contribute images/videos I’ve taken?

In theory, yes. Check the contribution guidelines.

I’ve got something to say!

Want uncompressed images? Help yourself, there’s download button at the top right after opening an image. Maybe you want copies of videos though? Or want me to come to your gig? Or something else? You can contact me here: [email protected]

This website is not for self-promotion so don’t ask me to add your band, that’s not how it works.

Okay

cool