Recording the sounds of a place where they happen, treating the acoustic environment as material to study.
Key thinkers: R. Murray Schafer, Hildegard Westerkamp, Steven Feld
The longer story
Field recording captures sound in situ—environmental, ambient, acoustic-ecological. It's the auditory equivalent of observational fieldwork. Where are you placing the microphone? What are you selecting from the soundscape? The recording isn't a neutral capture; it's a composition. Field recording provides data for acoustic analysis, soundscape research, any project where sonic environment matters. Listening to recordings reveals what you didn't hear in the moment. The field sounds different when you can replay it.