I spent an afternoon in downtown Detroit this weekend, banging and kicking everything that wasn’t moving, and chasing down the things that were, recording all as source material for Beatserv. It’s surprising what things resonate upon impact and what things respond with a dead thud. Metal garbage cans were the best resonators, and I’d say plastic garbage cans were consistently the worst. The coolest thing was what can only be described as a metal bikerack/hanging ashtray that sounded like a whole set of cymbals. Also surprising was that background noise was more of a problem inside buildings than outside on the street. And the monorail makes almost no noise, so it wasn’t very interesting. I have yet to go through all the recordings, but initially it sounds like some good material.