Recording truck door sound effects on an abandoned junkyard in Penang, Malaysia
If you come to Penang and want to explore the island on your own, I highly recommend you to rent a motorbike. I pay for one month 100 USD and this gives me the freedom to drive wherever I want and it is so much fun.
It only takes you one day to get around the island. Without stopping only a few hours. This time I was out recording more ocean sounds and before I decided to go home, I came across these abandoned Hino trucks.
I turned around with my motorbike, just to make sure that all doors are locked. 🙂 Oh wonder all doors are open and the sound of each one had its own unique character. Before I started recording the doors, I wanted to find the owner of these trucks and the property. There was no fence or anything but it is always better to ask.
Location where I recorded these truck door sound effects (2014)
The street view by Google Maps is from 2014 and these are the trucks. That is so powerful to see that these trucks were still in use by the time and only four years later forgotten and put aside.
I drove to the main area and found two men taking care of the land. I walked up to them and told them about my sound recording idea including the truck doors.
You should have seen their faces. A big “?”. I explained them again what I am doing and showed them my microphones and the recorder. “Ahhhh, sound”!!!
After a short fun conversation and with the spoken permission to record these sound effects, I walked back to the trucks and recorded opening and closing door sound effects as long as I could before the rain hit the ground.
Each door had its own character. One sounded more impactful and heavy, another one had just more squeaking sounds and you can listen to the dirt “raining” after the impact.
In total, I recorded 50 open and closing sounds and created 8 tracks that you can download. For the recording, I used one DPA 4060 and the Zoom F8n.
These trucks did many years a great job, working day and night, having thousands of miles on the clock. I know they will never hit the road again and left to rotten. It always makes me sad to see these vehicles on side roads. With these recordings, I hope to give them another meaning and if you can use these sound effects for your production or work, you bring them back to life and give them automatically a new purpose. Maybe someday these trucks are gone forever but the sounds remain.
