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Recording the bells at York Minster came with a unique set of challenges.听 Broadcast Engineer, Martin Grant, wanted to record them from different locations to give a sense of the different sounds in the belfry, the ringing room and, as you would normally hear them, outside.

A mic used to record drums was needed

We overcame this by using microphones normally used to record bass drums which can handle the high pressures produced when there鈥檚 a lot of noise. We ran some long cables out of the belfry into the recording equipment so that the record button could be pressed from outside the belfry.

To record in the ringing room, where sound levels are less dangerous to the ears, we used a stereo pair of microphones to capture not only the ringing bells, but also the creak of the ropes and the clack of the wooden levers on the Clavier.

The Clavier bells were recorded up on the roof of the Minster, with a microphone pointed at the Northwest tower, to capture a more balanced mix of the different bells.听Working this close to the bells could have produced a very unbalanced recording, with bells nearest to the microphone coming across much louder than slightly more distant bells. But we were lucky and achieved the sound we wanted.

To record the main peel of bells we carefully selected the coldest, wettest night of the year to stand in the street pointing a microphone at the Minster.听We used a directional microphone, aimed directly at the Southwest tower and recorded from a few different locations (St Michael Le Belfry, the Purey Cust Hospital) at street level to try and achieve a well balanced recording of the peal.

Great Peter was recorded from inside the ringing room of the Northwest tower, using a microphone positioned in the centre of the room to try and record the gradually increasing reverberation that accompanies each tolling of the bell.

After that we recorded the various interviews and wrote the script. Then all that needed doing was to edit hours and hours of interviews and sound recordings into a concise and chronological 15 minute documentary - simple really!

Andrew Barton