Sounds of Old Rusty Gym Machines

For quite some time I have wondered how gym equipment sound. I have always wanted to record the squeaks, squeals, and screeches of gym equipment, finally, I had my chance to in this rendezvous I am about to talk about. To cut a long story short, I was invited by a friend of mine to stay few days in the city of Villa Carloz Paz near Cordoba, the second-largest city (with well over 1 million people in the population) in Argentina. The proposition came at a nice time for me, as I was planning to stay a few weeks in Cordoba.

Rusty dumb bells

It was a nice transition from the Patagonia region where I had stayed from the beginning of March 2019. I and my friend stayed in an old hotel near the lake. The view was amazing, but the building was not well maintained and most of the infrastructure was about to fall off. At the hotel, there was supposedly a gym. The reasons I went to the gym were because I wanted to keep this body fit and I was curious. I went there with no expectation, and indeed, the gym was just a collection of old rusty machines barely useable and almost dangerous.

Rusty Kettle Bells

Stealth Gadgets Used

Luckily for me, I always have a handheld recorder with me. I found this opportunity as the chance to record these antiquities. This time I had my “stealth” setup– My Sony D100. The portable recorder—Sony D100 is perfect for recording ambience sounds of enclosed space. I laid it down on a bench and started recording all the weird noises of these machines.

Ambience of the gym

Old treadmill

One machine that caught my attention was the bike station. The bike station was not useable as one of the pedal fell off, it was dangerous but for the sake of other sound recordists, movie producers and other audio professionals, I had to record the sound it made. Come to think of it, it made a nice sound.

Also, I found the acoustics of the rusty gym really pleasant as all the walls and floors were made of wood. I was able to record some nice sounds without interference from activities going on outside the gym. The ambience sounds recorded are amazing. You can listen to them here:

Overview of the gym

It was funny to have all the squeaks, screeches, and squeals from rusty gym gears. Although I didn’t have a good workout session, I recorded many great sounds.

In the same playlist, I also added extra recordings I did from great sounding outdoor fitness machines (street gym) I found in Chiang Mai, Thailand; really nice sounds!

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