Category Archives: F20-P4 Audio

Aesop’s Fables

I was looking forward to this assignment for a few reasons. For one, I am in Audio Production currently, so I have access to recording equipment. I’ve been looking for opportunities to use the recording equipment for extra practice, so this assignment was perfect. Additionally, I am a fan of audio books, so I was interested in getting a chance to peak behind the curtain and imagine the workflow of a professional audio narrator.

Originally, I was thinking of picking an excerpt from a book, but I wasn’t able to find anything that was quite short enough. Instead, I chose to browse Aesop’s Fables until I found a suitable story. I chose The House Dog and the Wolf largely because I thought it would be fun to make use of the sound of a howling wolf. I also thought I might try a crack at

While putting together the various files, I was hoping to create a natural nighttime forest ambience. For the most part I was pretty happy with the outcome. One disappointment, was that I was unable to find a good recording of the classic “ribbit” of a frog. It turns out that frogs have a large variety of calls, and many of them are not very recognizable. I was looking for something a little more gentle than the frog calls I found. I did end up finding a fun recording of an owl hoot. I was happy with that one, since it is so recognizable, and indicative of a nighttime forest.

Overall, a fun project!

by Gabriel Olsen-Martinez

Sound Design – “Rubble”

by Jeff Pagano

This is my second version of Rubble.

The assignment was to use sound to create an emotional response, so that’s what I was going for. I don’t want to say too much because I want to let the listener be drawn in and draw their own conclusions. Please tell me in the comments what you think has just happened.

I did the first version for my Timeline Based Tools class, but I wasn’t satisfied with it. One minute was too short and I wanted to tell the story more clearly, so I started with the sounds I liked and started from scratch in Audition.

The idea first started with the song “Help, I’m Alive” by the Canadian band Metric. It’s about anxiety and the line “my heart keeps beating like a hammer” stuck in my head for days.

I started by recording loops of that line and the title on an iPad app called Loopy. I exported them to Audition and added delay. The heartbeat was a recording of a cloth being snapped and the water dripping was from my bathtub.

I put this all together in a multi-track sequence that starts with a gramophone needle clicking and popping. I wanted to convey that this was an old story, one that’s been experienced too many times. I guess my artistic motivation was to tell a story from a perspective we never hear. This is intense perspective and my point is it needs to stop.

The action begins with the character returning to consciousness and listening to what’s happening around him. The repeating thoughts and monotone voice are meant to convey his subscious mind. He’s dazed and deep in shock.

I spent a lot of time tweaking volume levels and used the panning feature extensively. If you listen closely you’ll hear it in the heartbeat and be able to sense the direction of travel of the tank, plane and marching feet. (It’s best to listen to this with headphones.)

After completing this project I have to admit it’s eerie and weird, but it is Halloween today, so I guess this was my way of expressing myself.

Below is the first version of Rubble, which now that I listen to it is a suitable prequel to the Revisited version.

An Unspoken Miracle

This short audio essay is about the power of words that can change the world or, at least, someone’s life. I believe in this power, and believe everyone has it inside. It just needs to be found and spoken.

Working on this project, I spent most time on just feeling life and hearing sounds around me. I had to go into the audio world from my familiar visual world. While walking with a recorder, I really missed my camera. However, it was an amazing experience. I tried to think how I can use the tools I usually use with my photography. How to highlight, tint, dodge, gradient, or dehaze sounds, how to use layers and masks in audio language. I experimented, played, and eventually, learned a lot. I know I have areas I need to learn more about. For example, it is how to clean the voice to perfection. I really struggled with this problem. I also struggled with English translation of my poems and my Russian accent. Nevertheless, it is my first audio project and experience with Audacity, so I am pretty satisfied with what I accomplished today. But tomorrow, I know, I will hate it, so I will continue to improve and develop the better multimedia designer inside of me. I think this is the key to growth, so it’s a good thing.

I used music and sounds from free libraries: https://samplefocus.com/ and https://www.soundjay.com/ I also recorded sounds of birds from the street. Plus, I used my own voice, texts, and a picture.

By: Lyu Gremli

The Lion and The Mouse

For this audio project I was trying to achieve the second option out of the three. Which was to read an Aesop fable and to record it. I tried to accomplish of achieving the realistic feel whilst reading this story aloud by using sound effects. Having the sound effects lead you through the story as I read them out loud. Finding the perfect sound for each part of the story. My experience with this project was positive. Nothing went wrong and I’m already familiar with using audio in my projects. As well as editing audio and adding sound effects. Putting this project was fairly easy, recorded my audio and imported it into premiere pro. After importing, I searched for sound effects that would fit this fable. Looking for lion and mice sound effects. Then some few other effects like a trap and rope getting tied. I really enjoyed looking for sound effects. Listening to many options making sure it was the perfect fit. I only struggled with finding a decent lion sound effect because all of them sounded extremely aggressive. Other than that specific sound, all the other ones were super easy to find. Overall this project was fun to do and I had enjoyed it.

P4 Audio

My audio project is a story of the time I went swimming with sharks. I had a fun time with this assignment and I thought my audio went well with the story. I wanted the listener to understand many things throughout the story and so I added sound where it could help. I wanted the listeners to get a feel of what it’s like to wake up on a beautiful island with the waves crashing below your feet. To do this I added a nice relaxing sound of waves hitting the pillars below my villa which can be heard from anywhere on the island. I think this does a great job of carrying the listener all the way through the audio while keeping them relaxed. I then wanted to bring the listener along for the ride. To do so I added a sound of a boat starting up and driving around so the listener could feel like they were taking the amazing boat ride right next to me. One of my favorite parts about this audio is the ukulele that I added. This was important to me because it was one of the most memorable parts of the trip and I wanted the listeners to hear the elegance and beauty of the ukulele. This part also gets the listener ready for the next part of the story which is about sharks. The next thing I wanted to add was descriptive sound effects. I knew I wanted to add a few sound effects such as dipping underwater and footsteps where needed to give the listener a better understanding of what is happening. I then listened over the audio a few times and decided that I could add the sound of someone taking a bite of an apple and a slimy sound for the corresponding dialogue. The last step was to add dramatic effect to my story so I added a couple of things like a heartbeat and sound effect going DUN DUN DUN. After giving my audio a final listen I was pleased with the way it turned out and thought the dialogue sounded very crisp.

Please Wash Your Hands!

I wanted to get the point across to my viewers that washing your hands is very essential. I didn’t go much in depth on exactly how effective it is because time restraints, but I tried to get in as much as possible within a minute to show that washing your hands is a good thing and why you should be doing it. I also wanted to make a point that washing your hands is a good thing even without a reason to do so. Everyone having clean hands is my goal! I take a jab at people who don’t wash their hands in the bathroom but for a good reason – it is very disgusting and can potentially be harmful.

I tried to make it a little humorous as well but I think it came across more as cringey than funny. I also don’t necessarily like the sound quality that I got from my phone while recording it. I would much rather use my nice mic that I would need to bust out again. It’s gathering dust somewhere in my house! All in all, I tried to make it an engaging minute and I hope I achieved that without sounding like an idiot.

Here’s the link for you guys to listen to is: Soundcloud Link

The Adventures of Mr. Tidley, by Alex Starke

Eight wild and crazy short stories

I took a little while to mull over what to do with this project. I wanted to do something whimsical and fun, so either a crazy commercial for my book, Short Tales, or create a new little audio short story using a couple of characters from my book. In the end, I opted for the small vignette of Mr. Tidley, a dog-like being who resembles a large, upright walking and talking Jack Russell terrier, and Sivid Zwaak, a reprehensible reptilian creature. The story is centered around a bar scene on the planet Odious Plott a frontier world in the outer territories. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

As always in a project like this, I developed a script for the various parts, including the narrator, and noted what kind of sounds I wanted for the whole thing. Having the script ready, it was now time to record the parts in Adobe Audition. In this case, I did all of the parts and then modified the voices with the tools within Audition. That aspect is always fun! Next was to find the various sounds and music foto add increased ambience and power to the story. YouTube royalty free library is always my first stop for background/soundtrack music, and also some sound effects. I also recorded a good few of the Foley effects myself and worked with them in the effects rack in Audition.

After collecting everything I thought I would need (and a lot more, just in case) I put together the tracks. Each character in this story have their own track, as does the music. Normally I would have separate tracks for most all of the special sounds and effects, but for this little vignette I grouped many together on two tracks. Having taken AUD120 I have been taught the absolute importance of keeping characters, narration, music, and your special effects–door slams, breaking glass, walking sounds, etc.–on separate tracks, it makes it much more easier to work on a project, especially those that have a huge amount of everything, from characters, a slew of different sounds, varying music tracks, and so forth. Imagine trying to find and edit a specific sound or part of a character’s dialogue if you had everything on just one long track!

This was a very fun assignment and I look forward to the video project, where I think I will do that crazy commercial for my short stories.