Category Archives: P4 Audio

Project 4 Audio

Online Review

My main goal was to create a dramatic, yet funny audio about something we can all relate to. I wanted to bring out that feeling of desperation a person feels when they want to expose someone publicly or just be heard after an unpleasant experience.

I tried to match my voice to what I would imagine someone like this sounds like when they’ve had enough.

I actually read reviews online before I shop somewhere, and I read them outloud in different funny voices, just to get a good laugh out of it, so this was one of those moments that kind of came naturally to me.

This was my very first time ever creating something like this, and I really enjoyed making this project. I laughed at myself a lot, and felt like all sounds blended well together. I got a few sounds from freesound.org, but most of them I created myself.  It’s amazing how most sounds we make sound different when we record them, and have to find different objects to recreate them to make them sound authentic. Big learning experience, and looking forward to creating more in the future. 

By: Sandra Osorio  

Voice thing P4

For this project I wanted to make something cool that was inspired by something I like, and content I enjoy. Projects like this are to me: tedious; and it helps to be doing something you enjoy, spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. This project was inspired by the internet writing community known as the “SCP Foundation” which centers around a fictional organization that captures horrible creatures beyond understanding. The main inspiration for this projects format was a youtuber by the name of “TheVolgun” who does very similar audio drama’s covering the entry’s on the SCP foundation wiki.

My goal in this project was to possibly introduce some people to the concept of SCP and grow peoples awareness of so good horror media, although I have to admit the greatest drive to finish this project is to get credit. I do not think I performed immaculately during this experience, and looking back there I things I would have changed, namely getting a better microphone, and using a stronger speaking voice, but what’s done is done. The least I could hope to accomplish in an artistic sense is raise some interest within listeners, people wanting to learn more about an interesting writing community. Here’s to a passing grade.

-Max Ryan

Static City

My goal with the Static City audio was to create something caught on the radio that wasn’t meant for us to be hearing—a sort of stray transmission that got snagged by someone idly fiddling with their clock radio that’s outdated by several years and has probably been chewed on by a dog. Any identifiable names have been drowned beneath static, and the subject of the announcement itself doesn’t entirely make sense. It’s understandable enough, sure, but it’s definitely not quite original to our world.

Overall, I’m decently pleased with how it all turned out. My biggest annoyance was keeping my speech audible; I’d liked to have had more interference and distortion, but figuring out how to accomplish that without making it needlessly difficult to understand ended up being too much for my very beginner-level skills at this point in time. It was enjoyable to work on Static City once I got over my voice and got better at using Audacity—don’t even ask how many times I looped things without meaning to. I’ve now got sound effect files scattered across my desktop that need to be cleaned up, so if you’ll excuse me, I should go take care of that.

By Kaitlyn Harper

fifteen years.

For this project I wanted to create something cerebral while at the same time semi-autobiographical but also silly and bizarre. Essentially I wanted all flavors of ice cream on one cone. Conceptually I got the idea of doing this piece walking past an electrical pole on the side of the road, something about the sound of the traffic and the visual of the pole with its numbering system, which I had never glanced at or paid any attention to intrigued me. I had a vision of a character being sucked into another world via getting too close to the pole.

I modeled the story autobiographically after myself after I discovered international travel while studying at the University of Oregon, one which felt like an electric shock which transported me to other worlds. As for the actual sound production I used music and effects from my mixed media artist friend in Bangkok, Swordfish, who uses various made and found synthesizers to do similar work as the one I am presenting here. Also within the grooves of this particular audio realm I inserted various open source ambient and airport/airplane sounds in hopes of idiomatically sending the listener on a journey into a mystical sugary realm of bizarre offerings.

-danaan.

Come Aboard Our Cruise!

With this assignment, I just wanted to mess around with having another voice as a voice-over that was not me. So I used AI-generated voices to voice over my script. I have been playing a lot of Portal lately so that is why the voice is similar to Glados :p. I used https://uberduck.ai/ to create the voices with reference audio of me talking for the AI to create the robotic voice for most of the project. I also drew a robot in touristy clothes in photoshop to fit the cruise theme. I tried to pick colorful colors that you would maybe see in an ad for a trip.

I tried to add background music that wasn’t too obnoxious and didn’t drown out the talking. I kind of found random SFX that fit in with different parts of the audio, but I wish I added a little more to different parts that felt a little empty.

This was a very fun project to do! It was fun to mess with and get creative with it!

-Mary K

The Frog & The Mouse

When I started with this assignment, I had no idea what I was getting into as I had never really experimented with audio editing in the past. I began by choosing fables as the assignment topic, and after looking through a few, I chose the Frog and the mouse because I could imagine sounds happening at certain points in the story. Opening Audacity, I at first was a bit overwhelmed with all of the different options and didn’t know where to start. The only way I was able to get a feel for the program was to start experimenting with it. This turned out a lot easier than I thought, with the program being actually pretty simple to navigate. From here, I started putting the elements that I imagined in the fable over the audio of me reading it. Since the story took place at a lake with a frog, I chose to put audio of frogs at a lake in the background. This is when I experimented with the fade in and fade out effect to have the lake noises fade in and out. I also chose to include the sound of the for jumping in the water and the hawk because I thought that they were important parts of the story and wanted to highlight them. In the end, I was able to get a basic understanding of how Audacity works and different effects that can completely change the effect audio can have on the listener.

By Braden Ivey

Last of the Rail Giants

By Molly Engelman

Late April 2022, Union Pacific announced the donation of locomotive 3985 to the non-profit Railroading Heritage of Midwest America. The Challenger is the smaller sibling to the “Big Boy” 4014 featured in the photo and is one of only two (4-6-6-4 Challengers) remaining in existence. 3985 is currently part of UP’s Heritage Fleet of locomotives but will be moved to Silvis, IL later this year to begin its restoration.

My inspiration for this audio clip came from the news of 3985’s new lease on life, as well as the video “Last of the Giants” featuring Union Pacific’s Big Boy locomotives. A link to that video on YouTube is available here. The opening monologue should sound a little familiar, but the audio is my own recording of the 4014 the first time I saw it under steam in Wyoming.

P4-Audio: Tortoise and the Hare

For this project I had a decently fun time having my mother record the audio and having a friend teach me the audio editing. The whole project only took me 30 minutes or less to create but was a fun learning experience since I could ask for my friend’s help on the editing of the audio file. In all honesty, this assignment wasn’t too hard to do, but it was a fun excuse to collaborate with my friend. He works in music making software, so he was able to give me some good pointers with audio editing. Also having the choice of not reading was nice since I thought having my mom read the moral story of the tortoise and the hair, it made me happy to ask her to read a story I heard a lot as a kid and was very nostalgic. I grabbed a lo-fi audio for the background music and found some random snoring audio for the rest of it but in all it came out great I thought and thanks to my friend I was able to get it done with little to no mistakes. The hardest part I’d say would have been having to find time where everything was quite so I could get the project done.

by, Quinn Hodges

The Fox and the Crow – P4

For this assignment I wanted to create a narration of a short Aesop fable called “The Fox and the Crow”. I wanted to create a naturalistic ambient background to match the setting that this story would take place. To challenge myself, I decided to use my voice for the whole story. I want to feel more confident using my voice in projects going forward. In terms of equipment, I chose to use my phone for the sake of convenience for this assignment. I also worked with Audition because I am very comfortable using the software.

I had a fun time creating this project. The story was enjoyable to read and easy to create an “environment” for. Finding sound effects wasn’t too difficult for my audio. The one sound effect that I did create were the “footsteps”. I used a crumpled sheet of lined paper and moved my fists against it. In general, I am always picky when searching for a music track. I think that I need to start using other websites to search for royalty free music. Most of what I find on Incompetech makes make laugh because of where I have heard some of the music from (Super cheesy and old Youtube videos).My biggest struggle was finding the perfect balance between the narration and the music. I had to listen to my audio mix with and without headphones to ensure that everything I wanted in the audio was coming through. Most of the exports I created had the music barely audible without headphones. It was mildly annoying, but it had to be done.

By: Liah Craven

The Mastiff and the Goose

by Ellie Grover (link)

I chose this story because I absolutely adore Aesop’s Fables, and I wanted to be able to have fun with this project. I wanted to be able to use an array of animal sounds and fun, tranquil background noise that would bring the fable to life by my own doing! I wanted my storytelling to be engaging and intentional by all of my choices for the audio that I was planning on making.

Starting to make the audio was the worst part. I grabbed my giant book full of Aesop’s Fables and read several dozen trying to find one that I thought would make a good audio. My indecisiveness truly got the better of me as I sat in my living room attempting to pick one. Ultimately, I had to wait until the next morning after I let Audacity download before I could make my decision on The Mastiff and the Goose.

The actual creation of the audio was a little frustrating. The software was difficult to understand and made me a little overwhelmed. I had to re-record the audio a few times (no thanks to my lovely cat who liked to make background noise), and I had to spend a couple hours adjusting the extra sound effects.

However, ultimately, I’m very happy with how the audio as a whole turned out. I hope that my storytelling accurately portrays the life lesson that the story aims to teach: Arrogance inspires contempt.