Since Halloween is this weekend, I decided to recite Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem “The Raven” for my audio project. I have always been a fan of Poe, and when I was a kid this poem used to creep me out quite a bit. I used five audio tracks; thunder, a quiet rainfall track, a Raven’s caw, my voice audio reciting the poem and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. I felt that this created a very creepy atmosphere, and also sounds similar to what Poe himself was experiencing that frightful evening when the raven sat upon the bust above his door. I would like to issue a warning, though, that I am NOT an actor. The most difficult part of this assignment was to try and convey emotion while I was reading the poem (and trying to breathe away from the mic). In that sense I am not quite satisfied with the final outcome, but the sound effects and the music go together quite nicely, and I was very excited to hear that I had created a very compelling background. If I was to do this again I would have probably taken more time to memorize the poem so that I could have put more emphasis in certain places. All in all it was a fun experience!

By Keasey Freed

This assignment was to introduce the students to using audacity and other media recording software. I found it to be a really challenging assignment.I chose to go with one of Aesop’s Fables because I like the moral advice they give. The voice I recorded is my own with a pitch up effect added. By pitching my voice up It makes the story more animated and easy listening. The sound effects were found in imovie catalog. I wanted a real down to earth country feel to my story. I wanted to cater more to children rather than the adult audience because I believe they are more prone to listen to audio stories. The background music was something I found in the imovie effects catalog. I went for a real country feel to my audio story. I wanted to create something children would want to listen to and or adults. I hope you enjoy and find this audio story to your liking!

Project 4 Audio – Lenore by Edgar Allen Poe

For my audio project I was originally looking for a Stephen King short story to read and add sound effects to. The idea there was to give a creepy effect in the spirit of Halloween. However, as it turns out, “short” stories are actually pretty lengthy. Very lengthy in fact; just short enough to not be called a “novel”. So instead I went with Lenore by Edgar Allen Poe, because he’s a little weird and dark. I honestly should have gotten someone else to read it for me because, realistically speaking, I was probably not the best option. Actually, hearing my own voice is mortifying. Nevertheless, hopefully the dry, monotonous tone of my voice goes along with the theme of Poe’s sullen, dreariness.  As far as the background audio goes, I was a little lost as to what I should include in the background. I initially figured I would just have some creepy strings playing in the background and add a little key sound effects here and there, but I learned that the poem itself has a natural tempo to it that made finding a song a little challenging. I’m pretty green when it comes to audio in general, so this project proved to be an uphill battle, but this was definitely a learning experience and I’m hoping the final product does enough to give some sort of creepy experience.

For this project, I mainly just wanted to learn how to use Audacity. I’m in another class that works with ProTools so I figured it would be nice to learn how to use different software. I enjoyed how easy it was to edit in Audacity! I think I may use it for editing for my other class and then use ProTools for finishing touches.

I decided to read part of ‘T’was the Night Before Christmas’ for a few reasons, but mostly because I love the poem and I absolutely love Christmas! When presented with this project, I had no idea what I wanted to do. Thankfully my 11 year old cousin called me over the weekend and gave me the idea of reading the poem. I used to read it to him all the time when he was little.

Recording wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I tend to get nervous when being recorded solo via video or audio. I’m much better in a group setting. I actually really liked recording! Instead of just standing at the mic reading, I found myself going through the motions as I was reading the poem. The result has a little static, but I think if use the studios more and get more familiar with recording, I’ll learn how to fix that.

Part of me wanted to add bells or Santa’s “Ho, Ho, Ho!” or some “wintery” sounds, but I really enjoyed the song that I found and couldn’t bring myself to add anything that would take away from it. Overall, I’m really happy with the way this sounds

Sources:
Music: freeplay.com
Image: http://content.internetvideoarchive.com/content/photos/7467/909200119.jpg

So, this assignment was done with a story that came from my brain, with most of the characters mentioned, save for two (Tammin & Ros), also coming from my brain. The two that didn’t, belong to my best friends. I’ve been writing this story as a role-play with my friend Ethan for the past few years, and this is an excerpt from some long, chapter-like sections we created due to the characters being apart for a long period of time. I jumped on this idea, because I’m passionate about the characters that I create. That’s why I’m in multimedia design. I want to be able to bring my characters to life, in ways other than words on a screen. This allowed me to do that, and it feels wonderful.

For those curious, the story centers around Feris and Ros, two orphans who meet on the streets and are eventually picked up, raised & taught for a bit by a generous, wealthy magic user named Silver. After a couple months, however, the mansion they live in burns to the ground, and they get separated. Thinking the other has died, they go their separate ways. Ros, a sneaky character, becomes a vigilante in a desert town far to the south. Feris stays in her hometown of Gladell and eventually becomes the student of an old friend of Silver’s, Victor. After this audio recording, the two are set to reunite in the ocean city of Lullin, where their adventure together really gets set in motion.

I’ve got to say, this assignment was a blast. I had a bit of a rocky start with recording my voice, because I was nervous. But once I got started, it turned out being really fun! Adding the music and sound effects to my project ended up giving it another layer that I really enjoyed. I will admit, I could have done a little better with the narration, but overall I think this came out really well. It is a little long, but I think it’s worth listening to. I hope you enjoy!

-Azlyn

Let me get this out of the way, I really, really, really hate the sound of my voice. Now that thats done, I decided to use one of Aesop’s fables because I wanted to be able to spend most of my time working with the sound of things and getting the music and effects right and not have to end up devoting an inordinate amount of time thinking of a good idea for something to record.

I chose the four oxen and the lion because I really liked it’s overall theme that you are stronger together than apart. I also felt that it’s length fit well for this assignment because its fairly short and to the point but not overly small.

When recording this I found getting my vocals to be pretty difficult. Besides having to deal being uncomfortable hearing my voice, the microphone that I was using was not very great and it was pretty hard to get it sounding well. It would keep picking up a lot of background noise like the sound of my computer that made things sound really bad.

I was able to get all the sound effects from freesound.org and I got the music from the free music archive. I was happy to  find a track that I thought worked really well with the piece.

Once I was able to get my recording to a place that I liked I found that things got much easier. Working with audacity with pretty simple and I found that implementing all the sound effects and mixing in the music was not too difficult.

My overall experience with this assignment I think was very good. I found that working with audacity was really nice and the only real snag that I ran into was not having a very good microphone to record with which led to some audio levels being too hot and becoming a little bit distorted.

Sources:[http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lisa_Germano/No_Elephants_Instrumentals/Ruminants_Instrumental

http://www.freesound.org/people/soundbytez/sounds/97380/

http://www.freesound.org/people/felix.blume/sounds/146436/

http://www.freesound.org/people/vincentmalstaf/sounds/266366/

Let me get this out of the way, I really, really, really hate the sound of my voice. Now that thats done, I decided to use one of Aesop’s fables because I wanted to be able to spend most of my time working with the sound of things and getting the music and effects right and not have to end up devoting an inordinate amount of time thinking of a good idea for something to record.

I chose the four oxen and the lion because I really liked it’s overall theme that you are stronger together than apart. I also felt that it’s length fit well for this assignment because its fairly short and to the point but not overly small.

When recording this I found getting my vocals to be pretty difficult. Besides having to deal being uncomfortable hearing my voice, the microphone that I was using was not very great and it was pretty hard to get it sounding well. It would keep picking up a lot of background noise like the sound of my computer that made things sound really bad.

I was able to get all the sound effects from freesound.org and I got the music from the free music archive. I was happy to  find a track that I thought worked really well with the piece.

Once I was able to get my recording to a place that I liked I found that things got much easier. Working with audacity with pretty simple and I found that implementing all the sound effects and mixing in the music was not too difficult.

My overall experience with this assignment I think was very good. I found that working with audacity was really nice and the only real snag that I ran into was not having a very good microphone to record with which led to some audio levels being too hot and becoming a little bit distorted.

Sources:[http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lisa_Germano/No_Elephants_Instrumentals/Ruminants_Instrumental

http://www.freesound.org/people/soundbytez/sounds/97380/

http://www.freesound.org/people/felix.blume/sounds/146436/

http://www.freesound.org/people/vincentmalstaf/sounds/266366/

For this project, I wanted to go above and beyond what was required. This was a great opportunity to dive into audio engineering, which is something I’m interested in pursuing at LCC. My initial idea was to read a fable and overdub it with sound effects, that way I could focus solely on the audio side of it and not so much on the creative side. In trying this approach first, I realized that I wasn’t passionate about the subject matter I was reading and trying to create sound effects for, which made it difficult to make anything good or really get that into what I was doing. I decided to course correct and start completely from scratch. I spent an afternoon writing my “script,” and the next day, I went for it. Even though it was stressful at times, I had a blast recording this. After a while, it seemed like my editing would never end, but obviously it did, and I couldn’t be more happy with the way this turned out. There are some clipping issues here and there, and it could have been mixed a bit better, but for my first attempt at a project like this, I’m really proud of myself. I hope you guys enjoy it!

Spoiler alert: Just kidding, I wouldn’t do that to you.

This is the picture I used to accompany my track. I liked the idea of having the image be blank because that’s not what people are used to, and I think it grabs them.

And here’s the track itself:

https://soundcloud.com/lebrayn-jomms/ima-f15-emery-forrest-p4audio

For this project, I wanted to go above and beyond what was required. This was a great opportunity to dive into audio engineering, which is something I’m interested in pursuing at LCC. My initial idea was to read a fable and overdub it with sound effects, that way I could focus solely on the audio side of it and not so much on the creative side. In trying this approach first, I realized that I wasn’t passionate about the subject matter I was reading and trying to create sound effects for, which made it difficult to make anything good or really get that into what I was doing. I decided to course correct and start completely from scratch. I spent an afternoon writing my “script,” and the next day, I went for it. Even though it was stressful at times, I had a blast recording this. After a while, it seemed like my editing would never end, but obviously it did, and I couldn’t be more happy with the way this turned out. There are some clipping issues here and there, and it could have been mixed a bit better, but for my first attempt at a project like this, I’m really proud of myself. I hope you guys enjoy it!

Spoiler alert: Just kidding, I wouldn’t do that to you.

This is the picture I used to accompany my track. I liked the idea of having the image be blank because that’s not what people are used to, and I think it grabs them.

And here’s the track itself:

https://soundcloud.com/lebrayn-jomms/ima-f15-emery-forrest-p4audio