For my audio project I made a mock TNT NBA game promo. My goal was to be as realistic sounding as possible. I wrote out the script trying to copy the hooks I have heard hundreds of times. To try and sound more like a real ad I took real game clips and mimicked them for highlights in my promo. I found that this was a lot more difficult then anticipated. No matter what I did it seemed like I was reading directly off a piece of paper. There are 21 different cuts on this audio file so they feel of reading it in one go was extremely frustrating. I did have a lot of fun doing this project, the sports audio field is where I want to be, so I worked extra hard on this project. I’m still not the happiest with my final project but I am satisfied with the end result.

WARNING: There’s a short, pretty sharp audio spike at 9 seconds in.

Before you ask, no I am not a serial killer. With this story, I wanted to make an affectionate parody of what most fan fiction ends up being. I firmly believe that good fan fiction does exist, however it is hard to deny that roughly 90% of fan fiction ends up being self indulgent fantasy in which the author is the main character and posses no flaws and is adored by every other character. This is what’s known as a “Mary Sue.” This is why I made my self ridiculously over powered and is far to into how amazing he is. An example being my character inexplicably having a lightsaber or gaining power from his “insanely hot female love interest” (I also loved doing that voice). I also wanted to play with status with the twist at the end. In the first part of the story my status is high being the ultimate savior of the universe, however when the twist at the end hits my status immediately shoots downward and I’m revealed to be a pathetic character with a clear history of mental issues. My overreaching goal was simply to make people laugh, or more so, to make something I thought was funny. My “style” of comedy relies heavily on not making any sense, there isn’t a whole lot of cleverness or wit involved, which may turn a few people off. My personal motto (which I invented 10 seconds ago) is “make something that makes you laugh, and hope someone agrees.” With that said, please be as brutal as possible.

Describe what you were trying to accomplish.

What I am trying to accomplish with this assignment is a piece of art that is well done, surpassing the minimal standards set by the assignment.  I want to invest feeling into my work, and give it meaning.  Beyond that I want the feeling and meaning conveyed to the audience who listens to my piece.  This project is a poem, written by myself, about the beaches of California where I lived until I was about nine years old.  Hopefully it will convey the things one can appreciate about the seaside, day and night.

Describe your experience with this assignment.

In describing my experiences with this assignment, I found there were things that were easy, as well as things that were challenges.  The recording part was easy, once I was on a roll.  Finding the sounds came easily to me, as I had an idea of what I wanted from the start.  One challenging aspect for me was reading the poem, even though I wrote it.  It was challenging to get the words and inflection just right.  Once I got it going, it became easier.

I started with Audacity, and switched to Pro Tools to finish the project.  I needed to work at home and could only use Audacity for that part.  I like the results of using Pro Tools, which I am learning in Audio 120, so I wanted to use that program to polish the work.  I also wanted the experience of using Pro Tools as much as I can, to learn the program.

I enjoyed finding the sounds.  Making different mental pictures and considering the possible interpretations each sound could lend, was enjoyable.  It was like making mental trips to the beach over and over again.  I have ended up with four versions with slightly different background music.  I have narrowed it down to two.

In all I enjoyed the opportunity that this assignment offered to work with both audio programs.  I learned a lot about how sound can impact the mental picture one makes.  My repertoire for finding sound resources is increasing.  My ability to sort through sounds is getting better, and I am getting faster and more efficient at putting things together.

(Image pulled from Google images. If you’re the owner and don’t want it here then please say so!)

By: Christopher Palanuk

Not all of what I do is photography. Sometimes (and usually when class requires it) I dabble in audio or writing. In this case, I did both. It’s not much in terms of good. It’s probably bad, and most likely ugly, but it was rather fun.

I just took a excerpt from a random idea I had and fleshed it into spoken word. Unfortunately, with only three minutes, I wasn’t able to even get to the themes I wanted to tackle (sexism, racism, justification of violence/language, how ridiculous some stories are in video games). Yet, overall, I’m happy to have had the opportunity to have made it.

The technical data definitely should have been stronger. The atmosphere, or lack thereof, needed to be improved. The backdrop was supposed to be an equivalent to an icy snow planet and there isn’t one hint of that in the ambiance. Another hiccup was that there wasn’t a female voice actor. So, sadly, the robotic voice and the “female” voice sound roughly the same because of both being my voice differentiated only by pitch. Ah, well.

Some backdrop: One high level programmer (female), who built part of a new virtual reality console, is tasked with fixing it. Unfortunately, it’s problem is located virtually, not physically. So, to combat the program’s dangers, she hires a random character (the hero), to help her get to the problem (Ironic, right? Trying to tackle sexism in video games and a male hero is used to physically help the female sidekick? Oh well.). When they enter the world, they meet a rather unusual character… and that’s where the sound-byte begins.

SO…. what do you think?

For my P4 Audio Project, I did a reading of a poem i wrote back in the earlier days of high school, simply titled “Depression.” As you may have guessed, that is exactly what it is about; the feeling of bleak monotony, boredom and ennui that is depression. I had written it to try to describe to people what the feeling was, since talking to people face-to-face, especially as a kid, they try to write it off as just being sad, or worse, medicate it out of you. All anyone I showed it to got from it was that I stayed out too late and was too lazy to clean. But i digress. I did not want to use my own voice for this project; I feel that my voice is far too warm for the tone and message I was trying to convey in my writing.

And as a footnote, vaguely related to the class, I have owned the copyright to this poem for some time, and in no way, in turning this in for the class, hand over those rights. I do not mind this work’s use, and give full permission to show it, BUT I OWN THIS. I will fight for this in court if I have to. Nobody, NOBODY is going to get ownership or credit for this when they had nothing to do with it. PERIOD.

-Riley Clayton-Sanders

I had a really great time doing this project! At first I didn’t really know what I wanted to do for this, but after I found some really cool zombie loops I took that idea and ran with it! I think that it turned out pretty well the only problem I really encountered was clipping on some of the vocals but I finally got everything squared away. Some of the equipment that I used for this project is:

• Logic Pro X  10.2.0
• ART Pro MPA II-2-Channel Tube Mic Preamp
• Sterling Audio ST51 Large Diaphragm FET Condenser Microphone

These tools were great for conveying what I was trying to in the Audio Track. I also layered multiple sounds and FX to give it depth and kind of a city apocalypse type of feel. For this project I ended up using about 20 different tracks then mixed it down and mastered it. Along with these tracks I used panning to give the effect of the character hearing gunshots and explosions coming from multiple directions. I captured some natural reverb from my room and also added a hint of it in logic which you can hear in the recording. Overall I had a blast with this project and hope I get to do more of this in other classes!

I really loved doing this project. I am not normally one to start projects on time, but for this one I immediately when home and started recording.

For this project I decided to do a reading of one of my favorite books, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. I wanted to create a sense of being in this particular scene. I also wanted to use more then just my voice for the characters. I ended up getting a couple of friends to play the voices of the other two characters. I feeling like the background noises also help to create the scene and make the listener feel like they are right there with the characters.

I Had a really fun time with this project. It took a lot more time than I thought it would, and I wish I had taken more time on it. One of the biggest things I learned from this project is that room size and sound proofing really affect the quality of the recordings. I found that when I recorded other people in a different room it gave their voices a far away feel to it.

If I could go back and do this project again I would try to find a more sound proof room to do the recordings in. I would also try to change my voice to indicate better when the main character is speaking out loud or in his head.

I loved this project and would love to continue with this type of work.

For my audio project I chose Aesop’s fable, The Monkey and the Fox. This is my first time working with audio and I had a great time exploring this wonderful world of sound manipulation. I wanted to have fun so I created my own background picture and added some techno to the track.

It took me a while before I could figure out how to successfully combine the tracks and edit the sound effects. I have to admit I was nearly in tears before things started coming together. Trying to record audio with an active toddler and noisy dog was a challenge. I must have recorded at least fifty times before I ended up with the final result.

Overall I am happy with the way it turned out. It is by all means not perfect. I didn’t even touch on a fraction of the editing options audacity offers and  I look forward to exploring in the future.

What I take away from this project is that I am not passionate enough about audio to pursue a career in it, but I did have a lot of fun and I will be using my new found skills in future projects.

P4 Audio – The Kid and the Wolf

For my 4^th project, the class graduated to an audio project, that involved work with audio in general, as well as the platform called Audacity that enables people to work with their recording and edit audio.

We had several options to choose from when deciding what exact audio format we would be using, such as creating a digital story, using a fable and incorporating sound effects, or even creating a Radio advertisement.

I decided to go for the fable option. I picked a fable that I enjoyed from Aesop’s Fables, named ‘The Kid and the Wolf’, and read it myself while recording. At first, I had recorded with the built in microphone of my computer but quickly realized the amount of other unwanted sounds that could be heard in the background. Luckily, I was able to borrow a Snowball Microphone from the Media Arts Lab and recorded using that.

At first I found it very difficult to listen to my own voice, it just sounded weird. However, I did get adjusted relatively quickly as I started playing around with different effects available for use on Audacity. I found it very amusing to mess around with the pitch of my voice and therefore I did incorporate those effects in various parts of the recording.

Using freesound.org, I signed up for an account and was able to use various different sound effects that would compliment my story and gives a stronger effect to the story. I played around for hours and hours trying out all sorts of effects that could go in different places.

I enjoyed learning to use the application Audacity, It is a great program, but I felt that despite having spent hours trying out all the effects, I still feel very incompetent using it. I feel like it would take hundreds of hours even thousands in order to fully understand the full functionality of the program.

Nonetheless, a great experience!