Leanne
Stone
Research
INTRODUCTION
With this task we have been asked to create our own version of the intro to the song 'money' with 7 sounds we have recorded within our house. This will be the first time using audacity within our course for audio so this will be my experimental research before going in to making my audio drama.
RECORDING AUDIO CLIPS
I decided to somewhat get sounds inspired by the sounds in the original audio. I had to use my iPhone microphone to record each sound. I got 7 different sounds, these being my microwave, a door, a bottle, money, phone, paper and my kettle. Some of these I recorded a couple of times doing different things with each item to get a different effect or to have more options. I made sure I had clear audio for each sound and made sure when recording there were no background noises when recording and that the mic was pointing towards the sound source. I feel this went well.
PUTTING INTO THE AUDACITY TIMELINE AND EDITING
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EVALUATE THE FINISHED RESULT
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I feel quite a few things went well with this project compared to what how I thought it would go. I feel the way the recordings of each of the sounds turned out was well done and I was quite happy with the quality considering they were on an iPhone. I was also quite happy with my work in audacity, editing it all together and growing to know some of the controls better. I am quite happy with the overall outcome of my audio piece, I feel it flows well.
The hardest part of this process was getting a good quality sound recording. I spent a while trying to figure out what sounds there were from everyday life to record, once I had this down, I had to make sure I had a quiet background. I had to then make sure the microphone was facing the sound source as well as possible whilst still being able to create the sound well. At first I was concerned with the background noise that was coming through however realised I can use the noise reduction effect on the audio, I could do this with a few of my sound effects as there was some room before the sound started however a lot of my sounds don't give this space.
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Next time, I would record a few more takes of each sound as one thing I found useful was having multiple parts of a sound effect to choose from to make the best audio I could. I would also try and use my condenser mic to record as I feel this will give a lot better quality. I would also give some room between each sound so that I could easily do noise reduction when editing the audio track.
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Doing this, I have learnt more about the basic interface in audacity and more about the time shift tool and the envelop tool. Despite not using all of these tools, I got to mess around with them a little to see if I would use them and can confidently work with all the basic interface tools. I also have learnt a little more about the effects tab in audacity and how it can make for a more professional export from audacity, this includes noise reduction, reverb and more. I definitely feel confident in that I could make a good export using my own create sound effects in audacity.
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To be able to do this project, I needed to understand audacity, which I was already fairly familiar with from my other work within audacity. However this is the video I used to make sure I knew the features for what I needed to do. I would also use this if I felt stuck with anything within audacity.
When editing my audio track, I decided to put the original 'money' intro into audacity as a reference, also to align the sound effects properly. Before importing them I had to convert them from MP4's to WAV files using the free online file converter. I then imported all my sound effects and made two new tracks to use for my own version of the introduction. I then went through picking which ever sound I felt appropriate trying to use each of my 7 sound effects at least once to show the range of sounds I had recorded for my intro. I used the solo button to decided which sound effects I felt best suit the part of the track I was trying to replicate. I then would copy and paste the piece of the sound I found was closest to the feel I was going for. I then would line it up in place with the original audio and use any selections, time shifts and cuts to make the sound as quick and in the exact place I needed. I did this with the microwave door shutting and opening to speed it up so the process seemed a lot quicker. This is what I repeated for each individual sound on the original money audio. I had a few takes for some of the sound effects which gave me a lot more different possibilities for my short audio piece. I was quite happy with how this process turned out.
Before I started the main task for this audio project, I wanted to re visit sound design and its importance. I have looked at sound design greatly in past projects however wanted to make sure I understood what makes good sound design. This video in particular taught me that the most important part of sound design is the personal touch for the particular project you are doing. The audio created does not have to be true to what it is portraying but have to biggest connection to what is being portrayed on the screen. This helps me to think about the possible way I can use other household items and objects to create a sound effect that fits perfectly to the visuals and story.