Soundscape Narrative: Final Reflections

[benmiller314]

This is a space where you'll be able to post your final-for-now thoughts on your audio unit projects, your soundscape narratives. These are both a space for you to think back on what you've learned, and how, and also to help me appreciate the work you've done (whether in successful product or ambitious process).

At a minimum, this should include:

• at least 500 words describing the work you did
• at least two screenshots showing your work in progress
• at least one screenshot of feedback that you responded to in revising (and please say how)
• your own assessment of how you met the baseline criteria for the class, as well as aspirational criteria as appropriate

This will be due on Tuesday, February 16th.

[by-lynn-priestley]

Creating this narrative was my first exposure to Audacity, or with editing sound generally. It was a truly case study in trial and error. That being said, I think I met the baseline criteria, and hit some aspirational criteria as well. With regard to baseline criteria, my piece was a little over 2 minutes long at 2 minutes and 21 seconds. When recording my own sounds, beyond just doing the character lines, I also recorded the work session sounds myself. In doing so, I was able to get clips of my desk lamp being clicked on/off, which I used as a signal of the definitive start and end to the piece. I found the fade-in and fade-out effects to be useful for guiding transitions in the narrative, especially in moments moving from the person’s real life work session to the train of thought. The envelope tool was another key aid, especially when it came to the requirement of simultaneity of sound. I was able to lower the train sound will the announcer was talking, to allow for a sense of fore and background audio.

(Screenshot of the enveloped train noise picking up after one announcement, as well as the thunderstorm track fading in, shifting the narrative events.)

Outside of character lines, the train of thought was pretty much all sourced sound. I found the use of Freesound.org to be really straight forward with their clear marking of Creative Commons licenses. Keeping a running assets list also made the process of creating a final citations file straightforward.

To try to meet the aspirational criteria, I added some music to the work session (ironically titled “Sunny Days,” despite this being about a brainstorm), which I think made the work portion feel more alive. Other background tracks I used for consistent pacing were the train on the tracks and the passenger noise on the train. With those two tracks, I learned that crossfading the clips helped hide any looping. To convey a shift in the story via background tracks, I added the rain first fading in as a background noise, which then built to a more climatic crash of thunder. I found that panning helped with creating a 3D environment in my soundscape. I split passenger noise, like lines, the thoughts running around, and the shutting of windows, into left and right tracks to make the listener feel like they were standing in the middle of the train aisle, with passengers on both sides. Splitting the tracks allowed for slight overlap of some of the lines for the impulsive thoughts too. I wanted the thoughts to come in rapid succession, from both sides, to give a mildly chaotic feel building up the brainstorm.

(See screenshot below showing the passenger lines, with added passenger noise. The three clustered to the right are the more rapid impulsive thoughts.)

I also spent a lot of time on Audacity forums looking for advice on how to create various voice-distorting effects. I used the tips there to create the effect of the announcer’s voice over a PA system (using the Filter Curve telephone preset mixed with the Distortion walkie-talkie present). Additionally, I learned that reversing a line of dialogue, adding reverb, and then re-reversing the line creates a dream-like voice, which I used to embellish the imaginative feel of the narrative’s premise. A lot of the feedback I got from workshop centered around the idea of including more from the passengers/occurrences on the train beyond the announcements.

(Screenshot of Patrick’s really helpful feedback below!)

After that workshop, I recorded and added in the passenger lines (edited with the above-mentioned effects). With the worried thoughts, I tried to give context to the work session by having those thoughts talk about an essay that the person was working on in the beginning/end of the narrative. I also added in some noise of passengers running around the train car at one point, and generally tried to increase the ambient noise of the passengers.

I think these changes, especially the passenger voices, helped bring clarity to the work session, as well as more texture to the train segment. I showed it to friends and family before submitting, and they were able to identify the storyline with the help of the passenger lines. As a final note, with GitHub, I tried to create a repository with neat organization and detailed commit messages to get into good habits from the start. I think that definitely helped keep the final repository manageable even with the preview and first draft .mp3 files and screenshots.

Overall, given that it’s my first time using Audacity, I feel like I was able to pull together a narrative that was conceptually ambitious and fairly coherent in actuality.

[Gley21]

It took me a while to decide on a story for my soundscape, but eventually I settled on an actual memory of mine. By using an event that actually happened, it made it easier to write the narration and so I was able to get more creative and make it a poem. The difficulty of using a real event though was finding the appropriate sounds online. Because of the nature of the walk, I couldn’t just go out and record everything again. The events that occurred were special and individual and unless I had been recording while walking, capturing the exact moment in sound is impossible. However, I think I really was able to get pretty close using mainly sounds from freesound.org and my own recordings.

The sound that gave me the most trouble was the trombone song. When I searched for trombone sounds on freesound I was only able to find single trombone notes. I went to Google but was only able to find trombone songs that included other instruments or recordings that I would have to buy. I started to get worried because this trombone part really was integral to the piece. Luckily though, the thought struck me that I actually have a few friends who play trombone and even more conveniently, one attends Duquesne. I was able to get in touch with him and he recorded me a quick song! It was really exciting to see that part of the project work out how I imagined it.

The other really tough part of the project was the narration. I know earlier I said that because it was a real event, it made the narration easier. Really it just made figuring out what I was going to talk about easier. How I was going to talk about them was the real challenge. After writing a few drafts I decided the only appropriate way to capture the moments was in poetry. Short stanzas describing the upcoming scene really felt like the best way to achieve the desired effect on the listener. I also decided that the narration should be separate from the sounds of the scenes because I wanted this listener to really pay attention to just the sounds and not be distracted by the words I was saying. I recorded the narration all at once and that cut it up into parts. There wasn’t really any rhyme or reason to the length of time that I chose to leave the listener with the just the sounds, but I feel that appropriately captured the laid-back spontaneity of the whole experience.

(Here is a screenshot of the narration before I cut it up to fit with each scene)

(Here is the project with the narration after it was cut up and matched with the appropriate scenes)

By spacing the narration out and allowing it to be separate from each scene I was able stretch a 1 minute 15 second poem out over a 3 and a half minute project.

After my classmates listened to my draft and left comments, I felt that after a few small changes I would have a final product I was proud of. One of the adjustments I made was to clean up the transitions from narration to sound. This was particularly true for the trombone. In my original draft, the music started too abruptly. I added more of a fade to the music and moved it back about a second so that it would begin earlier in the narration and I think it definitely helped smooth out the transition.

Besides moving it back to start earlier, I also increased the duration of the fade in effect to ensure that the music did not come in too abruptly. I did these at a few different points in the project as well after this comment because it got me to tune in a little more to the beginning of each sound.

I believe that my project met the baseline criteria as well as a few of the aspirational criteria. I used both sounds I found and that I recorded myself and made sure to layer 3 or more sounds in the piece. There was a plot to the narration, and I signaled an ending. Finally, I properly cited my sources and turned everything in on time. In terms of aspirational criteria, I think I achieved the following: I created a 3D environment with my sounds, it makes the listener feel that they are somewhere else, I carefully crafted my transitions, and I added poetry to the narration to give it extra depth.

[hua-tori]

Prose Reflection My work is a portrayal of different ways to love is embodied in a lifetime. This project is abstract, starting with the idea of a distant memory, as indistinguishable voices can be heard laughing over the sounds of clinking silverware and romantic music. This scene ends with one distinguishable line of “I love you”. The next scene opens to the sounds of children playing and birds chirping, simulating the idea of children running in a suburban house. A school bus pulling up is then heard after a couple of seconds as the children running can be heard fading away into the distance as a voice states “I love you! Be safe at school”. This closes out this scene. Now, in the initial screenshot, it can be seen that I had no background music for the motherly love scene. However, in the draft screenshot, you can see I added a “happy music” background track in order to set the mood better and keep consistency between all scenes. I found that the differing background music really helped the transition, as well as cue the audience into the mood of each scene.

Initial Screenshot

Final Draft Screenshot

The next scene is that of a voicemail, with the beat of windshield wipers and melancholic music playing. A little rain can be heard. This voicemail is that of a child’s love for a mother as they grow up and become more distant from their parents. This scene too ends with “Love you”. Finally, the end scene is opened with sounds of crying and downpour of rain, and a voice on a microphone thanking everyone for coming. This scene ends differently from the rest, as the final proclamations of love are not in the present tense, but rather, in the past and future tense. “Based on the sea of grieving faces here today, I know that she was loved… and the love she gave will carry on, even in her absence”. The theme of this while piece is not just of love, but also the changes and impact that love has in the lives of those it touches. A critique that I worked with to improve my piece is the following:

I went for the latter part of that suggestion, which is making the sounds in the beginning like the conversation and I love you more distinct. I brought up the volume on I love you and noise reduced the chatter. I also did a low-pass filter on the I love you in order for it to be more cohesive with the dreamy memory aspect.

I have met the baseline criteria since my project is: • a little over 3 minutes long • contains several original sounds (all dialogue is original) • all portions of my track as 3 or more overlapping audio recordings • my piece shows change is scenes and plot • assets all have permissions, locations, title, and creator • the ending was intentional • all deadlines have been met

I have also met several aspirational targets, such as: • using background tracks to convey emotional tone • creating a 3D environment using filters, volume, etc. • use of details • extension of knowledge of both GitHub and Audacity • organization of files with track labeling and file names • use meaningful commit messages

My most notable tools used to craft this piece is my use of the low-pass filter to create a muffled and distant effect, as well as the radio effect in the voicemail. Furthermore, I used changes in speed and pitch frequently to slow down my audio for a notably more dramatic effect. I also used plenty of fade-ins and outs, and I frequently used loudness normalization to equalize audios across the board. Finally, I played with the bass on occasion to make those tracks a bit more dramatic.

[patrickjmeyer]

My soundscape narrative definitely transformed a great deal from beginning to end. At first, I was kind of just doing some freeform composition, not necessarily knowing what I was working towards at the end of my piece. I laid down the wind and the cicada noise, knowing that I had a solid foundation of background noise with that. Creating the wind required me to use many audio effects, since the simulation with my voice didn’t sound 100% correct when untouched. I modified the pitch, did some noise removal, reversed the audio to make it loopable, among other things, all detailed in my sources markdown file. I was then inspired by the one horror soundscape which we listened to as part of our preparation as a class. This seemed like a left field approach, which drew me to incorporating the same vibe in my own work. Horror isn’t really a realm I participate in, but given that I knew I was working in an outdoors setting and that I have my own fears about that space, I had some material to draw on. I found a couple bear noises, recorded some dialogue that I thought made sense with where the story was at this moment in my formulation. I believe that all of these pieces made it to the end product, albeit sequenced a bit differently. My first commit looked like this:

As I moved on, I knew that what I had created for my preview was actually towards the middle of the story. I knew I would have to fill in around this in order to make a cohesive narrative. I would need the end piece (the bear attack) as well as some expositional dialogue in a different setting to show change. I found a number of other bear sounds to use in my piece, as well as recording one myself. I also found sounds to simulate guts being mushed/moved around as well as one that sounded like a body being dragged away. I then recorded some more dialogue for the beginning and end of the piece, as well as a fire sound which I recorded myself, using a real fire in my fireplace, to add ambience to the beginning which was distinct to the cicada/wind “silence” of the later portion. I knew/do know that this draft was not ultimately the most polished version of my work, but I felt as if the whole “idea” was there. Here’s some screenshots from this phase of the process:

Here’s some feedback I received between my draft and the final, published version of my soundscape:

I made sure to incorporate much of this feedback in my final version. I made sure to lower the wind volume, as there were multiple notes about this. I re-recorded the dialogue in the beginning of the piece to make sure that the audio quality was comparable to the dialogue in the rest of the narrative. I also took Carolyn’s news reporter suggestion in stride and added this to the end of my piece in order to give the narrative a more coherent and intentional ending, also falling in line with Rutendo’s suggestion. Overall, I made sure all sounds were sequenced properly and that the piece sounded as polished as possible. Here’s some screenshots from the final version of my project:

In terms of assessment, I feel as if I met the baseline criteria while also reaching a number of aspirational criteria items. I’m gonna outline this in bullet points since I think it will be easier to read: • Baseline o Piece is 3 minutes and 7 seconds long, falling squarely in the range required. o Contains multiple sounds recorded by me, exceeding baseline criteria. o At least two sounds are playing in the piece at any given time, with instances where 4, 5, or 6 are layered, while, in my opinion, still remaining as sparse and minimalistic as possible. o Between background noise, dialogue, narrative tone, I think that plenty changes throughout the piece. o Sources are credited according to criteria. o I believe that in my final version the ending is clearly signified. o Once I make my final commit post this, I will have met all deadlines and requirements from the prompt. • Aspirational o I use multiple different background tracks to convey time, place, and emotional tone. o I think the switch to a news report at the end shifts the tone significantly, in addition to the switch from campfire to “night silence” more towards the beginning of the piece. o I used panning extensively in my dialogue to create a 3D environment, as well as using envelope to modify Dialogue 2’s volume to make it seem as if the character is being dragged farther away as he’s screaming. o I believe that I’ve made the relative time and place of this piece quite clear, which is also evidenced in the feedback I received. o According to my critiques, my narrative is “immersive” and makes the listener feel as if they are there, thanks to background tracks and my creation of a 3D environment. o It seems as if my listeners understand the narrative. They knew what was going on and found it both cinematic and humorous, all of which were my intentions. I also feel as if I cleared up/corrected anything that did not translate. o Most everything in Audacity and GitHub is new to me as I have not used either prior to this project, although I do have some audio experience with digital music production in other software. Given the novelty of the software, I felt I was pretty successful in taking new steps and some chances with it. o I recorded multiple sounds (fire, wind, bear noise, tent ripping) that I easily could have downloaded instead.

Overall, I either met or exceeded baseline criteria and met the majority of aspirational items, as well. Especially considering that this was a new format for me in terms of composition, I’m fairly proud of my work. I hope that you enjoy/have enjoyed listening to my soundscape narrative and that all of my choices/intentions shine through in the final product!

[reaial]

In my project I chose to record the sounds of my daily life. The reality of this is that now we have a majority of the time to be alone, or with a certain amount of people during the age of this pandemic. Meaning that the sounds of my life change on a daily basis. I chose to show you two completely different days that I would have during the week. This is why you will see a slight difference between day one and day two. A lot of the sounds do stay the same. With my friends being athletes mostly, this makes my time by myself a little more frequent. Which you can hear in the sounds of day one.

The second day is a little more productive in terms of movement, not so much in terms of working on schoolwork or doing extra work in general. Thsi is why you can hear me using the elevator, and the treadmill because I chose to work out this day before class. Then my shower is at a different time because I hate sitting there after working out. This is also a louder day because I had the ability to go out with my friends, and go to the store with them. That is why there is the random screaming in the streets , and the blasting of music in the car. I would have attempted to add more conversations, but our conversation topics and word choice is not the most appropriate. I tried to keep this entire thing as clean as possible, but I do think that one word might have slipped in. At the end of this day you are able to hear me saying Good night to my family over the phone since I do get homesick fairly easy.

As far as the changes that I made that I was given by my classmates, it was an attempt to fix some of the muffled tracks, and make it so that you can hear some more of the quieter sounds. Which is why I added a little more gain to the door switches, and reverb and echoed some of the times that I was in the steps. While also adding a little more of gain to some of the sounds that would be louder in person.

I do think that I hit the baseline criteria with this project. This really made me think about how life sounds in the form of a playback. It was very intersting to hear how quiet my life is. Going from a Family of 5 to a team of 18 to no one in such a short amount of time. Then hearing how 5 people can make it just as loud when I do spend time interacting with them. I found navigating Audacity and learning how to cut pieces and make them mesh to tell a story was a lot of fun and hard work. It turned out okay in the end I think. I do think that the aspirations that were set were fairly achievable as well when it came down to it.

[aer84]

This project definitely felt intimidating when I first started it. As a digital media student, most of my work has focused on visuals, so working with sound required a lot of time and dedication. I believe my project meets all of the baseline criteria and even meets several of the aspiration inspirations.

I believe that I really tested myself to not only meet the criteria but to challenge myself. I recorded multiple sounds within the narration of three different characters as well as had multiple sounds overlapping. I also spent a lot of time developing an intentional ending with the start of the movie. I really liked this ending because it felt interesting ending the soundscape with the beginning sequence of a movie. I was hoping that by the end would make listeners feel like turning on a movie thus extending the soundscape. This idea was actually inspired by Greg who suggested compressing a movie during the workshop (as seen in the screenshot). I also think when the two characters are walking to their theater that there is a change in tone. The intense music of the spy and science fiction greatly juxtaposes the otherwise silent walk.

In terms of aspirational inspirations, I used several different background tracks to create a consistent narrative as other sounds to create a 3D environment. In this soundscape over 18 sounds were employed to create this environment. One thing that I was very happy with during the workshop is that everyone was able to figure out that they were in a movie theater and I believe with the narration that listeners will be fully aware of what is happening. As I have never worked with Audacity, I would say that I have been able to develop a deeper understanding of the software. I also worked to maintain an organized file for this assignment with meaningful commit messages (seen in the first progress picture and a more recent screenshot)

When I look back on this project (final screenshot of progress above), I am very proud of the work I created. At first, I felt like I just had an idea but not a lot of direction. I think the feedback from my classmates and professor was the main reason I finally started to see what this soundscape could be. I really hated it for a while since it felt messy and all over the place. I think that the narration gave the soundscape an important anchor that made it much easier to understand. I thought that the hardest part of this assignment would be finding the perfect sound for free, yet this didn’t end up being the hardest part of the assignment. Although understanding the software and the best way to edit the audio presented several challenges, the hardest challenge in this project was my headphones (seen in screenshot below). For some reason, my headphones would not connect to Audacity and it was difficult to hear what my final project would sound like with headphones. Although this challenge was never resolved, I think that I was still able to create an immersive experience with my soundscape. Another challenge that I overcame was the length of the soundscape. With the parameters being between 2-5 minutes, I often felt nervous that I would either not be able to create a soundscape long enough or that it would be too long. The length that the soundscape ended up being felt appropriate, so it wasn’t too fast (thus overwhelming listeners) or too short (making listeners want more).

My original goal was to make it feel like you were walking through a movie theater and I would definitely say that I accomplished this goal based on the feedback. Overall, I am really proud of this project and for transforming the different sounds and recordings into a soundscape.

[paytonareed]

"Quarantine Classes" soundscape Final Reflection

Creating this soundscape was my first exposure to any sound editing or auditory creation. Working with Audacity was consistently full of learning new tools and techniques, up until my final pass at the audio. It definitely was a challenge but I really enjoyed the experience of trying new things and realizing a final project. My soundscape attempts to the the listener through the experience of taking a college class through Zoom online from a bedroom. When brainstorming soundscape ideas, I had just gotten out of quarantine from contact tracing and class from my bed/desk was a staple. I was inspired by my own experience and oriented my soundscape based on the positioning of my room (streets on my right, air conditioner towards my left etc).

First Draft Screenshot: For my first pass at Audacity, I focused on finding sounds from Audacity that I thought would fit with my soundscape. At this point, I did not even attempt the self-recording in Audacity. The main tools I worked with in Audacity were highlighting and cropping tracks, dragging tracks and moving them around in relation to each other, and the Amplify effect to make tracks quieter and louder.

Final Draft Screenshot: For my full draft I sourced more sounds from Freesound, but I also started self-recording. This led me to use the Noise Reduction tool, especially on my own recordings to cancel out background noise and to make transitions sound smoother- I also used the fade in/out tools. I also used the Reverb effect on the narration to represent inner thoughts. Here, I started working with layering sounds. I also did a lot of Google searching on how to use specific features of Audacity that fit the needs of my project- like how to merge and drag tracks, what effect is best for inner thoughts, as well as trouble shooting when my play cursor wasn't moving.

Final Version Screenshot: For my final version, I really focused on making the sounds as realistic as possible. Thanks to whoever asked about the envelope tool in class, I used this tool to alter the noise level at specific parts within tracks. I also worked a lot with the left and right panning of the sounds. I thought about myself in my room at from which location the sounds would have come from, which helped with the 360 degree feel. I also responded to my peer edits in this final. This comment was really helpful in terms of altering my ending to make it more clear. After this feedback, I added another recorded piece letting the listener know that the narrator was ending the zoom and leaving class- to make it more clear. I also used the Envelope tool to make some of the louder recordings quieter and more in-line with the volume of the other tracks.

I believe I met all of the baseline criteria our class agreed upon. My soundscape in 3min 24 sec, which is with in the 2-5min guidelines. I recorded all of the narration voices and I also recorded the pages flipping sound and pencil on paper sound. Through out the soundscape, I have 2 or 3 sounds overlapping in several different places. I have an updated ASSETS.md file that has all the proper source citations with hyperlinks to the appropriate pages and acknowledgement of my own sounds. I believe that with my response to my peer edit, I now have a clear and purposeful ending signaling the narrator leaving class. I also believe that I pushed all the necessary components of the Audacity file to my Github repository.

I also believe that I succeeded in a few of the aspirational criteria as well. I used some background tracks of ambient noise in the form of my air conditioner sounds that comes in and out of the track. In real life, my heater turns on and off during class all the time, and I wanted to represent that. I believe that these constant/monotone sounds allude to a consistent emotional tone of slight boredom with class and repetition of routine. I believe that I used filters to create a 360 environment. I used the left/right paneling, envelope tool to control volume, fade in/out and a reverb filter on the narration to create a sense of inner thoughts. One thing that was a big focus of mine, and something that I believe I was successful in was using lots of little sounds in the very beginning of my soundscape to set the scene accurately for the listener. As seen in the earlier Peer Review screenshot, those little noises were received correctly and the listener was able to correctly identify the environment. I had a inner monologue of the narrator to drive the story, and I used several features of Audacity, as I mentioned earlier, and they were all new to me. I also used new features of Github, like hyperlinks, bullet points and headings. I tried my best to edit the soundscape to sound the most realistic with the different effects and tools in Audacity. I added commit messages for each version of the soundscape I pushed to Github. I also named and grouped all my tracks in Audacity.

Overall, I think I learned and progressed a lot between these three stages of my Audacity soundscape. I know I still have a lot more to learn, but I think I utilized a lot of Audacity's features to create a unique soundscape.

[rmanyeka]

Dinner & My Nighttime Routine This assignment definitely tested my creative abilities in many ways. Firstly, the idea of creating a cohesive story without the use of videos can prove as difficult because the meticulous editing proved to be a challenge for me. I know I wanted to portray some kind of routine since I believed that was the easiest thing I could convey. I decided on showing my nighttime routine and making dinner since those sounds were the most distinguishable. I started by finding a keyboard typing sound to signify me working at my desk, as this is how I normally spend my days. In order to diversify this, I added rain sounds since going to school in Pittsburgh, it's work noting the amount of rain we get. This is one way I believe to have achieved a baseline criteria by having two sounds playing at the same time. I have rain playing that can be heard louder or softer in certain areas to signify me moving around the house.

By making the rain component a little more noticeable in some areas, I felt my piece a little more cohesive so I am glad this feedback helped me realize this! To add to the rain sounds a bit more, I made them fade in and out in order to create the idea of me moving around. I realize that there were many other effects I could have chosen but I was still learning Audacity so this seemed like the best option for me. Overall, this comment did help me achieve my desired attempt to reach the baseline criteria.

Another baseline criteria I met was the length which turned out to be just shy of 4 minutes. I personally did not think it would be achievable of me to reach this goal but it turned out to be easier to reach once I started piecing everything together.

I also want to reflect on how far I have come in terms of editing and maneuvering the art of sound art.

I would have weird spots like this early in the process and I would somehow have to think how to blend everything. I continued doing the fade in and out methods to offset the weird silence that would occur. This is another baseline criteria I think I met by blending two sounds while trying the change time in the piece. The sound of me from being in the kitchen to my bathroom getting ready for bed was an example of this baseline criteria. The blending of this did prove to be difficult and I must admit I find my story not fully blending cohesively but I do believe the effort was there.

All in all, this project tested my creative ideas in a great way, I am so glad of everything I have learned in the process of creating my soundscape

[anatems1]

Upon the creation of ‘Quintessential Getaway’, I was able to use various new tools in many different applications. Prior to this class, I have only ever stumbled across GitHub to view other people's code to help me figure out some programming of my own. I never actually signed up for a Git Hub account or even knew about the Git Bash terminal. Luckily, I was able to use UNIX for similar commands years ago in an intro level computational analysis class in the Swanson engineering school. It has been quite some time since I had used these commands, so being able to pick them back up and really master the Git command line definitely was a highlight for me in this project. I also feel like many of the projects I have worked on so far in college may have lacked some of the creativity that I was able to unleash in this specific project. Being in engineering school, I find that many times the projects that I am assigned have specific requirements that will guide me towards a definitive solution. This project did not have a DEFINITIVE outcome. Everyone’s project is ultimately different in the end because we are all given just baseline criteria. It is past this baseline criterion where mastering the audacity program and applying this unleashed creativity can really be prevalent. I believe that because of all of these ideas in mind, I have really taken advantage of this creative environment and pushed my project past baseline criteria.

Towards the beginning of this project, as seen in the screenshot above, I only started with a few sounds: seagulls chirping, the ocean crashing, a keyboard clicking, and a couple others. Both the seagulls and the ocean wave sounds were able to be sourced from freesound.org, because I was obviously unable to visit any of the more "local" beaches during this time of the year and I certainly can not afford to fly out right now (haha). I became very fond of this website, but I did not want to let other people's sounds dominate the entirety of my project. I originally wanted to create a familiar feeling for the listener to experience when listening to my soundscape. All of us have most likely been to the beach, but there are many reasons to how and why someone went to the beach in the first place. Since we all are in this class together, and at this university together, who else would not mind escaping to the beach right now if given the opportunity? At this point, I did not know exactly where I wanted to end up, but I did know what moods I wanted to portray.

This led to my character (me) participating in a zoom lecture, accompanied by a series of nonsensical conversations, to be driven to want to do something more exciting right at beginning of the project. For this sound of nonsensical conversation, I overlayed a few tracks of the dialogue used in the latter of the soundscape and reversed it. To me, it sounds like different conversations being held, but I will never know what is being said and I do not have to know. From here, I did not know exactly how to transition from this environment to the beach environment and I feel like it could have been done in many different ways. I was not entirely sure how to create a cohesive story in the 5-minute criteria assigned. It was here that I knew I needed to create a script or at least a map of how I wanted the story to progress. I eventually made a list of features I wanted to include in the project. This is really where my organization developed for the project, and I am not usually very organized. When this level of organization was combined with the awesome version control software provided by Git, I was ready to move forward with my project. In my repo, I opened up a new markdown file titled "SCREENSHOTS.md”. This file was a working log for me to update and narrow down my focus during some of my studio sessions. I got into the habit of committing any changes every time I made an update to any of the files in that repository for the first full draft.

(Most recently captured screenshot of labeled soundscape.
Should aid in visualizing where different sounds occur in my project)

Naturally, my scenes would have to incorporate multiple tracks overlapping each other to really aid in the mental image of what was happening. On a beach, you are not just hearing the ocean, you are hearing a culmination of waves crashing, the seagulls chirping, people laughing, and much more. After further listening to my project, I knew I needed to fill in some “voids” or spaces where there should be a variety of sounds meshing together. Something as simple as adding a song from the Free Music Archive allowed me to create a more bar-like environment that I arrive at as soon as I get to the beach in my soundscape. Then I got even more tedious and sensitive to sounds that should not be in my project. I was recording all of my sounds with my iPhone, which tended to pick up a lot of background noise. I ended up deleting a lot of this noise and further mastering individual soundtracks with the noise reduction tool in audacity. This helped me get rid of some of these noises, but I could not get rid of some humming that occurred in my zoom scene. By adding the rain soundtrack to this scene, these humming noises were no longer detectable to the unaided ear. It also added to the mundane and quite dreary mood that I was going for at the beginning of this track. My favorite tools included in this audacity program ended up being the fade in and fade out tools. These features propelled my project into the fluid and cohesive track that is now heard. It allowed me to transition from scene to scene much more effectively and even created an auditory illusion of movement. The louder something is in my project, the closer the character may be to the source. This can really be seen as you approach the beach party after the bar scene.

The feedback provided from my classmates confirmed that my project was heard as it was intended to be. However, it also opened my eyes up to one specific flaw that I completely overlooked.

Due to the limited availability of my friends, I was only able to get my girlfriend to record the voices of other characters in my story. At this point, the bartender was ‘the same’ person as the character I was interacting with at the beginning of the track. I was able to change the pitch of her voice to make it sound like a different character was used for the bartender.

Overall, I am very happy with how my 'Quintessential Getaway' turned out. When I listen to it, I tend to close my eyes and play a mental video in my head to go alongside it. The scenes I have created should be familiar to many of us, so I am hoping that other listeners get the same experience that I do while listening. Learning the process of editing different sounds and creating sounds like a Foley artist proved to be really fun!

[young1m030]

It feels so good to have this wrapped up! I really enjoyed the opportunity to have an awesome conversation with my roommate Jen and listen to her frustrations with entering the job market during the pandemic, and I appreciated the chance to air some of my own grievances with this situation as well. I used this podcast model to really target the aspirational inspiration of "having dialogue drive the story."

I wish I could have done more than one interview with Jen, but we couldn't get our scheduled lined up again in time. Before I conducted the interview, I was leaning more toward creating an "office" soundscape, indicative of what we're missing during the pandemic, and maybe asking ourselves why exactly we "miss" something so grueling. But I found it much more interesting to focus on Jen's plans and talk about the precarious position we both are in, because how interesting could an office soundscape really be.

It was also really important that I addressed my own privilege of security in this situation, and I think there will always be more to be said about that.

I asked Jen about her potential plans moving forward, mostly focusing on her Fulbright application, her internship with US Steel, and then that third option of "I have no idea, I'm just applying to anything I can find." I tried to reflect how she felt about each option without having her explicitly say as much. My time as a journalist has taught me to think about when I want to use the other person's commentary versus when I want to use my own writing/voice to lay down the facts. I tried to intersperse clips of Jen answering the question — with my voice cut out —with my own reaction recordings to the interview after playing it back later. This strategy helped me further define the trajectory of the story and give listeners a clear sense of the narrative.

In shifting to more of a podcast format, I wanted to work with music to achieve the "simultaneity of sound" baseline criteria. I used an upbeat track to open the story, and I shifted to something a little calmer toward the end, and timed it so that the song ended at the same time as Jen.

Carolyn had a great suggestion to move around the music originally placed around 1:30, so I ended up just cutting it from that bit altogether.

Rutendo also had a great idea of having something interrupt the dialogue besides just music, so I played around with the idea of Jen flying to Taiwan and settling in a classroom filled with kids. I tried to use the latter clip as an opportunity to play around with crossfading tracks and creating a 3D environment, but I'm not sure how strongly that came across.

Overall, I'm very happy with how this turned out! I targeted a lot of my aspirational work at extending my knowledge of the software (coming from zero with Github, and maybe a 2 for Audacity. I had only used Audition before this, and only with very short clips that were just dialogue for news radio).

I came short in terms of transitions and loops, but I really did try! I found a lot of my clips ended really abruptly because of the way I grabbed them from the middle of a sentence or moment, so I tried playing around with tempo, and I think that helped in some instances.

[cmgo412]

After starting this project, I knew immediately that I wanted to create a soundscape related to camping outdoors. I thought it was a great fit, since my friends and I were constantly taking hikes prior to the pandemic, and also because it was practical as my roommates and I already had most of our camping supplies with us in our apartment (sleeping bag, thick coats, hiking boots, a guitar, snacks, etc.). Taking that trip to the Pocono Mountains last spring with my friends is something that I really miss and wanted to recreate the experience of, especially as a way to take a break and focus on a creative outlet with how busy the semester has been lately. One of the most prominent things that I remember from that visit was how abundant the woods were with wildlife and how listening to those sounds could reveal just as much about where I was as seeing could. As such, when I began collecting sounds for my project, I knew that details and layering would be crucial for immersing the listener in that same environment. This would not only help me meet all my baseline criteria but some aspirational ones as well.

Firstly, the final submission of my soundscape is around 4 minutes which falls between the minimum runtime of 2 minutes and maximum of 5. For my preview, I prioritized laying the foundational framework (e.g. the crackling of a campfire, the gurgle of stream water tumbling over rocks, and the faint chirping of crickets along with some other clips of insects and animals) for which the rest of my sounds in my draft and final audio would build upon, thus meeting the requirement of having two or more tracks overlap at least once. Moreover, for cohesion, I added the sounds of footsteps crunching on leaves and faded in the background audio tracks to signify that the narrator was walking closer to the campsite. I made sure to appropriately credit all of these sounds in my ASSETS.md file in my repository as well as maintain an organized file structure for each portion of the project (i.e. preview, draft, and final) to work more efficiently. In terms of self-recording sounds, I recorded the shuffling noises with my roommate’s sleeping bag and the zippering of the “tent” by using the zipper from one of my jackets. I was also able to get my friends’ permission to help me record a song on the guitar and the weather report on the radio.

Some helpful feedback that I received from Kenzie was to create a more intentional ending when the narrator decides to leave the campsite and sleep in their tent. In fact, she ended up suggesting to include one of the sounds that I had already added to my project and mistakenly identified it as a bag, which meant that my conclusion was unclear and that I needed to differentiate the zipping noises. Likewise, Thomas pointed out that the radio static that I used for the weather report was too distracting and felt out of place, something I didn’t notice until I played through my soundscape recording again. I ended up taking both of their recommendations for my final submission.

To more clearly convey an ending like Kenzie had mentioned, I made note of where the second tent zipper sound occurred on the timeline (aka when the narrator enters and closes up the tent) and decided to add a low pass filter on all the background tracks. This muffled the audio a bit and indicated a change of environment. I also faded the background tracks over a shorter period of time to sell the tent zipper sound more and added a gradual fade out afterwards to suggest that the narrator was falling asleep.

For Thomas’s recommendation, I simply decreased the gain on the radio static track so that it wasn’t as loud and didn’t detract from the overall soundscape. Given more time, I would have definitely loved to experiment with making the weather report more dynamic. I could’ve played around with more sound effects like distortion as the narrator tunes into different channels/frequencies.

For aspirational criteria, I tried to convey a sense of 3D space by adjusting the pan on some of the animal and insect tracks, most notably the mosquito one which panned between the left and right channels. To do this, I duplicated the audio clip and adjusted one entirely to the left and the other entirely to the right. I then used the envelope tool to fade in the tracks opposite to one another—the left channel increases in volume when the right channel decreases, and the right channel increases in volume when the left decreases.

I tried to include as much detail as I could for my final submission, both to keep a consistent narrative tone as well as to ensure the listener could identify the specific time and place for which my soundscape takes place as per the aspirational criteria. For instance, I added button clicks when the radio turns on/off, I matched the clapping sound with the same channel/pan where to mosquito is killed, I added a sound clip of the narrator yawning to signal that they were going to bed, and I played around with the volume of the other tracks when the narrator moved around the campsite. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with what I was able to create, especially taking the time constraint into consideration. I'm also really glad I got the opportunity to hone my sound editing skills and learn how to use new software!

[gregsexauer]

I think this project went relatively well. I tend towards maximalism in my creative projects, so creating a piece that is more minimal/barren was an interesting change of pace for me. I tried to keep the number of assets used sparse, and dialogue vague. If I had not done this, I believe it would have drastically changed my conception of my chosen setting. Though this writing philosophy was outside of my usual comfort zone, it was an interesting challenge to try to say as much as possible with as little as possible. My tendency towards maximalism occasionally leads me to over-explaining, which can lessen the impact of some pieces. I would have liked to expand upon the dialogue between the two characters a bit more, though I found it difficult to find ways to do so that were consistent with the emotional tone I was trying to achieve. Overall, I am happy with the balance I struck between conveying enough information to be readable, and not so much information as to lose interpretive value.

I believe I met all of the baseline criteria, and most of the aspirational criteria. The soundscape is between two and five minutes long, has sound originally recorded by myself, has multiple overlapping tracks, has something change, has credited sources, has an intentional ending, and was submitted before deadlines. As for aspirational goals, I used background tracks to convey a consistent tone and a shift in tone, used panning, volume, and filters to create a sense of 3D space, used minimalism to convey a sense of location, listeners understood the soundscape narrative as intended, the narrative was driven by dialogue, I extended my knowledge of both Audacity and git/GitHub, I tried being a Foley artist with my use of boots on rice for the footsteps sound effect, and I organized my files in Audacity. My commit messages could have been better, and that is something I will work on improving for future projects.

I took two suggestions from feedback: The first suggestion was to increase the sound of the waves, so that they stood out more against the sound of the wind. This was an easy fix. The second suggestion was to extend the sound of the wind to the end of the narrative, to make the ending sound less empty. I accomplished this by duplicating the wind sound effect, splicing them together, and having the second half of the splice fade out when the tea kettle starts to whistle. Some feedback I got suggested that I add more elements to the ending, such as a door closing or the traveler sitting down to signal that they have accepted the tea. However, I chose not to use this feedback, as I wanted the traveler's decision to be open to interpretation. Here is my project before these changes: As well as after:

[kle39]

Upon entering into the Soundscape Project, I had very minimal knowledge of Audacity. I only used Audacity to cut songs for my dancers. I was familiar with a few of the sound effects, but I had only ever used fade out if necessary. Looking back to the beginning stages of my project, I can definitely say that my idea stayed the same throughout, however, there were aspects of my evening that I ended up choosing not to include. This was simply for the sake of time and focusing on the more important details that listeners may not be familiar with (such as the counts “5, 6, 7, 8”).

As far are criteria is concerned, I definitely feel I hit baseline criteria. First, my whole audio exceeds 2 minutes, but is still within the 2-5 minute range. This was something I struggled with at first, being that my audio was over 5 minutes, but after further editing, I was able to cut this down and still keep my original ideas. Throughout the piece, nearly all the assets were created/recorded by me, and I cited my sources (both repurposed and created) in Citations.md. Within these assets, I had a few instances where two or more tracks overlapped at least once, which was something I felt added more of a dynamic aspect to my piece. As the piece progresses, I had something change, which in this instance was how several events were occurring throughout the evening to promote change. I also signaled an intentional ending with my narration using closing words at the end of the piece (...”and that is the dance teacher life”).

Shifting from baseline to aspirational criteria, I find my soundscape project achieving a few of the aspirational details. First, each time I made commits, I used meaningful commit messages. This definitely helped me as I was progressing through my project as a refresher of the current state of the project and what was already completed. Another aspirational aspect that I engaged in and found helpful was organizing my files through track labeling. I tried to be as descriptive as possible when naming tracks, while still keeping the name somewhat short. While working through this project, I found myself extending my knowledge in Audacity by using sound effects that were new to me, specifically, the envelope tool, splitting tracks, and noise reduction. These tools are definitely ones that were helpful to improve the sounds, and I can use these tools in the future when editing songs for my students. For more specific audio-related aspects, I find that I also hit aspirational criteria by using both dialogue and monologue to drive the story while also giving it structure. Without the dialogue and monologue, I feel it would be more difficult to understand what is occurring at certain points. Similarly, I also used enough detail to convey a sense of place and time. This was accomplished through explanation – ex. “I pack my bags and head to the studio”. Lastly, Caela listened to my soundscape narrative, and her helpful comment demonstrated that she understood the narrative as intended, by her statement in the third line (“The narration is descriptive and clear…”).

Here are two screenshots of my work in progress.

I wanted to point out this part of my progress because the “Move Track Up” option was something I used quite a bit throughout this project in order to place my sounds in the desired order. From a user standpoint, I wish there was a more efficient way to move tracks up besides clicking “Move Track Up”. This option is nice when you do not have to move the track very far, however in my case, I had to move the tracks up quite a bit, and it definitely took some time to do this.

This was an additional point of progress where I was using the envelope tool. As mentioned, I was new to using this tool, and I was pleased with the way it improved my sound.

Lastly, I received helpful feedback from Caela that I was able to respond to in revising.

Caela provided feedback specifically towards the length of my soundscape narrative aligning with baseline criteria. In the last two lines, she suggested: “…shortening your audio by recording…”. After reading her feedback, I was able to further revise my narrative and layered more clips together in order to shorten my sound.

Overall, I enjoyed completing this soundscape project. I was able to learn more about Audacity while conveying something I love. This was exciting for me, and I am looking forward to the other projects/units we will move through in this class!

[TrentFoster]

I have learned a lot already about sound, and about manipulating sound in just a few short weeks while working on this project. I never really worked with audacity before so it was definitely fun and rewarding to add a new piece of software to my ever growing list of programs that I have experience with.

I believe I have met the baseline criteria for the project as well as even added enough spice to meet some aspirational goals as well. I have provided a finished product that is about 2 minutes and 10 seconds long. I have multiple sounds that I have recorded myself, which was all of the different phrases. However, I am disappointed that I was unable to get some of my friends to do some talking for me, but I tried to incorporate different sound effects into my voices to give them even a slight distinction from one another. I used the echo effect for the "lookout" person that warned the captain of anything off in the distance. I also changed the pitch of the captain voice to give him a deeper more piratey vocal sound. Lastly, I messed with the audio left/right pan to signal that the voices were not all gather in one area. Though when I come back to this project and reflect, I will definitely be doing more with the voices.

Aside from the voices, I have included many other different sound layers as well. I have multiple tracks overlapping at a number of different areas. In fact, at every portion of the piece, there are sounds overlapping in multiple different areas. One example that comes to mind is just the background noises. I added ocean waves, wood creaks, and a flag blowing in the wind. These all gave off the impression that we were located on a ship before I even got to adding anything else. I also played around with the sound envelope tool a ton for all of my layers. I increased the volumes of sounds during the storm, and I decreased volumes when they were about to end so that it was not a sudden breakage of sounds.

Last but not least, I made sure to have a definite beginning and end to my piece. I opened with a cheerful ship on the open water, had a climax section of a dangerous storm, included a definitive ending to the storm,(where the ship was being repaired), and including an end with them finding the land that they were searching for and becoming cheerful and happy again!

All of the feedback that I was provided had common outlooks on my project. There needed to be a definitive ending, and there needed to be more dialogue sounds, and just more of a storyline. I took that and ran with it. This feedback led me to add the ending of the pirates finding an island and celebrating the accomplishment before fading out all of the sounds and leaving the rest of the story up for the imagination. (depicted above)

(This screenshot shows the 3 main sounds that ended my piece, the landho! dialogue, the crowd celebration, as well as the cheery pirate shanty to really end it all)

(this screenshot depicts the pitch effect that I used throughout the project to give the voices a little bit of a deeper demeanor, however I also used echoing in some of the dialogue as well)

[annaruz]

I challenged my creativity and my editorial skills a lot with this project especially for my first experience editing sound and using Audacity. I wanted to be ambitious with my topic choice to really put listeners in a new, imagined space with a fun narrative. Following one of the parachute prompts to follow a day in someone's life, I decided to follow a morning in Santa Claus's life. This idea came to be during class on January 28th during our generative writing activity. You can see my initial train of thought when this idea came up to in the picture of my notes below. It is interesting to look back on when I first had this idea and to see which aspects I decided to incorporate in my final project. In my first attempt that I pushed to GitHub, I relied mostly on these ideas like following Santa walking through snow to the workshop and hearing elves' high-pitched voices. I was really intrigued by the idea of the silence of the walk compared to the loudness of the workshop. By the time I submitted my first full draft (after having to redo all of the work that I had done two nights before the submission was due), I had decided to add more of a plot line to the story. I talked with my sister who works in television editing to see if she had any ideas, and she suggested that a fire start in the workshop. I thought this would be the perfect way to add more of a story while still emphasizing that this is just a regular day in Santa's life where there is always some form of chaos occurring; this helped me come up with my title, "Another Day in the Workshop." With this, I downloaded many, many sounds from FreeSound.org, and worked on layering all of my sounds to really put listeners into the scene. Receiving peer feedback from this first full draft was extremely helpful. After reading other students' comments, I saw that I had created the story, and they were interpreting what I was trying to convey. Comments like the one screen shotted below showed me that I then needed to focus on cleaning up the editorial aspects like volume, cutting, and transitions. This feedback was very helpful for me especially since I had not realized how incredibly loud my sound was at many points in the narrative. Once I learned about the envelope tool, it was much easier for me to regulate the volume levels of my many tracks. This reminded me of the importance of volume in setting the tone for the scene; after reading these comments, I was much more conscious of volume levels in order to ensure that the background tracks did not overpower the narrative. I also received a comment suggesting that I use background music throughout the narrative rather than only during the portion in the workshop. I thought this was a great suggestion, and I decided to implement it to have background music running throughout the entire narrative; however, the music depends on the location (Santa's house, outside, or the workshop). Additionally, I ended up shortening the segment of Santa walking outside after Professor Miller gave the comment in class about certain aspects of the soundscape not needing to be entirely realistic. This portion was originally 34 seconds, and I ended up cutting it to last only 14 seconds. Here is a screenshot from my first draft where you can best see the high volume levels, lack of an introduction background track, and long segment of Santa walking to the workshop: Here is a screenshot from my final draft where you can see the incorporation of the envelope tool to regulate volume, the insertion of a background track for the beginning of the narrative, as per Payton's suggestion: This screenshot from my final draft shows the shortened segment of Santa walking to the workshop: In terms of criteria, I met all of the agreed upon baseline criteria with multiple self-recorded tracks, many layered tracks, source accreditation, length of more than two minutes, changes occurring in the narrative, meeting of deadlines and an intentional ending. I also achieved many of the aspirational inspirations including the use of background tracks to vary tone, panning to create a 3D effect, changing of pitch to emulate elves' voices, usage of meaningful commit messages, incorporating dialogue to structure the piece, and creating well-aligned transitions as best as I could. I also had successful interpretation by listeners as to what was happening in the narrative, as shown in my peer comments, and I definitely extended my depth of knowledge of both Audacity and GitHub. Overall, I am very impressed with the work that I have done with this project. I could continue to work on it for weeks to try to perfect it, and I am very happy with the version that I have completed for now. I think that I created a cute story and executed it well to bring listeners to the North Pole for two minutes and thirty-six seconds.

[TBrusilovsky]

This project was functionally my first experience with audacity. I technically had it already installed and had even opened it in the past, but I had never really done much of anything with the program. At the start of the project, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it, the examples we listened to felt very intimidating and I wasn't really sure how I could make something even approaching that. Eventually however I decided on a scene that happened to me just a few weeks earlier, getting caught by heavy rain while enjoying a walk in the park. I had originally planned to record most of my audio myself, but then the Pittsburgh weather decided to be incredibly unaccommodating. The rain I needed turned into snow, and the snow on the ground meant I couldn't record several of the other required nature sounds. As such, I turned to the internet to find good audio for my project, and found freesound.org where I ended up sourcing most of the audio I used. One issue I often had with the audio I found was that I would find an absolutely perfect piece of audio, except the clip was 5 seconds long and I needed considerably more than that. I tried simply looping the audio, but that did not work very well since all the cutoff points were messed up and it would give me ugly, disjointed jumps in my soundscape. After some work and careful cutting and cleaning, I think I managed to make my sounds all sound like one continuous whole. Two places where I thought this was especially important was in the heavy breathing and running footsteps I used after the rain began. Both came from short clips with messy surroundings but the resulting sounds came out very smooth and clear. Another issue I had was in getting my transitions to sound 'clean' and natural. In the below screenshot you can see how the running starts abruptly as the walking audio ends. The transition from outdoor rain to car rain is slightly overlapped, but it sounded very crude as both are playing at full volume at the same time.

For the final version of these two audio clips, I did my best to clean up both of these transitions. For the footsteps, I still have the change happen abruptly, but I slightly shifted the start of the running clip so that the transition happens during a step instead of in the middle of one. The narrator's last footstep hits the ground and then they begin to run, instead of having a short stutter where the narrator switches movement. For the rain transition, I did want both sounds to be momentarily audible, since the narrator still has the car door open so they should be able to hear both the outdoor rain and the rain on the car roof. I didn't however want the rain to sound overly loud and chaotic at that point. As such, I used the envelope tool to make the volume consistent across the transition and I also chose a slightly different portion of my outdoor rain clip that meshed more cleanly with the car rain clip.

When revising my project, I found Kenzie's feedback very helpful.

I already had a semblance of an ending where a car door slammed and the rain shifted to the sound of rain from inside a car as opposed to rain in the trees, but it definitely didn't quite do what I wanted it to. After her suggestion, I added a lot more to that part. I added more detail to that part to properly emphasize what happened, such as the sound of a key fob going off and a long sigh of relief from the narrator.

I also really appreciated the feedback of Professor Miller.

I didn't use the exact things he suggested, but the idea of the sigh and adding more action around the stream to show more of what the narrator is doing and feeling was a great idea. I considered adding further human sounds to the piece as well, but decided that the breathing and chewing I currently have is already pushing the limit of what I wanted in the soundscape.

I believe I completed all the baseline criteria and many of the aspirational ones. My soundscape plays for between 2 and 5 minutes, it contains at least one sound recorded by me, it has more than 2 tracks overlap more than once, many things change during the piece, I have credited all my sources with the required information (title, creator, the location is linked, permission) including myself, my piece has an intentional and signaled end, and I submitted all my work by the deadlines. For the aspirational criteria, I used background tracks to convey both a shift and a consistent tone, I used volume to create a sense of 3D environment, I used many overlapping tracks and details to convey the specific location where my piece 'takes place', I conveyed a narrative without the use of speech, I learned about and used many Audacity features that I had never touched before, I carefully edited my piece to align transitions and loop audio files that were too short, I kept my directory clean and organized, and I used meaningful commit messages to help me keep track of my progress.

[boredhero]

I have never worked with audacity or done any sound-based project before, let alone a soundscape. I considered making a soundscape of my cooking but then I realized that the most unique thing I could probably do would be capturing the ambiance of Oakland at Night. I like to go for night walks very late (or early depending on your perspective) at night. I.E., 2 AM-5 AM. There are interesting things to see and hear that otherwise get drowned out in the noises you hear during the day. Unfortunately, the weather hasn't been the greatest, so I had some nights where I couldn't record at all. I ended up doing most of my recording on a night that was heavily snowy but not icy yet.

I walked around North and Central Oakland and recorded interesting sounds I heard such as steam from buildings and the hum and buzz of machinery, snowplows, the scrape of my boots on salted sidewalks, and the echo of my boots in this one cool area that has a natural echo effect. I even ended up recording myself going into CVS and buying some pop, but I decided to cut this because I felt that it didn't really match the "ambiance" and "vibe" of the rest of my audio recordings. For a while, I wasn't even sure I wanted much music, but I ended up settling on a track that I toned down and faded in and out, primarily when I was talking, to add some background music.

When I first started out I just had a music track, which I ended up cropping because I only liked the first 1/4 of it, the rest was more upbeat and had too much going on to be an appropriate backdrop and fit the theme. I then copied and pasted it and spliced it together so that it isn't very noticeable that it's actually looping over the same sections of the song. Overlaying background music and the stomp of my boots and me talking with the background music volume lowered seemed to work well, so that's what I got started on as you can see below:

Next, I started to nitpick some of my audio recording files. I'm kind of a heavy breather and my phone's mic picked it up quite a bit. I also paused and said "Uhm" and "uh" a few more times than I liked the sound of, so I spent a long time just going over individual recordings that featured my voice and editing my speech to remove pauses, breathing sounds, filler words, etc. I did the same things with non-narrative recordings just to cut out garbage sounds and large quiet stretches. This left me with clear and concise audio to string together and layer. I circled an example of a pause and breathe that I cut out in this example. You can notice there are a lot of sections like this to the right of the circle but none to the left:

Once I was done editing all the individual files and had decided how I wanted my opening to work, I started experimenting with layering different files on top of each other and deciding what orders. I ultimately decided to have to talk with music and sounds overlaid and then a section of just one track ambiance and then bring the music back in when I was talking again:

By the end, I ended up adding fade-in and out effects on the music, and made a short recording of myself to wrap the soundscape up. I finished with an overlapping section of all my ambient noises that I recorded. There is some looping here so I could get the desired length and still have all the sounds.

While I was bad at keeping my repo up to date and didn't have a great week last week, I feel that I met the baseline critera of this project.

• My final audio length was 3:39, which fits in the 2-5 ideal range.
• Contains a ton of sound originally recorded by me, both narrative and ambiant.
• Contains one sound not recorded by me, the music used for my narrative sections.
• I have four tracks layered at some points, exceeding the minimum of 3.
• I met the (final) deadline.
• I exported a playable .mp3 file.

[jackie216]

I had a ton of fun creating “Come Over For Dinner.” It is the story of showing what happens behind-the-scenes before having a friend over for dinner: the cooking, the preparation, the obligatory mistake that is bound to happen. Prior to this project, I had only ever used iMovie to “edit” audio which usually only ever involved adjusting the volume and splicing sound clips together back to back on a single track. This was the first time I felt like I could really “tinker” with the sounds themselves and have creative license.

In my initial proposal, I stated that I wanted to simulate the chaos that happens in preparation of guests but after recording my first sounds, I didn’t think that a listener could know what was happening in the story from a chaotic jumble of sounds. So I decided that the thing to go wrong would be burning food in an oven and so I started to work on the smoke-alarm-and-burning-food-rescue sequence first. Here is what that looked like on February 8th with just some simple right/left ear channel manipulation...

...and in the final draft on February 14th. The sounds of footsteps which align with the actions of running to the oven to take out the burning food and then running to shut off the alarm are not shown.

Regarding baseline criteria, I believe I meet them all. My soundscape is about 4 minutes 10 seconds long. I used four sounds (gas stove, footsteps, smoke alarm, and water boiling) from freesound.org with the appropriate credits and recorded all the rest of the sounds myself with the exception of the guest’s voice at the end which was done with the permission of my roommate. There are many places where there are 2, 3, and even 4 tracks overlapping, and things definitely change throughout the soundscape. And I believe that by having the inciting incident be an invitation to dinner, the arrival of the dinner guest at the end is a clear conclusion to the story arc. I also kept up with deadlines and did my best with updating my repository and pushing meaningful commits.

I also believe I met several of the aspirational goals. One of the things I felt strongly about from the beginning was being able to convey what was happening without any explicit narration. This kind of evolved into a personal challenge to not include human voices/speaking during the action sequences and to work to be able to convey exactly what is going on without as explicit verbal indicators (aspirational goal). I had the voices talking at the end to have a definitive conclusion, something a classmate commented was a good way to close the narrative arc, and so I decided that adding a quick bit of vocals at the very beginning too might be beneficial.

Since I decided to not have any vocals for the vast majority of the actions conveyed by the soundscape, I focused heavily on creating an immersive 3D environment (aspirational goal) by manipulating the volume and panning between the right and left ear channels across multiple soundtracks simultaneously to help indicate what was happening and where. For example, shown at the top of the photo below, when the smoke detector goes off for the first time, it is skewed towards the right ear channel to simulate the alarm going off in a different place than the kitchen or dining area. And shown further down from there, you can see all the sounds I included to make the environment feel as fleshed out as possible.

And though I didn’t utilize completely obscure sounds like a Foley artist might, I did use the graphic equalizer, compressor, pitch adjustment to make the straight vocals I recorded myself sound like two different people talking over the phone (shown below).

I also used the same 4-second clip of footsteps from freesoung.org as the base source for all the footsteps in the soundscape, pitching and splicing them differently so that it didn’t sound like the same six footsteps every time.

Additionally, my classmates who listened to my draft seemed to be able to understand what was going on based on the unique sounds I chose to include. And they understood the narrative arc as was intended which I was very pleased to hear and was another aspirational goal (below).

However, there was a common suggestion across all four comments about using longer ambient/musical sounds to improve overall flow and continuity. Relevant parts are underlined.

To create a more continuous flow, one classmate suggested jazz/ lo-fi music but I decided that I wanted to keep all the sounds in my soundscape diegetic. She also suggested including music or TV sounds the character might be listening to while cooking but again, I really wanted to keep the vast majority of the soundscape to just cooking and dinner set-up sounds. I did agree that something should be added to fill in some emptier spots and so I added in some longer stretches of finger tapping and humming to hopefully make certain sequences (waiting for water to boil, and the back and forth movement in and out of the kitchen when setting the table) a bit more cohesive and “filled out.” There was also a suggestion of adding small adlibs like “oh darn” or “no no no no” during the burning food sequence but again, I didn’t really want to have words except for the very beginning and end and so I added a quick drop of all the silverware on the table and hurried footsteps during that whole sequence to hopefully better reflect the panic and climax of the story arc without explicit adlibs or comments on what is happening. This was also the time I decided to extend the sound of water boiling into the entire back half of the soundscape with fluctuating volume as the character moved in and out of the kitchen to add continuity and also be a source of diegetic ambient noise.

In the past week, a few short sounds clips were added like the sound of setting a cutting board on the counter but most of my work has been an effort in making my soundscape sound like one continuous experience and not the 40 separate chopped-up audio clips that start and end abruptly in a patchwork tag-team style for over 4 minutes. One of the most common problems I had at this point was that a lot of my self-recorded audio clips had different background/white noise from things like our heat vents and humming refrigerator. This change in background noise made the beginning and end of a lot of the clips very noticeable as my classmates attested to. To fix this, I did utilize the noise reduction effect but I didn’t understand the controls very well and often it would distort the non-white noise sounds that I wanted to preserve. So, I aIso used the high and low pass filters to eliminate a lot of the white noise that was particularly loud in some original recordings. Here (below) are before and after photos of the spectrogram of the preheating-is-done oven beeps; I set the high pass filter at 2500Hz to remove a lot of the loud low frequency background noise and also used the fade effects and envelope tool to transition in and out of the sound more smoothly.

I used this fading in/out technique with almost every clip. Here is an example (before and after) of how I used it to make the transitions between all the separate clips sound smooth and like one continuous experience.

Overall, I think I showed high level editing (aspirational goal)with the sheer number of tracks I tried to blend together with smooth transitions and with getting them all aligned with the appropriate effects (sometimes four tracks at a time) to tell a detailed, cohesive, and immersive story. I did utilize track labeling up until my first full draft but ended up ditching it because I had too many individual clips and tracks to keep up the labeling. It started to feel very clunky and hindered my efficiency. And finally, I feel that I definitely extended my depth of knowledge of how to use Audacity. During our very first in-class exercise using Audacity, I could barely manage splitting clips and moving them around on top of one another. By the completion of my soundscape, I’ve used the envelope tool, fade in/out effects, noise reduction, pitch and speed effects, and high/low pass filters extensively; I also was very deliberate with panning throughout, and manipulated the equalizer and compressor to alter my voice.

I am really proud of what I was able to accomplish and I am super happy with how it turned out; and I hope that anyone listening can feel fully immersed in my soundscape. The final mp3 is available in my repository https://github.com/jackie216/soundscape2021spring.

[gdelallo]

This project was definitely not in my wheelhouse, I felt very uncomfortable when we first started the project, but then just working along, I gradually felt more comfortable. As a PPW major, writing is obviously a huge part of my education, and frankly my life, but telling stories or conveying ideas through mediums other than written or typed text is very unfamiliar to me, until now. Audacity was a very user friendly application, and I honestly enjoyed working within it to create my piece. I did have a hard time syncing my progress and keeping track of it in GitHub, so I will say that was my biggest downfall. I will be the first to admit that my project is not what I initially wanted it to be. I kept the same concept all along, just made some final tweaks, but I underestimated the difficulty of the technical bits. In my draft, only half of the narrative was blended the way I wanted, and most all of my comments reflected that concern. Abby's comment honestly made me feel the most reassured. I though my draft was terrible, but seeing her pick out the parts that I also liked, along with the ones that also needed a lot of TLC, was an honest confidence boost. I don’t think I was too aspirational, I just think I could have allocated my resources better, which would have also helped me keep my vision together more neatly than it did. As for the screen shots of my work, you honestly don’t see much change because my biggest flaw was the abrupt sound changes. I worked on volume level and blending throughout every clip, and I will show the sounds where I completed the most work.

For the baseline criteria, I honestly think I hit the mark on most aspects. I know my ending is a bit abrupt, but I liked ending on the sound of the page turn. I think it added a cool finish to the whole piece, especially since the whole piece is quite busy with noise. I think it added a needed contrast. The one I simply did not fulfill was the addition of our own original sound. I was so overwhelmed with trying to add it in there, that I just did away with it. As for the time, I hit three minutes on the dot. I also played around with different effects, layered multiple sounds consistently throughout my narrative, and honestly pushed myself to try and make something I am proud of. Now, is the narrative close to perfect? No! But, I am proud of this considering it is my first time doing anything like this. I understand all of the places where I could have done better, but overall, I would say this is not the worst thing I have ever made.

[gmh32]

When we first started discussing ideas for this project, I was very unsure that I would be able to create something interesting while avoiding making something that has already been done. I liked the idea of a “follow me around" or “day in the life” type of soundscape, but I knew I wanted to tell a different type of story. In choosing to go with a narrative about a traveler’s trip home to surprise their family, I hope my idea came through as original (as far as my knowledge, at least within this class) while still being relatable to the listener. I had never used or even heard of Audacity before, but after spending many hours with it for this project I am very happy with how it allowed me to turn my idea into a reality, with the added bonus that it is free and widely available. I had a lot of fun creating the storyline for this narrative and how different sounds would represent each aspect of it. Searching for and finding which sounds that were best suited for my purpose was almost a humbling experience. I never knew how many ways a starting car engine or the opening of a door could sound, or even keys jingling in hand. Additionally, creating my own sounds was particularly fun. It allowed me to add my own personal spin on the curation of things I had gotten elsewhere. The people whose voices are featured in my project (minus 3 of the 4 people’s “thank you’s” in the beginning) are those of friends and family members. Hearing them take on their roles and vocally act them out was a very fun experience and they were excited to be featured in a creative project.

As noted in the README.md file introduction to my soundscape narrative, one first hears the closing remarks of the last zoom class of the day, and the main character packs their final few items before hopping in the car and heading out on their journey home. The phone call with the main character and her sister allows the narrative’s purpose to be put more into perspective for the listener, identifying for the first time that the main character is on a long trip home to surprise her family for the weekend. In order to highlight this motivational factor, I added background music with dashboard button clicks and volume dial changes as if it were playing in the car, with added driving sounds like a GPS voice and cars driving by.

(original rough draft)

The final soundscape narrative finishes at 3 minutes and 56 seconds. As noted previously, the sounds originally recorded by me included most of the voices featured, as well as some phone or GPS sounds and non-verbal human sounds like a sigh. I frequently have multiple tracks playing at once throughout the narrative, for example, at the very beginning of the soundscape I overlapped when the students chime in with their “thank you’s" to create the same effect that happens on a regular zoom class. Some students’ wifi stalls their voice, some speak over each other, etc. Later, when the car originally turns on, I have the hum of the engine continue with the rest of the soundscape until the main character arrives home and turns off the car. The engine hum is heard while music is played, cars pass, turn signals click, and other actions of a long drive. The most layered part of my soundscape narrative happens when the main character gets a call from her sister. Here, the engine hum continues, the music plays, the phone rings, and the volume dial turns, all simultaneously.

As an additional note on the engine hum, I took the original track, edited the end of it so that it was more conducive to looping, and looped the track to cover the length of time I used to convey the long drive. I then faded it out while an additional sound of keys coming out of the ignition signals the car turning off. Also, to incorporate feedback about my narrative, I searched for other engine noises that were lower volume or more gentle in the sound of their rev. I did not find one that suited my purposes fully, so I used the amplify tool to incrementally lower the volume of the looping engine track until it was of appropriate volume. (This can be seen in the progress screenshot below, especially in comparison to the length of the sound waves in the previous progress screenshot).

Many of my aspirational goals I sought to reach have been touched in previous sections of this reflection, but I will gather them here. To convey a consistent narrative, I chose to use the looping car engine hum for a large part of the soundscape to signify the main character is in the car, but also to signify the lengthiness of the drive. I chose to create a 3D tone by utilizing volume changes (for example, in the inside to outside transitions), and panning (for example, when the car passes by during the drive). I attempted to create a sense of a specific time and place at each point in the narrative with detailed sound additions (like the 2 clicks on a laptop needed to leave a zoom meeting, followed by a computer lid closing, then the rolling of a chair out from a desk, or the overlapping sounds during the car ride segment). I organized my files hierarchically, especially in regard to the sources file, so as to make my workspace as easily navigable as possible. Finally, I added a detailed label track to my soundscape, including which effects were used and where. The most common effects I uses were amplify, loudness normalization, fade in/out, noise reduction, and cross-fade clips.

To conclude my soundscape narrative, I chose the distant surprised reactions of family members and used the fade out tool to signify the end of a beginning: this moment is the purpose of the main character’s trip. Though a small triumph, merely a surprise visit to home, I aimed to highlight the importance of the journey, and allow the listener’s imagination to create their own the ending at the destination.