Week 5 - Sound Project Summary

 Sound design has a number of aspects that you can explore. While working on the soundscape, we had a number of directions we could head with the plethora of sound files available. Before attempting any editing, we discussed our given theme and came up with a storyline for our 2 minute soundscape. Perhaps this wasn’t as free-form as other projects produced, it was definitely experimental to combine the sounds to produce the outcome we finished.

Using a sound of running water and applying a light filter before looping it seamlessly, I was able to reproduce the sound of rain. This, combined with repeating the clock tower with a crow ambience gave a dreary night scene. The heavy breathing in conjunction with the hard footsteps  paints the picture of either an out-of-luck individual or someone sinisterly creeping through the night. Once the door was opened, used by a creaking sound effect from a box being opened, the rain is muffled to give the illusion that the character is inside a building. The footsteps also change, indicating the surface underneath their feet is different. His phone rings, which he ignores, continuing to be melancholy in his isolation.

Going into the second minute of the file, it becomes a little bit more lighthearted, with the sounds of chirping birds and the world waking up around him. The running sink was a different water sound than the one used for the rain, to separate the two noises to the listener. This time, when the phone rings, he answers it, and talks to his mom, showing that his mother is always there for him. Overall, the sound project showed me how layering sounds can make a variety of outcomes. Seeing all the projects produced by the class using the same effects really demonstrated this.

Week 3 Post - Sound Recording and Synesthesia

The sound recording assignment was an interesting project to explore sound around us. Finding ways to emulate common sound effects without access to the intended outcome was interesting. For instance, I used opening a box to make it sound like a creaking door. It also allowed me to note all the small sounds you ignore happening around you all the time. They made it difficult to get clean sound files, which should have been expected. If I were to redo this assignment, I would choose different sounds for the ambience, since most were very lacking.

In terms of Synesthesia, I was partially familiar with this topic from some previous videos I saw on the topic. One was an animation depicting how there was a symphony of colour and images around a person simply just sitting in their room. The concept is quite hard to understand, since I personally couldn’t imagine seeing everything I hear.  The crossing of any senses is impossible to grasp completely unless you were to suffer from the condition.

With Cymatics, it’s interesting to see the tracking made by sound vibrations. I can understand this one slightly more since I do so much audio editing with podcasts and dialogue recordings. In the process, I’ve come to read sound waves successfully. The patterns formed in Cymatics are not linear as an audio wave, but if the entire vibration sequence was sequenced, I’m sure it would be similar.