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Currently listening to MDB 2006 by Red Greg on Mixcloud

Currently listening to J Boogie & DJ Chicken George: Jazztronic Boogie 2 by jboogie on Mixcloud

This is the audio take from my 01:20 music video

This is the audio file of the Adrenaline X Video to audiofile. I included this instead of the video file as I found it difficult embedding the Video file into tumblr. However you can listen to how I have edited the audio together with volume envelopes and fading also (after feedback from my tutor) used a hiss and noise reduction features at the begining of the track to get rid of some unwanted sounds.

This is the audio file of the tutorial 1 newsreader. After recieving some feedback from my tutor I decided to lower the volume bed of the music that the newsreader is speaking over. This was easily done my dragging the volume envelope nodes to a more minimal level.

Tutorial - Adobe Audition

I was asked to edit the audio of a breaking news story to a shorter version, using Adobe Audition. For this task I only needed to use the edit view of the program as we are concentrating on an individual wave form. As I was cutting up and pasting the wave form where it didn’t naturally stand I needed to focus on having clean edits. To do this I selected ‘snap to zero crossings’ under Edit>Snapping>Snap to Zero Crossings. This feature works by automatically finding a zero crossing point (where the amplitude of the waveform is closest to 0db) from the part of the waveform selected. Using this feature ensures minimal clipping is encountered, which would happen when directly pasting a waveform with + or – amplitude.

To increase the speed of my editing I used the programs ‘multiple clipboard’ feature. This is a step up from regular copy and paste as using ‘Ctrl+1’ activates clipboard 1, ‘Ctrl+2’ activates clipboard 2 ect. This means I can copy multiple parts of the waveform, and then paste them all in the correct order in a new waveform at the same time, I found this very useful in increasing the speed of edits.

When editing new parts together I found that some words were at a different pitch or speed to others, so I decided it was necessary to use a ‘Graphic EQ’ to make the parts more flowing and adobe’s ‘Time Stretch feature’ to make the sentences more flowing and natural.

Often I had problems with the overall pace of editing, as naturally between sentences there is a short breath. To combat this I found a breath from the original file and pasted this to make the new version sound more natural. I made sure to vary the breaths rather than using the same one throughout, again to keep the natural sound.

To get rid of the background noise in some parts of the audio I decided I would be a good idea to use audio ‘Gating’, under Effects,>amplitude>Dynamic Processing. This effect only plays speech over desired amplitude. Obviously this only works if the audio you want to keep is of a relatively greater volume than the back ground noise.

#Snap to zero crossings #Multiple Clipboards #Graphic EQ #Time Streatch #Gating

Tutorial - Adobe Audition

In this tutorial I was asked to use the multi track view in Adobe Audition to add music and a time signature to the shortened news edit to create a more professional sounding news announcement. I firstly brought the separate tracks (including the news edit) into the multi track view (F12 shortcut). I then used the ‘slice tool’ to cut each part and the ‘hybrid tool’ to move each one into place.

You can see from the screen shot above how I have created envelopes (seen by the diagonal lines on the upper sound file). These are volume envelopes and can be controlled by changing the levels of the line running just below the top of the file in the timeline. I used the envelopes to fade the files in and out, or lowering the volume level for when music is played along with speech.

#Slice Tool #Hybrid Tool #Envelopes

Tutorial - Adobe Audition

This asked me to complete a session of field recording, to do this I used a Tascam DR-07 and a boom mic.

I found the best method of collecting sounds was to get as close to the source as possible, maximising the amplitude without peaking.

To import the sounds into the computer from the Tascam DR-07 I decided to patch it directly through the mixer. I followed the tutorial, helping me to send the signal to groups 1 + 2.

To open up the sound source in Adobe Audition I went to Options>Metering>Monitor Record Level. I then had to maximise the sound input making sure not to Peak the input using the controls of the Tascam and the mixer.

Once I had imported the audio I normalised the file to capture the maximum signal level. Effects>Amplitude>Normalise.

I used the programs auto batch processing feature to speed up selecting the separate sounds I had recorded. Edit>auto Mark>Find Phases and Mark. The feature then allowed me to batch process them into separate audio files.

The screenshot Ubove is showing the method I used to add some ampification if the sound source was’nt suficiant after Normalsing.

#Field Recording #Normalising #Batch Processing

Tutorial - Adobe Audition

The screenshot below shows how I made sure the ruler was showing bars and beats so I could then begin to create a Music Concrete style track with the field recorded audio.

A useful method of speeding up the creation of a track I used was to create an audio mix down of my drum loop. This makes it easier to loop over again. To do this I highlighted the desired loop and selected File>Export>Audio Mix Down.

One of the most useful things I found when creating a beat from the field recordings was the Ctrl>Left Click feature. This automatically copies the audio file when you drag, again speeding up the musical creation.

#Audio Mixdown #VST Instruments

Tutorial - Cubase

This tutorial took me to crating midi sounds using a program called Cubase. I firstly set up a VST instrument track with drum kit sounds. Project>Add Track>Midi. To create the track and Devices>VST Instruments to assign the Midi.

The screen shot above shows how I used a midi keyboard to input drum sounds into Cubase whilst in GM mapping mode. I found GM mapping very useful as it instructed as to which sound would be played (i.e. kick drum). I used the jazz drum kit found in the Halion Plug-in.

The Screenshot below shows how I mapped the Halioinone plug-in to the track and used the jazz drum kit. Devices>VST Instruments.

Whilst imputing midi into the project I found Cubase’s Quantise feature very useful as I could create a drum loop in perfect timing. To use quantise I selected the file I wanted and Quantise>1/16 or other, depending on how precise you want the timing to be. One I had quantised the section I looked about experimenting with the iterative quantise settings. Iterative quantise is where instead of putting the inputted sounds perfectly in time with the beat, they are only moved some of the way.

Once I had created a simple beat (drum track) I quantised the section then duplicated the loop a few times so I could then play over this to create more of a varied beat. I then changed the VST Instrument from Jazz drums to a piano to make a simple riff to the finalised beat.

Now I had created a track with automatic snapping I could import some of the field recording hits from the previous tutorial. Once imported, the edited hits snapped into place and so I could create a quite intricate beat which is perfectly in time.

#Midi #VST Instruments #Plug-ins #Quantise #GM Mapping

Tutorial

This tutorial wanted me to generate my own sound effect for use in a radio play i.e. the sound of wind in trees. To start created an audio track in Adobe Audition and selected Generate>Noise.

I decided to create some brown noise in mono format.

To create the sound of wind in trees I decided to use an amplitude envelope, selecting Effects>Amplitude>Envelopes, I could then start to mess around with the amplitude at different parts of the brown noise to make the sound more realistic.

The screenshot shows how I can manipulate the amplitude of the waveform, and by selecting Spline Curves I could make the amplitude less jagged in the highest and lowest of the envelope.

I then continued to make the sound more realistic through putting on a graphic EQ (boosting the high frequencies, Effects>Filters>Graphic Equaliser) and also putting a long reverb tail on the waveform (Effects>Delay>Full Reverb). The Screenshot above shows how I opted for a reverb preset named Ghost Whispers.

The Next sound effect I decided to make was a sort of alien calling. I firstly created some tones shown below. Generate>Tones. I went for a bi-tonal sound I thought this was most alien sounding.

I then decided to put a dynamic EQ on the tones so as to create a sense of movement. Effects>Filters>Dynamic EQ.

After implementing these changes, this is what my waveform looked like.

#Dynamic EQ #Graphic EQ #Spline Curves #Reverb

Using Logic

For the first time in the tutorials I was asked to use Logic to create a 1 minute 20 second audio track from field recordings that I had captured for a music video. The screenshot above shows the method I used for importing selected audio tracks into the project window. Media>Bin>Audio File. This method was useful as it meant I could import multiple files into the project, which are easily accessible to then bring into the timeline.

#Importing

Another useful part of logic is the array of snapping features, the program automatically uses smart snapping (for bars, beats and divisions), however I found it useful to switch between different snap settings whilst placing separate media into the timeline (i.e. selecting divisions and changing the number of divisions for more intricate drum timing.

#Snapping

One of the most useful features again was the Alt>drag feature for copying. This meant that I could quickly and easily copy single of multiple files (selecting multiple and dragging).

The screenshot shows how I bounced the drum loop into a single audio file shown at the bottom. This proved useful when I wanted to start looping sections. The easiest way to bounce down a section on the time line is to select the section and select bounce (at the top right of the window). A dialogue box will then ask for information on format and saving setting, so I had to make sure I knew where it was being saved and then drag the bounced file back into the project.

#Bouncing

dialogue

Flight Facilities - Crave You. One of my favourite songs at the moment, video is great too.

Practicing dialogue in the studio

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