Creative Sound Design

Jaime Scott // AUT // 2nd Year Sound Design Blog

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Assignment 2 : Workspace Screenshots + Final Tracks

I ended up using Garageband as my software for this assignment simply because apart from an upping of the reverb on the tracks, I wanted to keep the sound and feel of the piece as authentic as possible. So I didn’t need any fancy software to achieve this and I understand Garageband the most.

Also due to the ‘barbershop’ style I was going for, its layout for tracks and editing their volumes (blue highlights) makes it clear and easy to adjust throughout the track. 

I ended up using 7 of my vinyl tracks in this piece. I would have gone for more but our time limit was 8 minutes haha. So I stuck with the simple theme that seems common in most love songs and titled the piece :

“While Girls Wait for Princes and Boys Wish for Dolls”

Starting with the dreamy feminine tracks longing for a man and ending with the slightly more creepy male singers describing their ownership of various ‘perfect women’ in the form of porcelain dolls. 

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Assignment 2 : Barbershop 5 Speaker Layout Planning

This took me like an entire day to plan while repeatedly listening to the tracks and pin-pointing the various singers, their backup singers and unique sounds in the musical tracks I wanted to draw attention to.

(Basically I had to cut up all the vinyl recordings and then re-arrange them to travel around the 5 speakers in an immersive way that made the song feel more like a live performance than a flat recording. 

The Speakers are configured in a ‘U’ shape with Speaker 3 being at the centre at the back and Speakers 1 and 5 being at the top tips of the ‘U’ shape.

I have designed the space so that the sound travels symmetrically through the speakers centred around speaker 3. E.g the backup singers always have a partner. So Speaker 2 and 4 are often synced together and same goes for Speakers 1 and 5. 

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Assignment 2 : Vinyl Sound Library Creation

All my old vinyl tracks recorded FINALLY - took me 3 straight days to complete. 

I also played around with the speed of the tracks while recording to try and add some creepy glitching / demon slo-mo voice to create a more authentic “remix” feel but haha I’m no DJ so I’m not sure how well they turned out. 

Now I need to choose which ones I specifically want for my assignment. 

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Assignment 2 : Production Schedule Planning

For my uni assignments I tend to use the combination of my Wall Year Planner and my Daily Diary. 

This way I can write up all my deadlines on the wall planner and have a visual reminder each day what deadlines are approaching, while in my diary I write in more detail about what homework/ uni work I need to complete each week. 

For large assignments like this one, I also tend to also create a production schedule where I plan in-depth the 2 or 3 weeks before a hand in exactly how I am going to finish the project. 

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Assignment 2 :

My record player and collection of old vinyl.

They’re all second-hand albums / 45s that I’ve either been gifted from my uncles and grandparents or that I’ve found at various second-hand stores, craft, markets and during family trips over the past 4 years. 

I used a usb chord to connect my player to my computer and recorded all the tracks used in my piece using Audacity. 

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Assignment 2 : Class Reference

One Collective Breath: Janet Cardiff’s ‘The Forty Part Motet’ | KQED Arts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZXBia5kuqY

I used this reference in the previous assignment, but this time round a different aspect of this piece inspired me for my new sound piece. I really liked the idea of separating the different singers to their own speaker and then spreading them around the room to mimic a choir. 

I think it shifts sound design from something every day and ordinary into something magical and brings the listeners attention to appreciate the more subtle details of a sound piece they may miss when listening to a single speaker. Actually listening to a choir, I’d probably get bored and not appreciate the music, but by distilling the sounds and the people into all these separate speakers, I feel like it’s constructing and them reassembling the choir in a way that’s so exciting and original - turning it into something similar to a live performance in a way.

I would like to attempt something similar with the 5 speakers in my sound piece - but instead of a choir I want to base the style of how the sound and singers from my old vinyl recordings are distributed through the speakers on barbershop singers and acapella groups. 

I like the idea of having one main voice coming from a central speaker, and then two speakers side by side to the main one echoing the lyrics as stand in ‘back up singers’ like in a real group of singers. This way I can bounce the sounds and lyrcis from these records around the five speakers and make it feel like the vintage singers of the past had come to life and are giving a performance to the listener right there and then. The focus now being on transporting the viewer back to that particular time period of history/music and love songs. 

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Assignment 2 : Further Research

untitled (lo-fi techno mix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1CxQw_M_mo

I really liked the eerie and empty quality of this mix. It created a lonely, echoing vista of space before slowly introducing a rhythm that complimented the brooding mood of the piece wonderfully. 

I have recently come to enjoy listening to the genre of lo-fi music as it carries many similar principles to what I am hoping to achieve with my sound piece and vinyl records.  

“Lo-fi music (from the term "low fidelity") is recorded music that is of lower quality than the usual contemporary standards.”

It tends to include voice overs from old films and vintage cartoons, combined with distortion, buzzing, record spinning, and glitching - it is imperfect sounding and has an authentic and old-world feel to it while also capturing the feeling of todays techno chill-step genre with simple hiphop beat loops and occasional vocals and rapping combined together with old songs from musicals and classical pieces. 

It’s essentially like a hiphop style DJ ransacked his grandmas vinyl collection and decided to make some chill mixtapes out of them. 

WHICH is kiiiiind of essentially what I’m attempting to do with my sound piece, except I am focused more on creating space with the 5 speakers than introducing beats and new media.  

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Assignment 2 : Visual Diary Analysis

Early visual diary soundtrack refs analysis + Protools effects recapping

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Assignment 2 : Conceptual Development 2

San Cisco - Awkward 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukNOaKeUEQY

I don’t know whether I’m taking this idea a bit further than necessary but I’m enjoying where it’s taking me so far. We’ll see how it much it influences the style of my piece. 

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Assignment 2 : Conceptual Development 1

I’ve managed to record my vinyl collection (which took roughly 3 days). Now I’m trying to chose which songs to include in my piece and how to weave them together to form a stronger concept/ ‘space’.

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Assignment 2 : Analysis 

Alice - Pogo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAwR6w2TgxY

This artist remixes disney soundtracks into soft, dreamy, repetitive tracks that almost feel like lullabies for bedtime. They cut the songs up into simple 2 count phrases and layer these loops over one another to build up the piece until finally pulling them all back to the first loop at the end. 

I would like to employ this technique of cutting and looping with my own piece, but instead of only remixing one song, I would like to incorporate many from different styles and eras. 

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Assignment 2 : Rough Proposal

My idea for the next assignment is to finally play around with all the old vinyl records I’ve collected over the years. I always go for the smaller, thicker ones that are a lot older (some belonging to my great uncle etc) that have a really distinctive vinyl sound with the pops and crackles from the scratched surface and the old warbling voices of the singers.

I have been collecting the weirdest records I could find with the intention to use them in songs and remixing - kind of like compiling a nice ‘ol dusty sound library so it’s exciting to finally be able to use them. 

For the assignment we need to re-create a ‘space’ of any kind. So I’m aiming for the feel that the World’s End Girlfriend track I analyzed in the previous assignment created:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSKH08GUytA

It has a beautiful, eerie atmosphere and feels like you’re walking through a dreamy landscape filled with strange sounds and an almost carnivalesque setting at times. Like walking through an old fashioned fair and accidentally stumbling on a horror-filled freakshow. 

A steady waltzing rhythm ties the whole piece together and the way the artists control the quiet moments and final crescendos throughout the piece really impressed me upon listening. I want to create a piece as convincing and gripping as they did that really engages the listener by lulling them and then surprising them with many different twists and turns. 

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Baby Driver // Sound Design // Review

I didn’t really know what to expect from this movie, having not seen the trailer or heard anything about it before stepping into the movie theatre. But I was completely blown away.

Although based around a style of music I don’t typically listen to, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by the adrenaline-inducing guitar solos and the perfectly synced gun shots with the bass hits of the musical score.

It was one of the most satisfying movies to watch in terms of sound design. 

Almost every movement on screen syncing up to whatever song was playing, even down to the window wipers on the main characters car, or the tapping of someones pencil during a meeting. Small little details that all added up to create this wonderfully dynamic soundtrack that synced up so beautifully with the action happening on screen.

Apparently the director created this movie solely because he liked the music and wanted to a create something revolving around his ultimate playlist. Meaning the director planned each scene and plot point in the movie around the order of the songs from his playlist - which I think is freaking awesome.

Personally in my major Digital Design, I tend to always choose the music or create my soundtrack BEFORE I fine tune the cuts and edits of my cinematography so that the sound and the action onscreen work together smoothly. 

I find it so satisfying as a viewer when what’s on screen, or the video editing, syncs up with the soundtrack of the video. Whether its a music video, documentary, short film, animation… I feel like the music and how well it interacts with the video content can make or break it for me as a viewer.

So it was really refreshing to watch a movie with such a strong, clear vision when it came to appreciating and making a spectacle of music.

10/10 would recommend to a friend.

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Project 1: Further Research

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound#Human_reactions

After listening to my friends voiceover a classmate of mine mentioned possibly using ‘Infrasound’ in my project since it was centred around the themes of supernatural occurrences and creating an eerie atmosphere for the listener.

“ One study has suggested that infrasound may cause feelings of awe or fear in humans. It has also been suggested that since it is not consciously perceived, it may make people feel vaguely that odd or supernatural events are taking place.[34] 

Engineer Vic Tandy while working in his laboratory, started to feel uneasy and as if a supernatural presence was with him. Later, he could attribute these feelings to a broken metal fan was causing noises of a frequency that triggered them. The noise could not be perceived by the human ear, but Tandy's body reacted to the 19hz sounds.[35]”

After further research into the phenomenon I feel like using infrasound in my project will be perfect.

Many creators of infrasound downloadable loops warned that the frequency of infrasound can easily damage speakers if played at a loud volume, so to avoid damaging school property (lol) I decided to find a more noticeable high pitched whining sound that continues throughout the entire sound piece and jumps around the speakers after the voiceover, so that it feels like it is gradually circling the listener.

I hope that this more noticeable imitation of infrasound can still affect the listener in a similar way during the piece.

(I know for a fact that listening to it over and over again while I edit in Protools has given me a massive headache so hopefully the pain is worth it in the end hahaha).

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Project 1: Notebook Planning

I tend to come up with ideas best when I have a pen and paper and a WHOLE boatload of references. So after all the research in and out of class, I collected up enough ideas and inspiration to start jotting down my plan for my sound design project. 

It coincided with perfect timing with my Digital Design VFX project, where our brief is to interview someone we know and then create an animation around the voiceover. I chose my best friend because she’s very articulate when she speaks and easily paints pictures in your mind with her words, which makes my job as the animator a lot more fun and interesting.

So I decided to use the voiceover from my friends interview. So that as well as visually creating the locations and characters in my friends dreams and childhood stories, I could also use sound to fully immerse the audience into her stories and fantasy worlds. 

The second image is my planning for how the sound travels around the speakers. I don’t want the sounds to be static - I want the voiceover to jump from speaker to speaker as the story changes, with atmosphere kept building behind the audience and sound effects flitting back and forth between the free speakers. 

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Project 1: Class Reference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKBxLX7bZZQ

The Murder of Crows: A 30 minute audio installation by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

I really enjoyed this piece. I love the physical way that these artists create their soundscapes. Instead of hiding their surround sound, giving each speaker an instrument or a sound so that it becomes distinct and individual. It just gives it so much more presence in the room and therefore if I was there I know I would take much more interest in distinguishing the different sounds and how they were layered together. 

I also loved the layering of the voice over, how gritty and foreboding it sounded in combination with the rest of the speakers/ instruments creating the eerie soundtrack. It all interwove so beautifully and convincingly. 

Because I plan to use my friend’s voiceover as the centre focus of my piece for this project, it was cool to see how these artists went about creating an atmosphere that suited and complimented the voiceover without taking away the listeners attention from what the voiceover was saying. 

I hope I can create something that establishes the mood of the voiceover I use just as effectively as these guys did. 

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Project 1: Class Reference 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZXBia5kuqY

One Collective Breath: Janet Cardiff's 'The Forty Part Motet' | KQED Arts

I really liked this idea of creating your own virtual choir, and to record it so convincingly that it could transport you to a huge echoing cathedral or church where it was originally recorded. 

I think it shifts sound design from something every day and ordinary into something magical. Actually listening to a choir, I’d probably get bored and not appreciate the music, but by distilling the sounds and the people into all these separate speakers, I feel like it’s constructing and them reassembling the choir in a way that’s so exciting and original. 

I would have loved to be able to experience this sound piece in reality. So it’s cool that our sound design project is pretty similar in set up to this piece (even if we only have 5 speakers haha).