Sonic Design: Project 1

27.09.2023 - 15.10.2023 ( week 05 - week 07 )
Len Hoi Yee / 0353430
Sonic Design / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Project 1 

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For Project 1. we are tasked to create an audio image using the scenarios provided. The audio should create an image for the first person point of view to be able to visualize on what is going on based on just the audio tracks. It should be able to tell a story for the chosen scenario. On top of it, we are not allowed to use any voice or dialogues. The duration is 2 minutes. 

The choice scenario are:

1. Wildlife + Background
2. Everyday Home Life + Background
3. Cities + Transport + Exterior Atmosphere
4. Industry and Electronic sounds + Background
5. Weather + Background
6. Market + Rural atmosphere + Background

Fig 1.1 Storyline 

Week 5 Feedback: You have to make it more descriptive for you to have a guideline while you create the sound. You are writing all the actions out, but you need to make it more descriptive and add in some background sound while the action happens. For example the scene in the kitchen, you can create more ambience sound while doing the action, like the bread pops out from the toast machine, the microwave ding sound. Try to elaborate more first before you decide to make the story longer, you may not know maybe right now what you have is long enough, so you focus on elaborating it first. 

Progress 

Fig 1.2 Working on scene 1 

In this scene, I have added the needed sound effects and mostly just adjusted the volume and fit in some sound effects repetitively. 

Fig 1.3 Working on scene 2 

In the bathroom scene, i did most of the edits because it has to sound reflective and with echo. The sound effect i have chosen to use is using a women's voice, so I had to adjust it by using Pitch Shifter to deepen the voice. 

Fig 1.4 Working on scene 3

While editing the moment where the person walks down the stairs, I made the steps skippy so it sounds like the person is walking down and then skipping down the stairs. As he walks down, the rocking chair starts to fade in and continued by grandpa's cough, which shows the presence of grandpa in the living room. 

Fig 1.5 Working on scene 3

Besides I have also used the parametric equaliser to deepen the cough sound as I have used different sounds for coughing. 

Fig 1.6 In the kitchen

In this scene, I have added the most background sounds among all scenes as there can be many things happening at the same time in the kitchen. It's mostly just adjusting the volume too and the next sound that fades in and out. 

Fig 1.7 Scene 5

As i used the same sound track from walking down the stairs for walking back up to the room, I needed to edit the sound to make it sound different from the previous one. To shorten the entire sound as well, I made it sounded like he's walking up the stairs 2 by 2 steps. Then, there comes the air conditioner ambience and the laptop fan sound which is quite confusing when both of them happens at the same time. 

Fig 1.8 scene 6

In the last scene, I have edited the pan for the airplane sound. I edited te pan so the sound comes out from the left side of the headphone to the right. 

After consultation

Week 7 Feedback: make sure it doesnt go up to red, use hard limiter, Make all the ambience connect with each other so it doesnt sound too detached everytime you switch location, make sure your footsteps are deeper for going upstairs compared to going down the stairs. 

The ambience 

Fig 1.9 Hard Limiter

After consultation with Mr.Razif, I have used hard limiter to limit the volume of the soundtrack, avoiding it to be too loud 

Fig 1.10 Fade in and out 

As the location switches, the sounds get cut off immediately which results in detached sound, making the entire sound not connected. Then, I added the fade in and out to smoothen the transition.

Final Outcome

Fig 1. Final refined storyline 

Google Drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/170o_x0ldpXP9Xv4ED6EspCm7I3_A51w7?usp=drive_link