Sound project

PART 1

My first expression after we got this project was, "Great, that sounds like a really interesting project". I have a little experience with sound recording from my bachelor degree projects, but nothing like what is required of me now. Recording conversations then putting it together with video is incomparable to making my own kind of unusual noises from the previous assignment - at least that is what came to my mind when I started thinking what sounds I would like create. "Make the obvious unusual". I started recording my first sounds; the sounds people hear often or less often but do not realize or think about. I used what I had at home and gave it a try. I realized that just a spoon, can, plastic bag or even a balloon can make various sounds and produce various feelings when you listen to them. Here are some of the examples I have recorded:

• https://drive.google.com/open?id=1o2ygIuYqNAScw9BkdEg1RdWwgMgHXSzN

After the following class where we listened to the sounds of others, it gave me the inspiration of what could be my final sample and how I will create it. Most of the classmates made sounds which reminded me of some futuristic or "alien" based noises. Some of their sounds told me some kind of story (a story I made in that moment in my head) and some of them just made me think "What was the sound and what it is suppose to mean?". However each of them made me think about my own work.

Firstly I wanted to make a sample from the noises with no meaning edited into weird sounds, kind of "artistic noise" which make you think "What the hell was that ?" Here is the example of one of those sounds:

I realized that I am not a big fan of this kind of art and I do not feel too much while listening to one of these sounds. I decided to make something that I would feel comfortable with and still follow the project's requirements. My final sound, as I named it "The Day", will be the composition of sounds that reminds me of a busy and stressful working day. I have recorded some of the sounds and need to add more into my collection so I can start editing. Editing is the process I have not started yet, but I have planned how it will sound like so the process should not be hard or time consuming.

PART 2

After I finished recording I started editing my sounds using Adobe audition. Since I planned all the work in advance, my only task was to make the piece as close to my imagination as I could. Using the program was a bit challenging to me, but Youtube tutorials and playing with effects helped me to understand more.

I started with my first sounds which were clocks, breaths, and a heartbeat which I used as a background sound for the whole video and create the feeling of a human being.

Later I added many more sounds for instance different kind of steps, traffic, crowded place, keyboard, doors, etc. to create the atmosphere of a busy day. I tried many effects such as echo, distortion, lower or higher pitch just to make it different than the originals of these sounds.

The result was terrible. I did not pay attention to details and ended up having a "knot of ugly noise". It was too much of everything and it did not sound like I wanted.

I took a break and started again the next day with the next try. Now I paid attention to the relationship between the sounds and the final effect of the whole piece. It turned out that less is better so I used just half of my sounds and result sounded much more like I desired; less effects, less sounds, less mess.

As I mentioned earlier in the article I wanted to make a more realistic sound so I edited just a bit of every sound to make people recognize them and would understand at least a bit of the meaning of my work.

Here is the final result of my work :

PART 3

Taking our sounds out and playing for random people in the streets was definitely a satisfying and funny experience.

Before we put our sounds on the powerful speakers we stopped in the subway close by to ''pre-test'' it on the small portable speakers. Unfortunately the sound was too weak and we did not get too many people walking by either, so the effect was not strong and we did not see many people's reactions.

When I heard the sounds of the others, and my own, on the big speakers sticking out from the Ellen Terry building, I was very surprised by the feeling of it. All the sounds were so different in public and the sight of an ordinary day around this building added to the odd atmosphere of our presentation. After I heard my sound for the first time I was happy with the result, but I found some mistakes. For the next time I would definitely study more into the relation of the bass to the volume and also the power of the volume on different pitches.

However it was satisfying to see people walking by, staring at each other and turning their heads to find out what is going on. Some people were stopping and listening to the whole presentation, pointing in the direction of the speakers and talking about the sounds. I have seen people smiling, I have seen people looking scared and uncomfortable. There was plenty of different reactions which I think fulfill the aim of our project.