When I collected my sounds I realised that I hadn't got enough sounds, in particular background 'nature' sounds, which would add an environmental feel to the piece. I went out and recorded additional sounds for my piece, and was happy with the outcome. 

Since I had lot of audio clips, I decided to name them, for example 'Walking', 'Rattling Bushes' and so forth. I also did this in Pro-Tools, to prevent confusion. 

Narration

For my Narration, I decided to use my voice, speaking normally, however as it approaches the end, the pitch changes to make the piece sound creepier and darker. I also used Adobe Audition for this part, allowing a scary echoey effect as Audition produces this sound the best. During the editing process, I played with changing pitch using the 'Pitch Shift' and 'Vari-Fi' tool (shown below). I found that neither of these made the pitch changing a smooth transition, so I scrapped the idea for pitch change, and kept the last part of the story at a low pitch.


Walking Sounds (Water and Normal) 

For these sounds, I recorded myself walking in Farnham park. In Pro-Tools, I made several tracks, for the left and right speakers, to make it seem like more of an experience for the listener, and to make it feel more like a group of people are present.

Rustling of Bushes

For the rustling of bushes, I went out to Farnham Park and rattled a small bush and using the Rode NTG2 managed to pick up that sound. This piece of sound had the least changes to because it fit the length of the other clips.


Water Flowing

For the water flowing, I used the Fish Pole and the Rode NTG2 and went to a small stream that was in a secluded part of Farnham Park, to get the best sound without background noise. The first attempt managed to pick up Fish Pole noises, so I had to go and re-record those sounds. The second attempt was successful as I used the Roland sound recorder and got more of an up close sound. Again with the 'Water Flowing' sounds, I didn't make to many changes to this other than lowering the volume levels.

Squelching Mud

For the Squelching Mud sound, I got my friend Julia to step on a wet patch of grass, which seemed to produce a horrible noise that I needed. I used the Roland sound recorder for this sound as it allowed me to get more up close with the microphones built in. With this sound I done a slight Pitch Shift, to make the sound darker and more disturbing.

Bass 

For the bass sounds, I used the Marantz recorder with the Rode NTG2 and placed the microphone closely to my bass amplifier and recorded low notes on the E string of my bass guitar. I then manipulated the sound using the 'EQ 7 Band' and increased the lowest frequencies to allow a really low bassy sound to be produced that I couldn't quite pick up on the microphone/amp itself.















Final Outcome



Overall I am pleased with what has been produced from all the recording I did, and I learnt a lot about Pro Tools and will continue to use this program in the future, for any future sound projects/film project's. The program itself isn't too difficult to get used to, and the tools you can use give for endless possibilities. If I was to improve my piece I would've recorded more environmental sounds and I would've experimented more with some of the other tools such as 'Flanger' to create more interesting sounds.

                               

During this lesson, we looked at the basics, such as starting a project. We then moved on to look as some important tools in Pro-tools, such as Reverb, Delay, EQ and so on.

Settings used for our projects. 

File > Import > Audio is how to import a piece of sound.

I learnt that its important to look at the sound file description such as length, type, bit depth and so forth. The file can either be converted to a certain type or added straight to the project timeline. 

Timeline of my project, with a piece of sound imported. 

These tools control how to control a clip, such as splicing it up, moving it along and so forth. If you click the top bar above the icons, it will select them all and allow you to use a mixture of the tools. 

Once clips have been imported, we can go to audio suite and choose the Compressor tool. This allows us to change the levels of the sound. 

Track names can be changed and the drop down menu allows you to see the view of the clip, such as a view of the volume or wavelength. 

When exporting, you select Bounce to > Disk and choose the setting you require. 

For my sound piece, I have chose to do' We're going on a bear hunt', so i'm required to blend a mixture of nature sounds with darker sounds such as mud squelches and flowing water sound and so forth. The text i've chosen is this: 

'We're going on a bear hunt,

We're gonna catch a big one,What a beautiful day,We're not scared.Oh oh!Mud,Thick, oozy mud.We can't go over it,We can't go under it,We've gotta go throught it!Squelch squelch, squelch squelch

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh oh!
A river,
A deep, cold river.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Splish splosh, splish splosh.

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh oh!
A forest,
A big, dark forest.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Stmble trip, stumble trip.'

I've decided I want to make my piece slightly dark, by overexposing some of the sounds, for example increasing the volume of the sound in comparison to everything else, and EQ'ing the sound to sound dark and mysterious. 

I decided to record my narration in the sound studio, as I would get the clearest, most professional sound. 

In the sound booth recording my narration.

I then went out and recorded my sound at different parts of Farnham park, for example a small lake for the water sounds, open greenland for natural sounds and after it had rained I found a spot that produced the best sound for the mud squelch sound. 

In this sound workshop we looked at several different pieces of sound that might give us some influence for our final sound piece. We also looked at several different sound terms, for example Diagetic (real life sounds) and Non-Diagetic sound (Added over in the editing process, e.g. sound effects). The sound pieces we looked at were Orson Welles' 'War of the World's' radio broadcast, Douglas Adams' 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' radio broadcast and lastly a scene of a film called 'Elephant' by Gus Van Sant. 

War of the World's Radio Broadcast (1938, Orson Welles) 



We looked at a few different pieces of sound, for example 'War of the World's' 1938 radio broadcast. This piece was interesting because of the comparison of real life sounds and dubbed over sounds, that to listeners today just know are not real, however due to the fact that at the time sound was not as advanced as it is now, people would've believed these sounds and many were frightened by the broadcast. This piece shows how sound has progressed from the late 1930's, and how through cinema and other platforms, audiences of today are used to hearing sounds such as spaceship's, so when hearing this in the broadcast, I knew that is was not real, and dubbed over (Non-Diagetic sound)  

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Radio Series (Douglas Adams, 1978) 

I found this piece interesting to listen to because of the way in which the characters interact, and the way the non-diagetic sounds work with the diagetic sound to tell a story and keep the listener intrigued. The sounds used help to tell the listener not only what is going on, but also what emotions to feel at certain scenes, mainly through dialogue. The piece itself was the first radio series to be produced in stereo. 

Elephant, Movie (Gus Van Sant, 2003) 

 

The sound within the section we watched was interesting because of the music (Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata') playing throughout, blending in with the diagetic sound of people playing sports and leaves blowing in the breeze. The subtleness of the music helps to give a sense of emotion, and how the character is feeling at a certain point. The scene stretches out to the length of the track (around 5 minutes) which may seem like a long time, however the music for me is an expression of teenage life, and how the character is feeling is something to be compared to in a normal teenagers life. Without the music, the scene was be somewhat emotionless. This helped me realise the true importance of sound within film. 



Marantz PMD-660


For the last part of the lesson we looked at recording, and different types of microphones, e.g. cardioid, dynamic etc. We were taught how to function a Marantz recorder, for example changing settings such as recording format and sample rate. This is in preparation for our sound project, which is to produce a 30-60 second piece based around a piece of text, to tell a story, for example creating a piece of sound to interpret a children's story or a poem. I found using the Marantz recorder quite useful and will be something I will want to use for my project.