Author Archives: feigrace

here are my course goals redux

We’ve reached the 5th week and it’s time to look back at our course goals. I would say that I’ve definitely made some progress on them. I wanted to learn how to use new digital mediums which I would say I’ve accomplished since I didn’t know how to do things like audio production before. I’ve also made my website my own, though in the future I may add more to it. Some more goals to add maybe would be gaining a better understanding of the different types of production processes like we did this week.

hear your news from 100% real reporters here

Not everyone listens to the news. Those who do know that it’s either covering really important and often depressing issues or reports that are just so bizarre you wouldn’t believe they happened if not told alongside the photos and videos. Today, my mission was to make my own ridiculous breaking news report.

Create a breaking news story. This should be fake news. You should create a dialogue and have an AI read it using text to speech. There are several free programs. One possibility is Colossyan.com. Mix in a news jingle to make your story sound legit. You can find some jingles on freesound.org. Be sure to give credit if necessary. 

Be creative, funny, or serious. The choice is yours. Just make it sound realistic.

Breaking News!

To make this new report I first started by using the AI News Article Generator I found. I wanted this assignment to be almost entirely Ai made and that meant listening to whatever it decided to write for me. As a prompt, I used “crazy man does something dumb but illegal” to avoid being too specific and getting bad results. Luckily the first one I got was immediately so bizarre and entertaining though I would probably believe happened if I saw this report. You can listen to it here:

Next, I had to find a text-to-speech reader. Now I went through a lot of different sites and had issues with a lot of them. Either the entire tool was behind a paywall, you could only insert 200 characters this was 1820 characters so definitely a slow process, or the voices sounded too fake. But finally, I stumbled upon TTSMaker with free services and a large character limit I never hit. I did two voices for the report so listeners would know another person was the police officer speaking like an actual interview and then download the files. Then I had to find a jingle which I found a very normal one on Freesound and easily downloaded as well. I imported them to Audacity and quickly spliced the audio to make the masterpiece you see before you. Next, I wanted to make a quick news background, even though the assignment didn’t call for one I had to because it felt like people needed to see such a ridiculous event. So I used Stable Diffusion Online and after a few tries I finally prompted “man dressed in a chicken suit running away from police officers in a grocery store.” Finally, I put the image into Break Your Own News which added the news header and ticker used on the actual news. I wrote the ticker this time since it was so small and not a part of the original assignment. It reads, “Are you living with Ai? Find out from real reporters here.” Hope this ridiculous piece makes someone laugh because I sure did.

tennessee whiskey haunts andrea

This media assignment has two parts. First, edit a song to sound like it is playing from another room. The audio should sound muffled and the bass should be prominent. Here is an example of this effect and here is a tutorial on how to do this. The second part of this assignment is to write a weirdly specific description of your song. Here is an example of a description.

Played From Another Room

I did the Played From Another Room with Chris Stapleton’s Tennessee Whiskey and included my course character Andrea and her mortal enemy Georgia. You can listen to the song below while reading the description of the song being played in context and then read my walkthrough

Andrea stands outside her enemy’s office, dreading walking in and asking for help on a project. She would do anything to get out of this but her boss’ firm directions rebutted the idea which confirmed 2 things to Andrea. That her opponent might be starting to gain a foothold in the company and that Andrea needed to crush it as soon as possible. The longer she stands there the more tense she gets, only worsened by that song that keeps getting replayed again and again. Her foe’s music can be heard from behind the door, loud enough for Andrea to hear but quiet enough that no one else seems to, just like the scheming person behind the door. The sounds of a quiet melody being sung mix with the chatter in the building and the steps of Andrea’s coworkers as they pass by, some wave and make promises to meet up later at another event, while others spare her a sympathetic glance. At least some people aren’t fooled by this quiet menace. Finally, Andrea decides to bite the bullet and walk in with the confidence and superiority she was always graced with. She opens the door (skipping the knock to put her rival on edge and keep the upper hand) and braces herself for a ride from hell. “Georgia our boss sent me.”

I chose Tennessee Whiskey because I needed a song that made sense for Georgia to be playing. After looking at Wisconsin’s top songs charts I decided that this song would be perfect for Georgia. Especially during this time in their story when she’s had a hard couple of weeks dealing with Andrea with her legion of minions who listen to her every word, and she just needs a piece of her hometown with her.

To make the audio sound like it was coming from another room I watched the videos linked in the assignment about how it should sound and how to recreate those effects myself. Now I did have to figure out some terminology and use some slight guessing on some of the instructions as the video that teaches the effects is in another application and I’m just getting used to Audacity so I didn’t want to push it. But after doing a little bit of searching through the Audacity manual I was able to adjust the song. I primarily used the filter curve EQ effect and the distortion effect to achieve this sound like in the tutorial but then I added a little bit of reverb effect to really make the piece come together.  Then I used the example in the assignment to write the description. Overall it was a learning process but definitely worth it.

there goes my weekly summary: #4

This week was audio week!!! We had a lot of stuff to go through but it was honestly still very fun. I enjoy editing a lot and while I hadn’t used Audacity before, I’ve used other audio software before. When I started our first task to experiment with Audacity it was a pretty smooth process. While I didn’t know where everything was and there were different names and processes, it was still just an audio editing platform so adjusting wasn’t too bad. Then I quickly made my SoundCloud account where my audio from this week is uploaded as well as on my blog.

To start off our exploration we had to think about audio storytelling. I enjoyed this assignment because it made me appreciate audio storytelling even more than I did before. His thoughts like how this form of storytelling is only possible because of the connection between the narrator and the listener were things I had never thought of before. The podcast was also just very interesting to listen to.

Then we had to create a radio bumper for the ds106 radio show. Since this was my first time creating a bumper it was very basic but I learned a bit more about its usage on the radio. We also had to listen to the radio show that we just made the bumper for and write our thoughts on audio production. I loved listening to the story that was on the night I was listening which almost made me forget the reason we were there in the first place.

The sound effect story was a fun mode of storytelling that had so much potential since there was no dialogue. It almost felt like I was the narrator of my own story and I’m subjecting my listeners to a tale of someone’s very boring walk to work.

We also 3 assignments this week that had to be from the audio section of the assignment bank and I had a lot of fun making these.

First I tried the TV Product Placement Radio Ad which used clips from one of my favorite shows, Arrested Development so it was pretty enjoyable completing that one since I could just watch funny episodes in the background while I was doing half of the work. I struggled a little bit more on this one than the others since it was the first time I had really sat down and tried to just edit audio instead of making something but overall it came out pretty well.

I then tried the Played From Another Room and while I was initially scared when I read the assignment description, the urge to learn how to do it won over, and here we are. It was cool seeing the little changes the effects had on the audio since I’ve never really edited whole songs before.

The last assignment I did was Breaking News! This one turned out to be the most fun to make. I could have never guessed the bizarre story the AI generator was going to make but it turned out to be the perfect story of another Florida Man.

Last on the list was to brainstorm radio show ideas for our course characters. I did struggle to make even a semi-solid list because I don’t really imagine her being on something like a radio show. Hopefully, inspiration will strike soon but for now, this is it.

And as always my daily creates are below!

Create 1: #tdc4407 Silk Threads

I tried making my roommate’s cat Moby and I think I captured his evil spirit quite well

Create 2: #tdc4408 Message in the Sky

I love silly banners so I had to go and make one

Create 3: #tdc4409 Secret entrance

Just your normal kitchen island entrance

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/733453489315446700/

totally not an ad. right?

I had a lot of fun with the TV Product Placement Radio Ad because it combined two of my favorite things to do, watch silly sitcoms and ridiculous ads. These two feelings kinda crashed together into this assignment because of course somehow the best ads either come from the Super Bowl commercials or sitcoms. This assignment was perfect for me so that I finally had a use my infinite knowledge of sitcoms to a weird radio ad from a TV show. Listen to the genius of the Arrested Development writers and some slight editing work by me here.

TV and movies are full of product placement these days. Take a clip from a TV show or movie where they discuss a product (food, technology, movie, restaurant, etc. and turn it into a radio ad for that product.

TV Product Placement Radio Ad

I wanted this ad to feel less like a scene taken straight out of a show but more like an ad you could actually imagine on the radio one day where they try to be casual and just talk it up. I was first going to use a clip from 30 Rock because I’ve always loved the wit they use combined with just thinly veiled (it’s a glass wall) exhaustion over having to rely on such tactics to make money. But Arrested Development won me over because of just how silly and out of place their product placements are. So of course I had to use their Burger King scene that completely comes out of nowhere and adds nothing to the story but amusing and confusing feelings about Burger King. Should I like their food now that my favorite show says so? I guess I will!

The process of making this clip was a little more frustrating than I thought it would be but I’ve learned more about Audacity’s quirks and interesting tools so I guess a win is still a win. To start this assignment I found all the clips I wanted to use and downloaded them. Then I imported them into the all-powerful Audacity and cut them down until there were no awkward gaps, the scenes blended, and the volume was consistent. I exported it and was about to upload it to Soundcloud but first I gave it a good listen to check for any errors. It was all smooth sailing and I started thinking to myself, “Wow I might actually be good at this.” But then my small ego was immediately bruised by the impending sound of static on my audio. It hadn’t been there before when I was editing right? I checked in Audacity and the sound was clear as day. So I searched and searched forums, tutorials, and Audacity’s own manual and found nothing. To fix this I tried lowering the volume because of potential clipping, using the noise reduction tool in case there was a sound I missed somehow in the original clips, and changing the sample rate to help match my computer’s sound system. Nothing worked until as a last-ditch effort I exported it as an MP3 instead of an AIFF file. This option didn’t occur to me because it’s generally recommended that you export your file as either a WAV (Microsoft) or AIFF (MacBook) because they export with better-quality sound. But after making the audio export as an mp3. it was suddenly crisp and clean. So then I just uploaded it to Soundcloud and now it exists in the void. Success was achieved!

If anyone can solve my problem of the disappearing static I would be overjoyed but for now, I will live in perpetual fear of it returning.

ds106 radio show indoctrination: a bumper

I didn’t have much of an idea of what to do for the assignment so I asked Dr. Oblivion really nicely and here’s what he said.

Following his instructions I then looked through Freesound for fun jingles to use that fit the theme of AI and decided on this one LoveOnRadio. I thought the electronic music and catchy tune worked well.

For the informative bit of the bumper I wanted to use Dr. Oblivion so I sent him this request: Can you say these things for me? “This is the ds106 radio show where we can all sit down and discuss important topics like AI usage and its place in our world, different forms of media production, and much more. Tune in now!” And of course, being Dr. Oblivion, he added some edits to my script to make it his own which was kind of him since he’s so busy these days.

Finally, I imported both files into Audacity, adjusted volume levels, trimmed them down, and added a fade to the end. I would definitely listen to this show.

ai hour experience: audio production

I joined the radio show on Tuesday night, where we listened to the second episode of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? At first, I was a bit confused since I hadn’t heard the previous night’s episode. Though by listening to the episode through the lens of audio production I was quickly able to fill in the gaps of what I missed.

I enjoyed the usage of ambient sound in the background denoting where each scene took place. The sounds of the world outside while traveling. When Deckard confronts the androids and J.R. the accompanying suspense music puts the listener on edge without being too obvious. Also, the usage of sound effects like the breaking of glass as Pris escapes put us right in the scene with them.

The distinct voices of each character made it easy to tell them apart as well as gain a bit of an insight into what they’re like. Resch’s gruff voice and often domineering tone that softens slightly when questioning his status as a human. J.R.’s desperation and loss of faith in the androids when the spider is tortured. And Rachel’s slightly robotic voice and tone of manipulation as she directs Deckard right where she wants him.

The story itself was gripping as well. The exploration of android rights that were only brought into the world by humans who tried to play God. As well as the ending of the story with the final question Rachel delivers to Deckard that it doesn’t matter anymore who’s human or android left me thinking for a while after. At the end of the show, I got to hear a great example of audio production and enjoyed a gripping plot.

thinking about sounds

This week our audio learning journeys led us to this assignment that teaches us about the art of audio storytelling. We had two videos: Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad: How Radio Creates Empathy and Digital Shamanism and Old-Fashioned, Newfangled Storytelling Magic with a podcast example to apply this new knowledge to called Moon Graffiti.

The two videos both talked about audio storytelling in a way I had never imagined before. A co-authorship between the narrator and the listener formed the lack of visual media. As the narrator provides cues and details of the story the listener must paint their own picture in their mind of what is happening. The connection formed between the two leads to something that feels more personal and draws people in. Though this form of storytelling uses technology, it has been an art form for years where people would gather around to hear a story from its narrator.

While listening to the podcast I experienced this co-imagining as the narrator took me through the story. In the beginning, we are thrown immediately into the story and we don’t know if this is real audio, where they are, or what they’re doing. We as the listener must fill in this information ourselves as the best we can. Then as the narrator slowly sets the scene we enter the “collective dream state” that lets us experience the story that is being told.

The usage of sound effects and ambient background noise is what makes this modern form of storytelling come together. The cues these sounds contain let the listener paint the picture with a little more help. The haunting music varies in intensity to match the moment, grainy voices as they speak through the comm system, the sounds of their ship flying by, the flag being planted in the ground, and the camera flashing. All of these combine to pull the listener into their world.

The podcast format of the story feels to me like it is better in some ways than a video. A part of my confusion from the start of the episode was how much of what we’re hearing is real. While this particular episode was all voiced by their team, it very well could have been a mix of real audio used with additional dialogue done by them to fill in the gaps and the listener wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. It leaves the narrator in complete control of how to create their stories’ reality in a way so that at least for the duration of the episode, the listener can believe that this is all real audio from the two astronauts’ final moments.

half-baked radio show ideas

My course character Andrea has a bit of a backstory already but leaves enough open for a lot of different radio show ideas.

A lot of my ideas are centered around Georgia (Sydney Says Things’ character) since we made them together as almost 2 sides of the same coin. Things we could do would be an informative ad for the company they work for, guest interviews of the two talking about office life, or even just a segment where they talk about their past which likely just turns into a long-winded argument.

I could also do a radio show about the company we created Aggressive Technologies, a software company that Andrea works at. This could either be a reality TV setting where other course characters talk about their experiences, either from working there and giving us an inside look, office drama told dramatically, customers airing their grievances, or just a random character that has loose ties somehow.

Andrea could also be in a radio show as herself, the social butterfly who everyone flocks to. People are drawn to her because she exudes confidence, always knows what to do, has infinite connections, and the luck that seems to follow her as things seem to almost magically happen in her favor. The same people are also blind to her often self-centered behaviors, mistake the influence she has as her own and not her parents, and her instinct to crush those in her path. I can imagine Andrea on a radio show about the social scene of New York, a tell-all about her influential family (I have some potential stories for them), or a talk show with her and other course characters that flesh well together.

a walk to work: sound effect story

An assignment everyone had to do this week was a Sound Effects Story. I wanted the story to tell a lot about the atmosphere which meant that I needed a lot of different sounds. So I decided on creating the story that most people experience during their day, the walk to work.

The process was fairly simple, just searching for sounds on Freesound and compiling them in a semi-organized way on my desktop. Then I uploaded each sound as it would come in on the final piece. This part wasn’t necessarily hard but just slow and annoying when things didn’t sound right together or some tracks were too loud in the scene. The worst though was when I realized I misread the instructions and it had to be under 90 seconds. This was of course when I had finished the original 2-minute and 28-second version that will forever sit on my laptop as just a memory now. But the cutting process was fairly simple just sad and then I exported the version you will all hear. I promise this one is under the time limit.