To create my Radio Bumper, I used Premiere Pro. From http://freesound.org, I found two soundtracks that I liked and downloaded them. One is classical music, and the other is of dogs barking for contrast. I imported those into Premiere on separate layers, then used the microphone for voice over on a third layer. By clipping out parts and shortening the time sequence, I was able to achieve an end result that I deemed respectable.
Tune into ds106 radio for short stories and unique happenings.
I did my radio announcing several times for the best reading, yes, I wrote it out, and I increased the gain in the audio to +2 and set the music to -5, to be heard over it.
Have you ever attended a musical production? Where there is nothing but music that tells a story. I recently attended a show like that last semester and thought that I’d take music and create a story. This assignment said to use new and old music to create a story but to avoid the SoundCloud police I used instrumentals. I copied and pasted a bunch of different sounds into audacity and created a story called broke music box. In the beginning , the music box is playing nicely along with the music but the music box gets broken in the story and no longer functions well. I wanted to use this as symbolism for a tarnished innocence. In the back you can also hear birds that get silenced when the music box is broken. Listen down below.
For this assignment, I had to create a story and read it. So I decided to think about a story prompt that my character would come up with and put it into an AI generator. to get an idea of a story. I then edited it to make it seem more natural and like a children’s story. I then put the final product in a text-to-voice generator and selected a feminine voice.
Behind the creation: For this assignment, I wanted to give you guys a little look at Marie’s life in the morning from coffee to her nap before work! I want to start by saying that this didn’t come out how I expected at all… I struggled to find sounds to use. IF I had the time, I would have recorded my own, but unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t allow for that. I will probably revisit this if I have more time later down the line. It was really fun mashing together different sounds and I enjoyed this! I have learned that with audio assignments that it goes faster for me if I go through and brainstorm all the sounds that I want incorporated, search them up, and then drop them directly into audacity. Then I start with my “starting sound(s)” and solo them so that I can only hear them, and adjust them as need be. I do this with all my sounds adding them slowly until I get the finished product!
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.
I am really not someone to put out work that they hate or aren’t confident in, but I really don’t think audio is for me. I have no idea what I’m doing, every option is like a different language, and I’m just confused and frustrated and posting this because I feel like I’ve tried everything and I’m tired and want to go to bed.
SO here is my ds106radio bumper:
Kudos to Dr. Oblivion for giving me a beautiful script, and then not being aware that I was going to keep his voice in . . . sorry old man, but you are a robot so I get to make the choice!
There is a lot that frustrated me with this. I used two audios: the synth sound and the bell? sound, both of which I downloaded from Freesound. I wanted to get this synthy-vibe, almost like the Stranger Things opening, but not entirely, just similar. I liked the mystery behind the synth audio, and I liked the idea that it was easily repeatable, and would be cool to fade out softly.
I thought the bell was cool to add for drama and emphasis, but I really don’t know what I was doing. I wanted the emphasis to be on the word “time” because I thought it sounded kind of creepy and weird and spooky, but I couldn’t figure out how to edit the actual audio of Dr. Oblivion saying “time” to continue that emphasis. I wanted the word to echo, but I couldn’t get that, or at least make it more emphasized.
I think I need to explore Audacity more, because this was so stressful and now I’m so afraid of the rest of the audio assignments . . . safe to say that I don’t think this is for me, but when I work tomorrow, I’ll give it my best shot.
If anyone has any specific tutorials they found useful for Audacity, I think I’d be your bestest friend if you guided me to them.
I had a lot of fun making my radio bumper. I wanted a sound that was scratchy. Like the transmission was not coming in clear. I wanted it to reflect the independence of the station itself. I loved that I could play around with the order of my phrases. I ended up putting them in a different order then I reordered them. I didn’t anticipate how much I was going to love playing with sound. I can see why people become sound engineers now.
It needed a picture, and my little evil brick is readily available and a good size.
I used sounds from freesound.org to go with my audio recording of my voice.
All the Relaxation is the name of the final assignment bank work I choose to do, which you can find here, All the Relaxation assignment. I have to make a video of soothing sounds for this assignment that may be played for more than ten hours. I decided to complete this project since I occasionally listen to these sounds when trying to work or when I can’t sleep at night. I used sounds of the ocean, birds chirping, wind chimes, a piano player, and a stream of water in this audio. All of these sounds, for me, are calming. All in all, what I really wanted from this assignment was to enjoy myself and be able to produce something that I would like listening to when I am relaxing. Listen to it here, and then comment about your thoughts!
The next task I selected from the bank was titled “Spooky Season”. We were to find spooky sounds using Freesound and create a scary audio clip for this assignment. The assignment required choosing more than four sounds and adding them to an Audacity-like program. I started my scary audio with some eerie sounds, titled ghosts appear on the freesound tab. This reminds me of a horror movie, though not quite of a ghostly appearance. I next used the sound of something howling; I’m not sure if it’s the wind or an animal, but it makes me think of someone being outside by themselves late at night. Then, because who doesn’t find a spooky laugh creepy, I put a spooky laugh in there. The last two sounds I selected are related to monsters. I used the unsettling sound of a monster breathing heavily in the first one. My last audio was the sound of zombies because I used to get really scared of them when I watched The Walking Dead. Do you all think I had a successful spooky audio? I was rather pleased or should I say scared, with the outcome.
Completing three assignment bank audio tasks was the next task for this week. The first one I choose is available at Breaking News Assignment. The instructions for this assignment were rather straightforward: create a breaking news story. I had to write something to say and use text-to-speech AI to read it. Since we had to include AI or Dr. Oblivion in at least two of our assignment bank assignments, I chose to use the character from my course for this assignment.
As seen in the video below, Julius is apparently considering stepping down at his highly coveted role as an Investment Banker at Goldman Sachs to pursue his true love, Basketball. As told in the reports, several NBA teams have reached out to Julius about him signing an NBA contract with their teams. As of now it seems like the Philadelphia Sixers are the frontrunners to land Julius, as he is a huge admirer of Joel Embiid and his basketball skills. Reportedly teams saw Youtube and Twitter highlights of Julius playing and realized he had all the same skills back in his college playing days at UVA, but seemed to be in better shape and more skilled than before. Julius had been quietly working on his basketball skills every moment he had free, along with running before work to keep in tip top shape. While he forewent going to the NBA when he was 22, he seemingly has regretted that decision and will now take his talents to the NBA.
Making this video was lots of fun, especially because I had seen AI generated voiceover videos before, but was never able to create one myself. I always find enjoyment in creating a storyline for my course character, because he is whatever I want him to be. His story is exciting to me and I hope to continue with it throughout the rest of the semester.
