I was unfortunately in rehearsals every evening this week, so I was unable to join in to the live airing of Limetown on ds106 Radio. I heard from my roommate what was played on Monday night, and I took the time to listen to the first two episodes on my own time- I really enjoyed it! I listen to a lot of podcasts, both fiction and non-fiction, so this was a fun middle-ground for me. While I know this was the intention, I was so surprised by how much Limetown felt like an investigative journalism podcast. The narrator has the perfect voice for it, and it makes it even more offputting for me.
I wish I was able to participate in the Discord discussion as this episode was airing on the radio, as I think this is an experience that is meant to be shared. I was certainly creeped out, and I would have loved to talk/freak out about the guy banging his head on the doorway with others!
I listened in on the live session on the DS106 Radio on Tuesday (February 4th). I really enjoyed the experience of getting to listen to a story alongside the class and professor. The story line was very interesting, following a woman doing research into a town called Limetown that seemed to be experimenting with mind chipping. You can listen to the story yourself here!
I felt like I learned from this is that in audio work, what seems like small details are very important for getting a listener to be fully immersed in an experience. Sounds like waves at a beach, a voice getting closer to signify that one character is walking towards the other, or an echo to help visualize the size of the space, makes a listener feel like they are there. It was cool to react to things at the same time as other people, so I was glad to get to try that out.
Sound is all a part of life. Even with your eyes closed your brain can easily recognize the sound of bacon as it hits a sizzling pan, heels clicking against tile floor, or even splats of rain against a window. This is how so many creators are able to use audio to bring their stories to life without even adding the visuals of a video. So lets test it out and see if you can visualize what I am doing in my room right now with only audio as a clue!
Even without being in the room with me you can use the audio to easily imagine the scene. I am literally listening to music right now while the racing clicks of my keyboard subtly play over the muffled snores of my sleeping dog below me. And that’s the power of SOUND! Amazing right! Film, radio, and even audio books use sound effects like this to help tell a story. Even with all our world’s advances in technology like music apps with instant queue we still have radio . . . why? Well Jad Abumrad explains it pretty well in a RadioLab video, its all about connection. That feeling a viewer gets when they feel like the speaker is talking directly to them. Kind of like a parasocial relationship that makes people feel included and engaged. Its one of the same reasons podcasts thrive so well in current day with apps like Spotify getting over 32 million listeners.
Here are two other good examples of how audio is used in storytelling. The first is Moon Graffiti, on the Truth Podcast they use sound effects to help narrate the story of what if Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin crashed instead of being able to land on the moon. They use radio static, electrical beeping, button clicking, loud explosion sounds, etc to all help their viewer visualize the scene effortlessly. They are capable of making you feel like you’re in the room with the Mission Control team tracking the spacecraft itself. Even in this other example from the ds106 radio, they played the story of Limetown about journalist Lia trying to solve the mystery of what happened to the hundreds of people who disappeared in Limetown. The storytelling and voice acting is done amazingly well and I highly recommend listening to at least the first episode to try it out. But what stands out the most is how they used sound to set the atmosphere and mood for certain scenes. From the how voices start quiet then slowly get louder to portray someone getting closer or the sounds of crickets to show that they’re outdoors at night. Even the shift in the voice actors’ tone helps to show fear which drives the storytelling for many scenes. In other cases besides story, creators are able to use sound effects to make an impact. Radio bumpers are a good example of this. They are only a quick announcement lasting a few seconds reminding their viewers what radio station they are on in between songs, but they can still be entertaining with the use of audio editing.
Radio Bumper
Here is one I created myself inspired by the assignment bank for the ds106radio. Since this radio station is used by a college class I wanted to keep that theme by making mine based on a wild college party. For my audio editing I used Audacity and added rave music found from TikTok. The voice acting is Ai generated from Canva where I wrote out his script and spent like 30 minutes searching for the closest voice I could find that matched similar to young laidback guy. Lastly, I added the effect of party people cheering while he was making his announcement. Originally the cheers triggering early was a mistake in editing, but I kept it because in real life situations young college students would probably interrupt him with their cheering while partying anyway so it made it more realistic.
For the live listening session this week, I participated in the Wednesday session which consisted of the last two episodes of “Limetown”. It took me a couple minutes to acclimate to the plot and what was going on since I hadn’t heard the prior episodes, but once I was able to distinguish the voices, I felt like I could easily decipher what was going on. The biggest thing, of course, was analysing the auditory cues. I found it so fascinating to really make myself think about how just a simple instrumental backing track can change a whole mood and make the listener feel with the characters. I also loved the use of auditory cues to relay setting, like when Lia and Diedre were outside, you could here the ambient outdoor sounds. When they moved to the car, the ambient noise was absent, their voices were clearer, and audio editing made it slightly resonant to cue that they were in a small space where sound was bouncing off all around them. I had to tune out for the last 10 minutes as I had to go to my acapella rehearsals, but I felt like in the 50 minutes that I was listening, I got a lot out of it in terms of the impact and use of music, sound effects, and general sound mixing.
I mean, WOW!! I had an amazing experience when tuning into the ds106 radio station last night. While listening to the radio, we also collectively had a discussion on discord about the material. It was impressive to pick and pull apart what we were actually listening to. I realized that sound, especially music, heavily impacts mood and atmosphere. Everything that I’ve been learning from this week’s material came to real life.
Also, I found out that I was the first one to publish a bumper for the radio station and my bumper was played on air!! It felt really good to hear my work on air and to have other people listen to it too.
The different types of sound effects that I heard that really impacted the mood, atmosphere, or setting were:
The different music that was played. Some music made the setting very suspenseful and thrilling. Nail biting, actually. Other types of music made the setting sound nostalgic, calming, or intuitive.
Sound effects like birds chirping, kids playing at a park, and traffic. I knew the characters were talking outside. I could tell when they moved spots at the park. Also, I know this isn’t really a “sound effect” but SILENCE!!! When there was no other sound when the characters talking, it felt intense at times and other times I could feel the characters getting a sense of comfortability with each other.
All in all, I had a great experience, and I can’t wait to tune in again soon.
I tuned into DS106 radio today on Wednesday February 5th and was impressed by all of the different moods presented through background sounds and ambient noise. The limetown episode was intriguing, and the clarity of the voices varied throughout as the background sounds changed. At some points, the ambient music conveyed they were outside while at other times the voices were more clear because they were in a car, and it shows the power of sound affecting location and was really interesting to listen to in a podcast episode.
I tuned in at 7:05 to listen to DS106 radio. It took me a good minute or two to understand what I was listening to because I had tuned in part way through. I was listening with my friends in the room, and I asked them if they knew of anything called Limetown, and they were able to fill me in. The story was interesting, I wanted to listen from the beginning because I was hooked, but I was also playing catch-up. This episode was a good one to tune into because Dorothy explained who Max was, how she ended up in Limetown, and vaguely described the technology enough for me to understand. Some of the acting was a little cheesy, but that’s typical in a fictional podcast series. Knowing what I know now from this week’s lesson, it was interesting to see music and sound effects applied. For example, in the park, there was a nice ambiance to let the listeners know they were outside. The sound effects were seamless, so I wonder if the audio was recorded outside because the sound was blended in so effortlessly. Another interesting thing was that Dorothy said that when she was sneaking out to get the chip implant, she described the scene as “something out of a tech noir”; coincidentally, my friend described the episode as something out of Black Mirror. It’s funny and meta that she would compare it to tech noir when she is very much in a tech noir setting herself. I’m glad I tuned in because I saw that Limetown was not only a podcast series but also a book and a TV show, so I’m interested in looking into the rest because this is a terrific story.
I really enjoyed listening in on Wednesday night and wish I had been available to listen on Monday and Tuesday. The story was very interesting, and the sound effects helped me vividly imagine the scenes. I usually struggle to listen to podcasts, but this show kept me engaged because the sounds made it easier to follow and stay interested in what was happening.
My favorite part was when they got into the car. You could hear how their space became smaller, making it feel like they were very close together. Then, when the door opened, the space expanded again, which was really immersive. The ending was also intense, with the sounds growing louder, the banging, and people trying to get into the room. I also liked how the ticking sound stopped after going for a while, it made its absence really noticeable.
The radio show was so fun! I joined in a couple minutes late because time got away from me. But, I was able to connect the dots on what was playing when I joined. The audible ad was talking about a fictional podcast show called “Limetown”. After doing some research, as I had never heard of it before, to quote, a synopsis said “Limetown is about a journalist Lia Haddock attempts to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of over 300 people at a neuroscience research facility in Tennessee”. So far in the episode, which I am pretty sure it was episode 5, Lia was interviewing a woman named Deirdre, who went with her ex-husband, Max to be a part of an experiment. He was convinced by a man named Oscar Totem to participate in the experiment, where he would get an implant to talk to other people non-verbally. Only half the town has the implant, and the other half, the “Old School”, doesn’t, including Deirdre. This puts a strain on Deirdre’s and Max’s relationship. Max then convinces Deirdre to get the implant in secret, which the “Old School” group eventually finds out, causing a riot. This ultimately gets Oscar killed, and someone called The Man sending out messages in order to calm people down. It is then revealed that The Man is Deirdre’s uncle, Emile. The episode ends there. Overall, I was able to catch on to the story, and I found it pretty interesting. I would compare it to a Black Mirror episode, as it has the similar elements of advancements and technology and messages about our society. There was also a “film noir” shoutout, which I thought was funny since that is the theme of our class!
Participate in a live listening session with ds106 radio this week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, 7:00-8:00 PM. We will be listening to audio productions and sharing our thoughts on what we hear. You might even hear your bumpers. We will use the #ds106radio channel in Discord for our discussion. If you didn’t get the Discord invitation in week 1 let us know and we’ll resend it. Blog about the experience and tag it ds106radio.
Tuned in at 7 to a nice song about being free, Lime town, a small town in Tennessee where everyone suddenly disappeared without a trace.
I ended up paying more attention to the story then the sounds for a while but managed to snap back to attention. There were many sounds that triggered certain emotions and memories. Clicks of lighters, bangs of movements, soft sounds, and tones of voices. The story was full of sounds of atmospheric music and plenty of other things. Snapping wood in half sounds like that? I never really paid attention. Despite the abrupt end it was a compelling story you couldn’t pull away from. The sounds pulling you into the story and driving your imagination the entire time. Adding deeper elements to a story and really bringing it to life.
I managed to tune in 2/4/25 on Tuesday a bit upset to realize I was dropped into an ongoing tale.
