Category Archives: ds106radio

DS106 Radio – What an Experience!

For the live DS106 radio session this week, I was working at night for all 3 of the sessions. However, I was able to check into the Wednesday night’s show and it was an absolute pleasure.

The first story called “A Logic Named Joe” was a lighthearted comedic interpretation of what the internet would look like back in the 50s. A lot of the transition effects sounded similar to a cartoon movie with its wonky antics. Some of the distance effects allowed for us to decipher the situation more clearly, and where each character was located during each part of the story. The most interesting thing I noticed was how the interpretation of an AI assistant didn’t sound very robotic at all. It sounded more like an older movie narrator with much more personality than what I imagined people in the 50s expected AI to be.

The second story was “Report on the Barnhouse Effect” and this was a big shift between the last story. A lot of the creeking of doors and chairs, footsteps, and other subtle sounds made the story eerie, with each one adding to a sense of overall urgency in the story. There was a lot more to take in with this story, and I really appreciated all of the intricate sound effects used to portray the story. Professor Bond mentioning that the bell ringing at the end of the story signaled that the location was at a service desk, and I wouldn’t have caught that without his insight.

Overall I took a lot of lessons away from this session, and I’d definitely tune in again for some more stories.

Tuning in

This week we were supposed to tune into the ds106 radio. I tuned in on Monday and was met with an old futuristic radio story filled with sounds. When listening, I along with others tuning in, were able to hear different distinct sounds. We were able to hear escalating music letting you know what is going on. I was unable to listen to about 15 minutes worth of the show unfortunately because there was a fire alarm mid way through the show. I soon returned and caught up on what happened from the chat. When I was listening the sounds of footsteps were the most intriguing part of the story fro me. Based off of the footsteps we were able to tell who the characters are and where they were. The pace and breaks in footsteps also helped build the story. It was a really interesting story, and I look forward to listening into the radio again sometime soon.

DS106 Radio

Listening to the DS106 radio and seeing which sounds people picked up on emphasized how people can sometimes get the same vibes from a story, but from different aspects of it. There seemed to be a lot of agreement on the themes of certain sounds/ stories, but everyone was pointing out the sounds that stood out to them to give them that sense. This is similar to watching a show or a movie with a group of people where most people get the general idea of a scene, but notice different visual details. The only difference is the focus on the audio over radio!

I enjoyed seeing the different perspectives and being able to focus on different sounds that others would point out that I did not pick up on as clearly. Getting a sense of how everyone interprets audio differently emphasizes how people can get different lessons out of any type of story, whether visual, audio, or both.

DS106 Radio Session

I was able to make it to the 1st night of group radio listening. I have listened to vintage radio shows before, so I did have an idea on what to expect. We listen to “Do androids dream of electric sheep” It was a great story. They made great use of the sounds to let you know where the characters were at any given point. They sounded different in the car then they did in a big empty space. There were footsteps and paper shuffling. I was unable to make it to the 2nd installment of the story and listened to it on my own. In the 2nd half of the story a famous painting is described and then the painting is used a reference to explain and describe the scene. The painting used was Edvard Munch “the Scream”. The music and sound effects did a great job of painting the scene as gritty and post-apocalyptic sci-fi.

On Wednesday we listened to 2 shorter programs. The first was “A Logic named Joe”. It was cartoonish and silly but with a sense urgency. It made use of cartoonish transition music. You got the idea that the characters were in quite a pickle but in a fun way. You could tell when they were on the phone with a person by the way they distorted the other voice slightly. At one point a kid is slapped and you just have to catch it with the sound effects since they don’t out right say it.

The other program was more serious in nature with less music. It was called “Report on the Barnhouse Effect”. Some ties the scenes faded into each other and other times there was transition music. The radar sound effect noise sounded like old school call waiting beeping. The sound effects were not silly like in Joe. They were much more serious. The music was simple and eerie chords. It really built suspense. Near the end a gun (I think they might have said pistol) was being fired and it was machine gun sounds. I laughed because the sound did not match what was described. (I grew up with a parent in the military and married a veteran of the armed forces) The sounds used really carried the story along providing information.

ds106 Radio Experience

My experience with the radio was a bit odd. I tried to get in on the session on earlier in the week and the audio wasn’t working for me. I pressed play on the whatever was in the middle of the screen and turned my volume up all the way on everything and still nothing came out. I then pulled it up on my phone and the same thing. Then I tried on Wednesday night, and it did the same thing. I wasn’t sure if it was just plating songs or someone was talking but I was bummed I missed out on the experience of the radio, but I’m sure it will come back later on for future assignments.

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.

Live Listening!

Please hear me out!! I was listening I promise! but I did not have good service and my discord messages weren’t sending the day I was able to tune in and listen! I thought it was fun to listen to. I though a loud of what I heard were a lot of escalating sounds and kinda chilling! like spooky vibes! The intro was a very extreme, I saw our Professors warning but I was not prepared in the current moment. Imagine this, you are working a dinner at the CRUC (I do marketing for the dining hall at UMW!) and you have your *noise canceling* AirPods in and in an elevator with about 8 people and and you heard the intro and trying to compose yourself. I also was on sos mode on my phone becuase I don’t get service in the Nest bathroom for some reason so the radio show was paused for my poor connection. So, I took my airpods and laughed at myself and snapped my reaction after a solid 2 mintues of me laughing. But I had to listen at work because I was unable to the other days!

I took a picture of my reaction for proof! the intro got me and this was when I went to the bathroom to laugh at myself lol!

Overall I think listening to the radio show was really awesome to do! I think it was really cool to be able to use discord to be able to chat! I wish I had better service but my discord was not loading up to message but I saved the radio show link in my phone so i could listen. I could see what everyone was saying but I just couldn’t load discord myself with my service. I do apoligies for being quiet doing that assignment!

-Reese Kubricki

The Sounds of Report on the Barnhouse Effect

As I listen to Report on the Barnhouse Effect on the DS106radio I noticed sounds played a huge role throughout the track. For example, there is a scene where a typewriter can be heard being used. This tells me this track took place in an older time frame. There also is a lot of buildup sounds being incorporated to build suspense as we the audience don’t know what is coming next. Another sound aspect I noticed was a beeping sound. The sound started off slow and progressively got faster and faster until the stopped completely. I think this worked well with building tension within the scene. I definitely felt a little tense listening to the beeping sound get louder and faster. Other small sound details almost made you feel like you were in the story. For example, the sound of the door creaking, footsteps, chair creaking, etc… Overall, I enjoyed listening to the Report on the Barnhouse Effect and it was great seeing what others had to say about the story in the discord.

Building a Scene Through Audio – ds106radio

Yesterday, I listened to the ds106radio playing an adaptation of a Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? and it was actually, really really interesting.

I found myself a lot more focused on how the sound made the scene instead of the actual scene, so I don’t think I could tell you exactly what was going on. I think it was a lot about the humanization of androids in this dystopian world and the uncertainty of knowing whether someone was or was not an android. For the bits that I did pick up, it was very interesting.

My favorite things were the little things in the background that set the scene, that allowed you to imagine what was happening: the click of a cup on a table, the rustling of furniture, as if someone was shifting their weight or taking off a coat, the click of buttons on an intercom or on a flashlight. I think my utmost favorite was when two of the characters were speaking in what I assumed to be an alleyway, both of their voices echoing, and you could tell one of them was further based on their voice having more echo. It was such a little detail, but it added distance and depth and was just so cool to me.

There was also, in more intense scenes, heavy white noise in the background that stayed and got more intense as the scene got heightened. I thought that was really cool, because it definitely made me feel tensed up. The scenes went from being calm to heavy all of a sudden, and I wish I had a better way to explain what “heavy” looks like in audio, but I don’t know how to explain it. A lot of white noise, I guess, that’s loud and constant without fluctuation. It wasn’t an environmental sound, it was almost like it was just in my head, just there to build tension. The characters didn’t see it, it was just for the audience.

There also was a sound that played between scenes, almost like a little cutscene that helped transition into the real one. I don’t really remember what it sounded like, but I thought that was helpful to understand where one scene ended and the next began without being able to actually see it.

Overall, I thought this was so cool. I wish more people were in the Discord, because I would’ve loved to also hear their thoughts and what they had picked up on, but regardless, I was amazed and impressed by this.

“My mind is exploding with sound”

On Monday and Tuesday nights we listened to the BBC adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep on ds106radio. We had great participation on Monday, and only one person showed up on Tuesday, but there were still many valuable insights and observations about how sound was used to drive the storytelling.

It was noted how simple sounds, like paper shuffling on a desk, let the listener visualize the scene. An echo on a voice indicates the size of a room. The sound of rain on a car roof shows us the scene. We can even hear the type of shoes:

an image of a Discord chat saying: "There are also two different footstep sounds" "She’s wearing pumps" "those details help us see the story" "Yes! I hear the 2 different foot steps in the background"There were also background sounds, hums and metallic drones, that had interesting effects. In some cases they gave a futuristic impression, like in the corporate headquarters. Other times, they subtly raised the tension in scenes. The presence of background sound throughout simultaneously kept our minds attuned to sound but also made it almost subliminal. Moon Graffiti excelled at this as well, exemplified by the point where the astronauts put on their helmets. You could visualize what was happening by the way their voices changed with the helmets on.

One of the challenges of audio storytelling is exposition. How do you show what’s going on, using dialogue, without it seeming forced? The BBC production, along with some versions of Blade Runner, used voice-over narration to do some of the work. There was a conversation between JR Isadore and Pris where JR casually mentioned “It’s my apartment after all,” which told a lot about what was going on in the situation.

I got a time-warp feeling from the production. The detective style dialogue and narration sounded like 40s noir. The music interludes were late 60s classic rock. The post-apocalyptic setting and the android technology were futuristic, but some clues in the script put the setting between 1988 and 1993. The novel was published in 1968, and one listener connected that to the music.

Another listener said this was a great activity. The idea actually came from a ds106 student, back when we did Wire106. It was suggested that we live-tweet an episode. We did, and everyone saw a benefit to having that synchronous conversation. So we’ve continued it ever since. The point here is we welcome your ideas. The best parts of ds106 come from student input.