Category Archives: spring25bond

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Sound Effect Story on Food

Assignment Bank: Audio Assignment – Sound Effects Story

As I am always hungry 24/7, I decided to base this story on food. From prep all the way to the end, this story consists of five audios and zero verbal communication.

Here’s my sound effect story before I get to the explanation of it:

It firsts starts off with the sound of washing hands in a kitchen sink. Then we move to the sound of cutting vegetables. Next we have the sound of stir frying the vegetables. Now the next one, if you don’t like the sound of chewing I am so sorry you had to hear that…. Finally to wrap it up, the sound of washing dishes!

All my audios were from Pixabay.

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Breaking News!

Assignment Bank: Audio Assignment

Did you guys know? The sun was just now discovered to emit spaghetti through its powerful rays!

As I was doing the assignment it was finally sunny out and I started to feel the heat a bit. On top of that I was reallllyyyyy hungry for some spaghetti. Therefore, I had some fun and combined the two together to create a totally not fake breaking news 🙂 The voice I chose reminded me of the infamous David Attenborough. I thought maybe using his voice would provide some realness to my story.

I used the Eleven labs AI voice generator for my text to speech for this assignment.

Week 4: Daily Create

The first daily create I did was my secret entrance to The Great Hall from Harry Potter! I love including things of my interests into my assignments, it makes them so much fun to do.

The next daily create was playing around with Mutsuacen.com.

My creation can be found here. It’s a funky piece with no name, and no specific design. I just went with the flow and experimented with the tools, shapes, colors, etc. I did enjoy the mirror aspect the most from it.

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

ds106 radio bumper

For my radio bumper, I wanted it to include aspects of one of my favorite things which is cars. Here it is:

In the beginning I added a seat buckling sound, to get the listeners ready for the message. This sound was from Fesliyan Studios.

Now my main audio source was the one and only Dr. Oblivion. I altered his voice to add some suspense when he said “wipe us all out”. Not that he needed anymore suspense to his preexisting voice, but just decided to have a bit fun with him.

Last but most certainly not least, at the very end I added an audio of a Formula 1 car zooming by. Signifying the end and heading out! This audio was from Pixabay.

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – I listen to the ds106 radio

On Tuesday night I listened to an episode of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on ds106 radio. I joined a little late, so missed some of the setup, but was able to catch up pretty easily. This is a story about a post-apocalyptic world where it is almost impossible to tell androids from humans. It follows a bounty hunter who is supposed to hunt down androids. I was mostly enthralled by the story so did not focus on the sound details as much as I was supposed to, but I do remember some interesting aspects.

First, the way the editors altered the voice actors was wonderful. Even when I wasn’t sure who was a robot, I had suspicions based on the slight edits on their voices. Some characters sounded a little odd and had weird intonations and tones. It’s possible that this was the voice actor’s work but I think it was the editors.

The background noise was very detailed and layered. Static and humming in the background helped add tension. Every footstep, gun click, and movement was audible. I knew exactly what the characters were doing without any descriptions. I could not believe how clear it all was.

Overall I was really impressed. A while ago my dad and I listened to some old mystery radio shows. I hadn’t thought about that in a while but now I want to go back and listen to them. I was much more invested in this story than I expected to be.

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Coimagination – Thoughts on Radio

Today I watched two videos from Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad. Both are linked below.

In these videos, Jad Abumrad discusses the impact and uniqueness of radio. I was most intrigued by his ideas about connection between people. The way people interact with radio is different than movies or TV. It requires one person to describe and the listener to imagine. This is a more involved process than watching something as it requires imagination. Descriptions also have to be detailed in specific ways.

I had never thought about the relationship between speaker and listener in this way. He called it “coimagining.” There are several layers of interpretation that any radio story goes through before anyone even hears it. All of these ideas must be in sync or the story will change and the impact lessen. Then it is given to the public where people have to use their own thoughts to fill in the gaps. This is a really cool idea. I think I need to spend more time listening to radio shows.

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Bye Bye Week 4

This week based on sound and audio. I think this week was my favorite week so far. Getting to experiment with different types of audios was intriguing. I had no idea it was this complex when it came to creating my own sounds and audios.

Audacity

When I first downloaded Audacity and opened it for the first time it was very intimidating. There were so many buttons and controls to utilize. However, once I started messing around with the controls, I found it quite easy to use. It was fun using audacity to create my own sounds and audios for my assignments. I think my favorite assignment using audacity would have to be creating my own radio bumper. I definitely see myself using this application in the future and I recommend this to anyone who is a beginner looking to get into sound and audio work.

Moon Graffiti

This was an interesting audio to listen to. I liked how they used a real audio from a message in case the space mission was to go wrong. Thank goodness nothing did go wrong but still interesting to see they had an audio prerecorded and ready to use. The overall audio was a good listen and there never was a dull moment.

Radio Bumper

I really enjoyed creating my bumper. I love how much freedom we had when creating it. I felt like it really tested my creative and how creative could I get. I think the final product was one of my better works in this class and I hope to hear it in a DS106 radio.

DS106 Radio

This was my first time listening to a radio live and I have to say it was a great first-time experience. Using the discord to communicate with each other was very insightful. Hearing other thoughts and opinions on the radio as it played help me understand some things I didn’t understand.

Audio Assignments

All of the assignments I completed this week were really fun. It really tested how creative could I get with these. My favorite would probably be the sick beat assignment. I am a person who listens to music a lot so creating my own beat was something I could relate too. Also, it was just fun in general making my own beats. It did take some trial and error because some beats don’t mesh well with others but once I found the perfect ones it came out great.

Overall, this week was really good. I learned so much more about audio than I would have ever imaged. I definitely plan on using this knowledge in the future in this class and in life. See you next week!

Recent Posts

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Noise, Noise, Noise – Week 4 Summary

This week was all about sound. As someone who has never edited audio before this was a challenge akin to climbing Mt. Everest, but I managed to figure it out! While my work is by no means astounding, I am very proud of what I did.

To get me into the sound mood, I listened to Moon Graffiti by Jonathan Mitchell. It was really interesting and got me more excited about experimenting with sound. My full review is here.

First, I downloaded Audacity. That is the platform where I edited all of my assignments. The first assignment I did was arguably the hardest: the radio bumper. I was very ambitious when I started this and ended up having to swallow my pride and aim a bit lower. My bumper is here.

Next I did the Create A Place assignment. This was less stressful and allowed me to think about what I actually heard every day and what would make a landscape feel full and real. The sound is here.

Then, with the assistance of my friends, I did the story and conversation assignments. My friends helped with sound effects for the story assignment, as I could not get some specific clips. We had a lot of fun. They also helped by asking the questions for my edited conversation with Dr. Oblivion.

I then tried to create some radio show ideas. The ideas were alright but need a little more work.

I also watched two videos on radio. They were very informative. I haven’t listened to a lot of radio so did not know much about its purpose. My thoughts are here.

Overall this week tested my limits and pushed me out of my comfort zone. I was very stressed while working but enjoyed it when I started working with other people.

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

What Are You Listening To? – Very Underdeveloped Radio Ideas

Below are some ideas for radio shows. They aren’t fully developed yet but could be fun!

  1. Tea in a Tree. This is a very normal talk show except the hosts sit in a new tree each week.
  2. Local Landscape. A review of nearby events and places so people know what is going on. This is inspired by my struggle to find things to do in Fredericksburg. (I know things must be happening, but I’m having trouble finding them.)
  3. Second Page. A news show that highlights current stories that aren’t as popular or aren’t getting much coverage, especially from around the world.

I’ll continue to add to this list as I come up with ideas. Tea in a Tree is my favorite because it is the silliest. I love climbing trees. If you need a fun activity find a tree and climb it. Sometimes you just need to climb a tree.

dr oblivion is part cyborg now

Moon Graffiti

Audio storytelling is quite unique. When you have no visual to look at you pay more attention to what the people are saying and how they speak as well. Whereas, when you have a visual, you have more to see, leaving you with more distractions. Audio storytelling also allows you to envision and create your own interpretation of the scene based off of the audio.

The Moon Graffiti audio started off with the most intense scene. Captivating us listeners into the story. The whole time I was listening to it, there was an eerie feeling because of the background music they had added. At 7:08, when Buzz said “Neil, you gotta see this”, the eerie music even intensified. There was even a slight pause after Buzz called Neil’s name, adding more drama to the story.

I could also envision myself in space from this audio. As if I was an astronaut speaking through a radio to a colleague. You could hear the emptiness of space, their muffled voices, and movements as if you were there.