Interview

After interviewing Oscar Berkout on his experiences of Sussex University and how he feels about Brighton I used 'Soft Piano Music' as the jingle to correlate with the narrative. I also used sounds from the FX library such as waves and a public library to give the interview a bit more ambient noise. I have attached the link to my interview on sound cloud below.

Interview with Oscar Berkout

Acoustic Portrait

After many hours of recording and a whole few days in the media labs on campus, I have finally completed my acoustic portrait.

I have attached it below.

Acoustic Portait - Theatre

Scanned Notes

As I had recorded a lot, I decided to go through each recording and note down what was in it and whether it was good enough to use. This made the editing process easier as I had a clearer idea. 

Below I have scanned in my notes.

Oscar Berkhout

With much consideration, I have decided to interview a student named Oscar Berkhout. Oscar moved from Nottingham University to Sussex this year. He mentioned once that moving to Sussex was the best decision he's ever made and I believe he will have a lot to say about Brighton and be a good interviewee. With only a few days left before the deadline I will need to do it soon and edit it in the same day. I can then critically analyse it for another part of my assessment.

Interview Planning

As mentioned before. I was going to interview someone from my mind map. I picked my Auntie who lives in Lewes and had moved from London to raise her first child. I thought it would interesting to ask about why she came to raise a child here in Brighton and how she left about safety etc. However she didn't have the time in the end and so I'll have to look for someone else.

Editing

I have been finding editing really difficult. At first audition kept closing unexpectedly when I hadn't saved it. I managed to get the base of my acoustic portrait done however now am having trouble opening what I started and am really hoping I don't have to start again.
I'm also finding it difficult as I'm still very much a beginner when it comes to audition so it's hard to know what to do when editing some tricky parts. 

Musical Theatre Society Rehearsals

When recording the musical theatre society rehearsals. I had to use different equipment. This included the following:

Marantz PMD-661
Fish pole 
AKG 414 Condensor Studio Microphone.

I had never used this type of microphone before but the technicians showed me how to set it so it was similar to the Sennheiser K6.

When I got to the building, they had already started rehearsing. The president of the society - Jake, asked me if I needed to adjust anyones seating so I was able to get a good recording but everyone was sat in a semi circle and putting myself and the microphone behind was great.

It was a quick and easy process unlike the last time and I have now got enough sound to start editing my acoustic portrait together.

How Recording Went

On Wednesday, I went to the Wycombe Swan to do my sound recordings for my acoustic portrait. I didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped.

When I got there, the duty manager was aware that I was arriving but had not been given any background information on my project and I didn't have the correct permission to record some of the things i'd hoped for. I wasn't able to record any rehearsals, live shows or sound checks. I was only allowed to record the foyer and the audience taking their seats at the start. This was quite disappointing as I'd set it up however the manager I had been emailing was not there that evening. I was still able to get a lot of sounds that I will be able to include such as announcements for the show.

As an alternative so I still have some live music, I have emailed the president of the Musical Theatre Society on campus and he has given me permission to record some of their rehearsals.

The mixture of the two places will be difficult to put together however I am lucky to be given this opportunity to record so I will make it work when editing.

Preparing

I must prepare before I visit the Wycombe Swan as I would like my recordings to go as smoothly as possible. 

The equipment I have booked out for the week includes:

A Marantz PMD-661
Sennheiser K6 Kit

As mentioned before in this blog, I have been shown how to use this equipment and how to set it up properly.

The problems I thought I may face is mostly down to batteries. As I will be recording for 2 hours, I will need to make sure I have enough batteries to last me as in my experience they run out very quickly.
I also need to make sure I have good time management as there is only specific busy times. As I am taking public transport, I will make sure to catch the earlier bus so I am on time to set up all the equipment and introduce myself to the duty manager.

Planning my recordings

I have been emailing back and fourth with a manager from the 'Wycombe Swan Theatre' in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. This is my home town and I have been doing shows there since the age of 11. Due to being a member, it benefited me and the manager has agreed to let me record some of the sounds of the theatre including sound checks, auditorium sound when the audience are taking their seats and the foyer when the audience are ordering drinks and talking before the show.

In week 6, I am going home for a reading week and this is when I have organised to record most sounds for my acoustic portrait.

Chris Watson - The Station

Last Tuesday I listened to Chris Watsons "The Station" to get some ideas for my acoustic portrait. I found the 30 minute session really interesting.
It starts with the train sounds and then people start to comment on the station itself. Watson talks about the different sounds he was able to hear and how varied they were throughout the different times of the day. What I like most is when he is speaking about a specific sound, it will be playing along in the background.

I will use this as inspiration when I start my recordings soon.

90 Second Interview Practice

In week 7, we looked at interview techniques, normalisation of voices and practicing interviews for when we come to do our own for the project.

Below I have attached Holly and I's interview where we have looked at the snapchat scandal. She asked me a simple open answered question which was good as I was able to have a long answer.
I then used the editing processes to normalise our voices as well as taking the 'Ums' and 'ahs' out.


SNAPCHAT INTERVIEW

Hilegard Westerkamp Presentation

Two classmates did a presentation on Hilegard Westerkamp and I found it fascinating due to the contribution she has to sound.

Westerkamp was a German lady who moved to Canada. She studied sound theory, piano and flue and this is where her love for sound began.
Before she revolutionised soundscapes, she started a degree in music then became a professor at the College she studied.
In Vancouver, Westerkamp performed her first soundwalk and from this she developed her work. She also founded Vancouver Radio Station where she was able to broadcast her soundscapes/walks. Although her work now is only used for background music, Westerkamp had such an impact on sound especially as it was unusual for women to be involved with sound at this point in time.

I found this presentation insightful due to the involvement I have had doing sound walks in the last few weeks and it was interesting to find out how they were originally developed.

"The Perfect Voice"

Does the 'perfect voice' exist? 

There are radiogenic voices which are usually deep and smooth - for example, as my previous post discussed - the male southern Irish accent is the most popular.

However due to editing processes, the 'perfect voice' can not exist. It normalizes the voice as well as making it sound more smooth so for the listeners, it isn't 'annoying' or hard to listen to.

When doing my interview, I will also be using these skills on Adobe Audition.

Session Four

In Session four we discussed the readings "On-Air: Methods and Meanings of Radio" Martin Shingler & Cindy Wieringa, Arnold, 1998, "The Conversation" Coppola 1974, and "Sound and Narrative" David Sonenschein 2001.

We also looked at interviews and editing processes.

One of the main interests I found when talking about the readings was that radio imitates natural speech to make it sound as if it is a spontaneous conversation when in fact it is scripted. When listening to the radio I still believe that it is improvised even now learning it is not. Due it being a blind medium, it is hard to imagine someone reading off a script when the conversation seems to flow naturally.

I also learnt about voices on the radio:

Accents

Statisically, the southern Irish accent is most popular when it comes to radio due to the warm tones of the voice and the least popular is the Birmingham accent.

Gender

It didn't surprise me to find out that womens voices aren't used on the radio as much as men and when radio was first coming about it was completely abnormal for a woman to be involved with radio.

This is due to womens voices supposedly coming across with this hysterical tone which people would relate to gossip. Even to this day women are encouraged to deepen their voice.

Mindmap for Interview

Below I have attached ideas for my Interview. As it is a three minute interview, I would like to conduct one that is interesting with someone that has a lot to say however I do not want to be rushed. On my mind map you are able to see my 4 main ideas and the types of questions I would be looking at. I will develop my ideas further and soon decide.

I also must consider access. Although interviewing a police officer would be interesting, I would have to careful of my questions due to privacy and ethics but it would also be harder to set up an interview compared to a local mum.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Mindmap for Acoustic Portrait

Below I have attached my mind map from a previous week.

I went through all places that I thought could be interesting and then thought about the types of noises each venue would have. This helped me with my planning because it was then clear to see what ideas were stronger.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Session Three - Settings

As we had already looked at the Marantz recorder, I was familiar however in session 3 we were able to learn a little bit more about the presets.

Below I have listed my notes from the session:

Imput: Mic/Line - This is so we could plug in the different microphones rather than using the internal recorder which isn't as high quality.

Rec Format - PCM 24 or 16

Rec Channel - Mono

Sample Rate - 48k

Level Control - ALC (We could have used Manual if need be but ALC was better when recording in one certain place)

Mic Atten - 0.DB

Low Cut - On if it's a windy day

High Cut - On if there are high pitch noises around (e.g in a factory)


All of these presets will be really helpful for when I do my own acoustic portrait.

Hugo Zuccarelli

This week I had to do my presentation on Hugo Zuccarelli who invented holophonics. These are my notes from the presentation as well as the YouTube clip that we asked the class to listen to.

In 1983, Hugo Zuccarelli invented Holophonic Audio. Holophonics is a binaural recording system that tricks the brain into thinking it is hearing 3D sounds. It has the capacity to record sound exactly as it is, creating a feeling that the sound isn’t actually a recording but genuinely around you. This is made through ambience, emotion and sound localisation, which is how the ear determines how close or far away a sound is.

The way you are able to record Holophonics is with two microphones being placed 7 inches apart from each other usually using a ‘Dummy Head’– The mannequin head is fitted with two microphones in each ear and this is how the effect is recorded and created. 

This is a photograph to demonstrate the "Dummy Head"

In 1983, Zuccarelli released ‘Zuccarelli’s Holophonics’ in the UK which was produced by CBS. This was also known as “Matchbox Shaker”.
These were various short recordings of sound effects to demonstrate his Holophonics.
A few included: shaking a match box, the sounds of bees, balloons, plastic bags, birds, fireworks, thunder, racing cars, aeroplanes and a haircut.

When listening to Holophonics you must use headphones otherwise you will not hear the effect.
The clip is not Zuccarelli’s Holophonics; however it will show you the 3D sound. The clip consists of a woman talking and then different sounds such as a hair dryer, aeroplane, a bottle being opened and more.

Holophonics was and has been widely used in pop culture especially in the year Zuccarelli presented it. In the year of 1983, Pink Floyd and Roger Walters both used Holophonics in their singles. More recently – Lady Gaga used it in her album “ARTPOP”. We had a listen to a few and the binaural sounds stuck out the most in the song ‘Applause’.

We found this article which dates back to the year Zuccarelli started to use Holophonics. It suggests that Holophonics are impressive to someone that has never heard binaural recordings before and even engineers who were familiar with Binaural stereo believed that Zuccarelli’s recording sounded a lot better.

On the other hand, there are controversial opinions surrounding Zuccarelli’s 3D audio technology. The effects attained through Holophonics compare similarly to traditional binaural recordings and surround sound 3D stereo. There has been no further study or research conducted that indicates Holophonic sounds being superior. Furthermore Zuccarelli has not done any additional independent study on the results of Holophonics since the 1980s.

In the article just shown, there is a quote.
 “Demonstrations suggest that Zuccarelli’s system, like all previous “dummy head” systems will turn out to be a technically interesting dead end.”
This we believe to be true. Even though there have been advancements in sound, there hasn’t been much development on 3D sound and Holophonics. This may be due to a quote we found from Zuccarelli.

“I’m not in any rush – I’d prefer to destroy Holophonics rather than have it fall into the wrong hands”

Zuccarelli has had a major impact on sound technology and the advancements due to Holophonics being the leading technology in that time. Due to there not being any further developments , it is still used in the way Zuccarelli invented to be.  Since it has been created it has stayed at that level however in recent years, 3D sound technology has regained consideration in paraphernalia such as apps and Youtube. Lady Gaga also used the effect in her latest album and this shows it is still relevant to this decade.

Below are the questions we asked the class to discuss:

How did you find the 3D sound/did it have an effect on you?

Do you think Zuccarelli’s work has had an effect on the way we listen to music today?

Do you think 3D sound is relevant and have you heard any songs where you think Holophonics is used?

Radiophonics and Contact Sounds

In session 3 we were introduced to 'Radiophonics' and 'Contact sounds' and watched a BBC documentary on how they have been used.
Radiophonics used sound effects to produce and create new music for radio and most famously have been used in the Doctor Who theme song. It was the first electronic tunes for television and is one of the most recognised theme songs today.
Below I have attached the YouTube link for the original tune.

After watching the Documentary, we were given contact microphones which we used to create our own mixdown. We attached the microphone to different objects and then hit the object to see what sound the microphone produced.
I attached the microphone to such things as a bicycle wheel and basket, a fence, a fire extinguisher and more and then layered each sound on top of one another as well as adding effects to create the mixdown below:

Contact Sounds Mixdown

Accoustic Portrait - Final Idea

I started off with a few ideas for my acoustic portrait and have narrowed it down to one. 

The Theatre

I have chosen to do a theatre due to the different aspects of sounds and space I can portray to the listeners of my portrait.

I will capture the amount of echos and various announcements/rehearsals going on throughout doing soundwalks at different points in the day.

Some of the sounds I would like to portray are:

- Sounds of the audience in the foyer before a show
- Sound checks
- Echos of the auditorium

Reading: Understanding Radio

From our reading 'Understanding Radio' by Andrew Crisell - I have made some interesting notes. It was an interesting piece of reading as it helped me understand the basics to radio and sound.

"Radio is a blind medium. We cannot see its messages, they consist only of noise and silence." 

Although this is an obvious statement it is interesting how Crisell is able to put the description of it perfectly in just one small sentence. Compared to some of the other readings which are a lot more complex, this simple sentence draws the readers in as it is clear what he wants to say from the first sentence.

Crisell goes on to comparing Radio with other modes of communication. He states that Radio is mass communication which has some of its advantages - including being able to communicate with multiple people all at once. However, it is an impersonal way of getting a message out there as well as the fact the audience are not able to communicate back. There is also the risk of misunderstanding between the sender and receiver. Below the quote shows how the contact could be misunderstood.

"If feedback is an impossibility in mass communication, there is no genuine facility of metalingual or phatic communication: the sender cannot check that the code or contact is working."

A negative point to this reading, would be Crisell's lack of describing the history of radio. Although he mentions how audiences used to listen to radio as a group activity and the prices ranges during the 1930's compared to the 1970's, he fails to demonstrate the ways in which radio actually started.

One point I was most interested in when reading the introduction to this book was the advantages of radio. On page 7, Crisell talks about positive aspects.

“There are some real advantages which radio possesses over other media. The most famous of these is its appeal to the imagination. Because radio offers sound only instead of sound and vision, the listener is compelled to ‘supply’ the visual data themselves. The appeal to the imagination gives radio an apparent advantage over film and TV.”

I completely agree with this statement. Not being able to use the senses we do with all other medium, makes our minds work harder as we have to listen more intently as well as picture what the sender may be saying or the environment they may be in.

As previously stated, I found this reading easier to follow than others. The structure is clear and Crisell analyses each aspect of radio carefully so the book is insightful for it's readers.

Sounds around me

In the first session I was told to listen to the sounds around me. It is amazing how many sounds the human ear can pick up just through listening intently.

I was sitting in an area outside a lecture hall and wrote a list of the things I could hear:

Foot steps

A coffee machine from inside the cafe near by

Talking

Tapping of feet

Seagulls

Clicking of fingers

A lighter

Inhaling of a cigarette

Coughing

Quiet music of someone listening to their music through headphones

Book pages being turned

Soundwalk: North Laines

I have uploaded this recording (link below) of my sound walk through the North Laines in Brighton. There were different types of sound which were successful however there is about a 20/30 second bit where the only sounds are cars in the background which I believe is an unsuccessful element due to it being quite tedious. I have used a Senhisser K6 to record this track.


NORTH LAINES SOUNDWALK

Soundwalks

The photograph above shows two of my group, Holly and Kristina, checking the sound and making sure the presets were all correct.

Session 2: Soundwalks

Today we looked at 'soundwalks'. This is a recording purposefully made to listen and record the environment and the various sounds.

We thought of places that would have different echos and types of background noise and created a 2 minute soundwalk using Sure Dynamic microphones and a Sennhiser 416 kit. 

The first was going through a building on campus called 'Bramber house'. It has different lecture rooms as well as a cafe and a Co-operative store. It is always busy so we decided to use this as the environment for the first soundscape we did in our group of 3. I have attached this below.

CO-OPERATIVE SOUNDWALK

Although the quality of the microphone (Sure Dynamic) wasn't as high as the other, I believe it was quite successful due to the different beeps of the cashiers, music and background talking going on. We also went to different parts of the building where some areas echoed more. The unsuccessful element was the cable dropping and making a distraction towards the end of the clip.

The second soundwalk was through a market place on campus. We used the Sennhiser 416 for this recording. Due to the high quality equipment the sounds of the wind and rain were fortunately not picked up as much however we did have some people asking us "what we were recording" which was a downfall to it.

I have attached this below.

MARKET SOUNDWALK

City Park - Soundscape

https://soundcloud.com/maddie-north-1/park-soundscape

I have layered 10 different clips to resemble the sounds of a City Park.

A few of the sounds I have included were:

'Woodland' sounds

Bird sounds

A football match

By layering them on top of one another and changing the volume and fading, I was able to create my first soundscape which I have attached above from SoundCloud.

An Introduction to Adobe Audition

We were told to watch this YouTube tutorial on Adobe Audition as this is what the class was introduced to in the first session.

After watching it, I understand more about the different functions however there was a lot of content within the 8 minute video.

I will be using Adobe Audition throughout this term so I will need to play around with the various functions and familiarise myself with the software.

Two Choices of Locations

My individual work for next session:

"Bring in two choices of locations, which would make for an interesting sound design."

I thought of the many different places which could be interesting. The first few that popped in to my head were nightclubs, the Brighton pier and a shopping mall. However I wanted to choose something a bit more unique.

The two choices that stick out to me the most are:

A tattoo shop - The different machines buzzing as well as people possibly being in pain, or happy with their results etc.

A theatre - The different variations of sound such as people rehearsing, chairs/settings being re arranged, the staff choreographing and directing.

Session 1 - EVPs

The first part of our session we spent listening to EVPs and writing down what we were able to hear.

When discussing with the class, there was a range of responses. Some people saying they heard nothing and some saying they heard up to 7 words.

Personally, I heard 3.

"Anyone there"

"It's starting"

"Shhh"

What is an EVP?

EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena.

They are sounds (found most in recordings with static transmissions and background noise) that can bear resemblance to human speech from an unknown source which are found on recordings.

Some are more easily heard than others and are mainly words or short sentences. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon

Some people believe it to be the mysterious sounds of spirits or extraterrestrials trying to communicate. However some recordings can be set up as a hoax or prank.