The Final Audio Post is a culmination of the audio skills and exercises we have completed in multimedia content creation. This was my first foray into Adobe Audition or working with audio equipment. I had a lucky find when searching for an inexpensive lapel microphone set and found a fancy one discounted at 93% off (I love a deal!). Once I had the mic, I started playing with it on my phone and recorded sounds in various locations in my home. It was interesting to hear the difference between recording in a carpeted room with bedding and a large living room with wooden floors and oversized windows. I made a mental note to set up an audio interview environment where minimal post-edit is required.
For this assignment, I interviewed someone I didn’t know well and crafted a two-minute audio file. The file needed to have intro and exit music, along with a few sound effects, to bring the interview to life. I began by interviewing Mike Austria, a local manager at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. I learned my first interview lesson when I forgot part of the microphone set at home and had to reschedule. The second attempt went very well. I had a few questions prepared, but I primarily let Mike talk. In truth, I had yet to learn what this interview would be about after I recorded 25+ minutes of audio.
I recorded the audio in chunks of five-minute intervals. When I uploaded the files to Audition, I listened to each carefully and took notes of the main points and timestamps. I attacked these notes with a highlighter and began to see a few topics emerge. The most exciting and heartfelt clips were about Mike as a kid whose parents never showed up and how he translated that into a fierce commitment to being there for his children. Even though we had a lot of material recorded about his friends and hobbies, I chose to tell his story of being a committed father.
It took some time to parse and arrange the various audio clips in a narrative order. I removed long pauses between sentences and deleted small clips with filler words. Once I had the basic audition spliced into a two-minute clip, I searched for intro and exit music. I found a motivating track on BenSound, a site with Creative Commons free-use licenses. I knew right away when I heard this track that it was the one because it was energetic and encouraging, matching perfectly with the touching words in the interview. This was a rather large track, and I cut it down to just the intro and exit while pulling some lighthearted beats from the middle of the track.
Lastly, I moved on to sound effects. On a similar site that offers Creative Commons background sounds (called Foley sounds), I downloaded a few sports tracks that captured crowds cheering and sounds from different sporting events. I sprinkled these throughout the interview in appropriate places. During peer review, it was brought to my attention that I needed more sound effects. My peers recommended either playing music in the background of the interview the entire time or adding more effects. I chose to adjust my interview to add more effects.
I enjoy how the sports clips bring to life the interviewee’s narrative of his own and his children’s journeys through athletics and what it means to him as a father. One of the clips I added had the voice of two children speaking to their father, and I inserted it just when the interviewee began talking about his two children. I think this addition added a compelling touch to the tender topic.
Another suggestion was to adjust the exit music to ensure it doesn’t cut off abruptly. This was a simple fix as I dragged the audio clip back into the interview and adjusted the fade to avoid interfering with the concluding narrative. Before exporting, I had to delete many unused files and double-check the volumes on effects and voice. After these adjustments, I exported the entire session as an mp3. I reviewed the resulting project several times to ensure the sound effects didn’t compete with the interviewee’s voice and everything sounded great. Once satisfied, I uploaded the mp3 to SoundCloud and embedded the link to this post.
Per usual, the peer review of my work was invaluable, and the suggestions were critical to the final polished version. This assignment opened a whole new range of possibilities when it comes to communication and collecting voices. I have plans to interview my parents and grandparents to share their life stories with future generations.
Citations:
Music: bensound.com
License code: 7KIWFXMXHOUNS4H3
https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music?filters%5B%5D=Feel%20Good%20%2F%20Positive&category=Mood&type=free&sort=relevance
Sound Effects: All retrieved from freesound.org.
https://freesound.org/people/phillyfan972/sounds/412162/
Scored Basket at a Basketball Game by phillyfan972 — https://freesound.org/s/412162/ — License: Creative Commons 0
https://freesound.org/people/GregorQuendel/sounds/481775/?attribution=1
Crowd Cheering – Ambience and Cheering.wav by GregorQuendel — https://freesound.org/s/481775/ — License: Attribution 4.0
https://freesound.org/people/cribbler/sounds/369194/?attribution=1
Bus leaving busstop by cribbler — https://freesound.org/s/369194/ — License: Creative Commons 0
https://freesound.org/people/deleted_user_2104797/sounds/324892/?attribution=1
Crowd Cheer.wav by deleted_user_2104797 — https://freesound.org/s/324892/ — License: Creative Commons 0
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