Author: Ross Lyall Blair

Editing and scripting

Ross Lyall Blair / / Editing

The group convened in the edit suite to begin putting the soundscape together. With the soundscape being split into three distinct sections, or locations, I place markers on the edit window so that everyone working on it would know when each section started and finish. I also placed a marker at the end, dead on 2 minutes. I started editing and decided to focus on the “arcade” section of the soundscape. One of the difficulties I faced was the naming of the recordings. Dan had noted down descriptions for some of the files but not all of them. On the day off the recording I listened through and renamed the files that I had recorded individually, but I wrongly assumed that the rest of the group had done the same for theirs. This made locating the sounds I needed for editing more difficult and time consuming. Nonetheless I was able to put the section together and I passed the project on to the rest of the group. After listening back to what the others did, I added a few effects to enhance the atmosphere in some places and tweaked some of the panning to emphasise the sense of movement. At some point Dan noticed that I had neglected to allow for time set aside for ending the soundscape on the pier and the preceding sections had to be altered to allow for this.

A timeline for the soundscape had already been agreed upon, but it had not yet been set in stone. After all the sound clips were in place and the group were happy with the way it sounded I created the timing script, showing a second by second account of what was occurring and when.

Having fun on the day

Ross Lyall Blair / / Recording

On the day of recording, I booked out a Zoom H4N and a Marantz with a condenser microphone. Before leaving to catch the bus I checked that the equipment was working correctly. Dan and I arrived at Skegness earlier than the Declan and James. While we waited for them I did some test recordings, primarily to double check that the equipment was functioning correctly, but also to check the levels. While passing through the park on the way to meet the others I recorded the sound of the ducks in the pond. This wasn’t a sound we had planned on using but I thought it would be worth recording nonetheless, even if just for test purposes. I also briefly, recorded the sound of the waves and walking across sand. When they arrived I gave the Marantz recorder to Declan and James, while Dan and I held on to the Zoom. Despite checking the equipment thoroughly beforehand, the Marantz started displaying an error and would not record. We swapped the SD cards between machines to check if the problem lie in the storage but this did not solve the problem, which was obviously the machine itself. It was fortunate then that we had brought along with us two pieces of equipment because we ended up having to record everything using only the Zoom.

Testing microphones

Ross Lyall Blair / / Planning

This week I took out a Zoom H4n recorder and a SM58 to record some sounds. I learned that dynamic microphones lack the sensitivity required to record specific sounds at a distance. I had to have the record level of the machine as high as possible, and even then I struggled to get the desired -12 dB signal level, even with sounds as close as a metre away. This surprised me, because the microphone built in to the device did a much better job of picking up sounds. For the recording it would be best for us to use condenser microphones where possible, because of their superior ability to pick up quieter sounds with greater clarity than dynamic microphones.

Working on the presentation

Ross Lyall Blair / / Planning

We met up to discuss the matter of the presentation. To make the presentation more feasible, I suggested that we separate the components that needed to be in there and work on them individually. I decided to focus on the “Style, Mood and Genre” aspect of the presentation. The intention of the soundscape was to inculcate memories and thoughts within the listener, so I based my notes around this understanding. Drawing on my knowledge of Romantic program music, I realised that the soundscape would form a sort of Tone-Poem, but with found sounds rather than traditional notes on an instrument.

Deciding what to put in it

Ross Lyall Blair / / Planning

I met up with the rest of the group to discuss what the soundscape was going to include. The idea of doing a soundscape about a seaside town had previously been agreed upon, so we comprised a list of the sounds that one would typically associate with a day at the beach.

The sounds we want to capture include:

  • Sea and waves
  • Amusement arcade
  • Buckets and spades
  • Sand
  • Donkeys
  • Seagulls
  • Fairground attractions

We agreed that the soundscape would represent a typical day at the seaside from a first person perspective. It was decided that to make the listener feel as though they are the one going an journey through town, there should be the sound of footsteps to give a sense of movement. Making a distinction between different surfaces is of importance, because it will help give a sense of where the listener is at any one time. The other sounds will of course indicate location, but if the floor sound doesn’t correspond to the environmental sounds then it will sound wrong. For example, if the sound of walking on sand can be heard at the same time as the amusement arcade then the illusion of place will be lost. Furthermore, the transition from one surface material to another would indicate to the listener that the protagonist is moving between different parts of town.

The walking surface sounds we want are:

  • Sand
  • Concrete pavement
  • Wood (pier)
  • Carpet (arcade)