7 Secrets for Getting Pro Sounding Vocals on Home Recordings:
This was a great read and gave me a number of ideas for how to set up things for future audio projects. I really liked their DIY sound dampening methods with the blankets in the ‘hack your bedroom’ section. I tried to make this work but due to the setup of my work area and the lack of materials to prop up the blankets, I had to give up and go back to what I was already doing.
While that section I just mentioned was helpful to get me to think about framing my setting and environment, I really felt like the rest of the article was filled with things that were nice to know, but weren’t going to be helpful for this particular project. I felt like I already went through most of the motions that the article referenced when I got set up to record my introductory ‘Welcome’ message.
Editing Audio for Video:
There was a lot to take note of here. I wish they went into a little bit more detail about the different type of edits like a “c” and an L-edit. I’ve made a few notes on these so that I can research this on my own in the upcoming week. The ‘Snip & Clip’ section felt like a little bit of a review since I felt like I had to learn quite a bit of this on the fly when working on my final video project last semester.
What I did find interesting, was that the audio and video were described in this process as being edited in their entirety separately and it just seemed natural for me to edit both in tandem while going through all of my files in the past. I’ll have to try that in future projects to see if it makes more sense and improve the overall experience while doing so.
The big takeaway from this was the idea of listening to the finished piece with my eyes closed. Even after I thought I was done with the project, I gave it one more listen, this time with my eyes closed, and ended up hearing something that I totally missed before which led to me having to re-record a small portion. I was happy to have caught it because it would probably have been pretty noticeable to someone hearing it for the first time.
Research to Inform:
Inception: Honestly, I wasn’t a fan of this movie when it came out, but the sound from this movie really stuck with me. There is also an Inception App for iPhone that uses the mic on your earbuds to create an Inception-like soundscape from the sound in your environment. It was a lot of fun back when I worked in a busy office, and if you find yourself surrounded by a lot of general noise, I highly recommend playing around with it.
Crimson Peak: I think it goes without saying that horror movies depend on sound to create suspense. I really loved this particular scene from Crimson Peak, and I think it does a great job of mixing SFX and music to create a terrifying setting.
La Luna: This is a Pixar short that premiered before Brave, and when I first saw it in the theatre, I was really drawn to the deliberate use of delicate sound and ambient music.
Monument Valley: This is an aesthetic masterpiece that combines relaxing music with truly satisfying SFX for a game experience that is soothing and memorable.
Willy Wonka: This scene is pretty well ingrained in the minds of anyone who watched this movie as a kid, so I think it speaks for itself.
Creation:
Wow. So, come to find out, editing audio is WAY more difficult than I imagined, but I felt like it was a pretty rewarding experience. By far, the biggest challenge was keeping it under two minutes, but I feel like having to get creative with the editing was where I really learned the most. Prior to this, I’ve only ever used Audacity to rip LPs to MP3, and I had a lot of trouble getting a handle on how to move things around to get the result I was looking for. I tried other programs to avoid having to figure out Audacity, but couldn’t get things to sound quite right without reading 100s of pages online and as you know, we were all on a time crunch. A few additional video tutorials later, and Audacity wasn’t nearly as much of a headache as it had been just a few days prior.
One of the two people I was planning on interviewing had to cancel at the last minute which led to a little bit of a re-write so my husband Jon then became the sole 2nd speaker. I gave him the script and prompted him topic-wise, and reminded him that the finished piece was only 2 minutes. After setting him up, hitting record, and letting him speak, I watched the timer glide straight over 2 minutes and knew that I’d have a lot more to edit than I had planned on.
Honestly, I’m glad I struggled a bit with this…it really makes me want to try it out again with something that is a bit longer form.
