Portfolio: Post-Production & Experimentation

Soundscape: Introduction

I am really pleased with the outcome of my composition/soundscape introduction. There are multiple elements to unpack, including the music composition, sound effects, and how they enforce emotion and narrative. The music composition enforces the tense feeling and bad vibes that the field recording produces of London’s busy traffic and chaotic sonic environment. With so much sound pollution it’s impossible to feel a sense of peace reflected by the nightmare narrative listening experience.

I have used Splice to download SFX’s which I have edited to create a uniqueness. This has exaggerated the listening experience. I downloaded a riser to build tension and decreased the pitch to suit the tonality using the Logic pitch changer tool. This builds the tension in all the chaos of the street ambience, and as the experience gets too overwhelming I enforced this feeling by using a downloaded breathing SFX. I did not download the sound of the heartbeat instead, I used a Geophone contact microphone to record my own heartbeat. All these sound effects together create an immersive experience introducing the soundscape.

Ultrasonic Frequencies

The composition progresses to the sonic world of ultrasonic frequencies which collide with the city street ambience. This is a sonification of ultrasonic frequencies making the unheard, heard. I am capturing the modern soundscape of the urban biosphere of London. Human-made electromagnetic waves are consuming our environment with evolvements in technology, these frequencies reach beyond the capabilities of human hearing however, these frequencies are constantly present interfering with other species and the biosphere. This composition aims for the listener to gain this knowledge and bring awareness to this topic.

The sounds of the birds are associated with a positive vibe accompanied by the sound of traffic, I have chosen the sound of a bus to enforce the morning atmosphere. The sound filters into ultrasonic hearing where the surroundings become intense contrasting the emotional experience for effect. The inclusion of nature brings in an element of calmness which will later be obligated by the sound pollution.

I am pleased with the progression and development of the composition but this is still a ruff attempt at editing this sequence of sound therefore I will continue to edit making for a more stimulating experience. I am using filters and EQ to edit field recordings and enhance the experience with music composition from Alchemy. I am duplicating tracks using volume automation to glide the sounds together using plug-ins such as reverb and filters. I am progressively getting better by experimentation and trial and error.

I have continued to edit these field recordings for an enhanced stimulating effect. I am satisfied with the result, the automation of volume and panning resulted in a successful outcome. Panning the audio successfully immerses the listener and is used to build tension. I found panning the ultrasonic frequencies to be effective as they are quite stale in their raw form. I have adjusted the positioning of tracks and shortened sections for an enhanced effect. The use of volume builds tension and releases tension.

I am continuously experimenting with volume automation and adjusting the levels building and releasing tension. I have also added new elements 01:23, such as filtering the field recordings in and out of ultrasonic hearing to showcase the different realms of hearing. This experimentation was successful at merging these two worlds and creating a distinction between them. Filtering is a new tool I have been experimenting with and I have found it to be a successful tool in capturing the perfect tonality suited for my soundscape. As I have EQ out 0-100Hz of field recordings the is room left in the mix for bass risers and drops that create a cinematic and immersive feeling. I have downloaded these sounds of splice however, I am using them uniquely by pitch-changing them and automating the volume to cater to my soundscape specifically.

The soundscape successfully returns from the ultrasonic hearing state to the normal state and swiftly filters back and forth causing confusion for the listener emulating how confusing the sonic environment is in reality.

With further experimentation, I have deleted previous elements of the composition and added new elements. at 01:00-02:10. Delteing the risers has kept a further flowing motion as there was too much tension being built and resolved. The use of sirens is intentional to capture the frequent emergency response sounds that are constantly heard in London. Steve Goodman talks about the ecology of fear in his book Sonic Warfare, which I found inspiring,

“Sound is often understood as generally having a privileged role in the production and modulation of fear, activating instinctive responses, triggering an evolutionary functional nervousness” (Goodman, 2012, p. 65)

This resonates true when it comes to sounds of emergency response units such as police sirens they are designed so you can hear them coming however this is intentional so there is an immediate sense of fear put into the criminal. I found this fascinating and used this to the advantage in the soundscape capturing field recordings of the soundscape of London of sounds producing and modulating fear such as sirens and desnse traffic.

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Bibliography

Goodman, S. (2012). Sonic warfare: sound, affect, and the ecology of fear. Cambridge, Mass. ; London: Mit Press.