Skip to main content

Audacity; Sound On, Sound Off

Welcome to Unit II!

Work to have done:

Plan for the day

  1. Sound, space, and attention (10-15 min)
  2. Into Audacity (25-35 min)
  3. Share and Enjoy (5-10 min)
  4. Generative writing (10 min, start no later than 1:45)
  5. HW Preview (5 min)

1. Sound, space, and attention

I was reviewing the posts on the forum as they relate specifically to the audio narratives. Lots of great observations there! Here are a few themes I wanted to highlight:

Audio engages by being immersive

Jenna noted how, in "A Haunted Halt," "when the girl talking increased the speed of her breathing and the music got increasingly suspenseful. This in turn also made me as a listener feel equally paranoid." Jin Jin, similarly, commented that even though she recognized the craft in certain automated effects, such as distortion, she "had to lower the volume to make [her] feel a little safer in [her] studio apartment."

Part of this, I suspect, is that we use our ears to orient ourselves in space: when we hear something more in our left ear than our right, we're attuned to turn toward it. Headphones can recreate that effect, as in "Come Over for Dinner," when the narrator turns away from the boiling water and it shifts locations.

Evan also pointed out an interactive component to this kind of immersive engagment: "Everyone will probably imagine something slightly different. For the coffee shop soundscape, probably everyone will envision... a coffee shop. But I'm probably the only one who imagined the specific coffee shop in my hometown that my friends and I would go to. The ambiguity from not having fixed visuals allowed me as a listener more input (and forced from me more attention) into the overall experience, even if I didn't actually 'do' anything."

Continuous background conveys consistent place/time

Amanda, writing about "Coffee Shop Conversations," pointed out that "you could even tell when the narrator was zoning out because the background noise started to fade out and it was only their voice. You can also tell when the narrator was being drawn back into reality because there was an outside voice saying, 'Excuse me' and as that 'Excuse me' got louder and louder the closer the narrator came back to their surroundings."

Relatedly, many podcasts and radio shows also use short musical interludes to smooth changes from one "act" or segment to another: the music provides continuity across the gap.

Contrasting sound draws attention

The opposite of the previous point is that abrupt changes in background can be used to create a sense of a scene change, or a jump forward in time.

But, more mundanely, the incidental sounds like chopping, cash registers, or broken glass, give us a sense of time passing – of something happening. These "events" drew a lot of attention in your comments. And this makes sense: one definition of narrative is interruption of a stable context, and the fallout of that interruption. When sounds recur or extend, they create a stable context. One that we can break.

On the other hand, a long time without a change can drain attention: you can often get away with very short clips more easily than very long ones.

Emotional effects come from layering

Jin Jin pointed out the way the sum is more than the whole of its parts: "In 'Coffee Shop Conversations,' you can hear the audio overlaying each other; from the indistinguishable chatting happening in the background, to pouring of coffee, and forth most, the conversation between the cashier and the customer. These sounds reminded me of modularity; the audio clips are not separate from each other, but rather, they overlap and work together to create something uniform."

Elise added the emotional stakes: "Even if a person could not understand the dialogue in each of the stories we still automatically associate the music or noises layered into the story to a feeling. For example from the eery sounds and screams in the haunted house project one would be able to recognize that something scary is happening and that the girl is frightened."

A fun bonus example

Remember this anxious arrival?

Here it is again, remastered:

2. Into Audacity (25-35 min)

Luckily, Audacity is made for layering! I’d like to spend some time now giving you a chance to play with the software.

The tutorial I asked you to watch for homework should have given you the overview you need to jump in and get editing, but do call me in if you have questions! You can use the “Ask for Help” button (ask for help button, which shows a question mark in a circle) in your meeting menu.

I’ll ask you all to work with the same materials, just for today. In the soundscape2022spring repository that you forked and cloned last time, you’ll find a folder labeled “in-class activity.” That folder contains:

  • A one-minute selection from President Biden’s inaugural address;
  • A handful of instrumental tracks I found on CCmixter, a site for sharing music with explicit permission to use and (often) modify.
  • The full credits for these sound files, in the file CREDITS.md.
Your task for the next 20 minutes or so is to try mixing, matching, splitting, sliding, realigning, and otherwise messing around with these tracks.
  • Play with the strategies that we noted in the discussion at the start of class: how does the mood change as you change the soundtrack? The alignment? The left/right mix?
  • Experiment with what tools the context menus and track menus offer: what does Audacity expect you to want readily available?
  • Play with the Effects menu: some good starting points include fade in/out, repeat, change tempo, delay, low pass filter. Check the "manage" button in Effects dialog boxes to see if there are any presets to try, or the ? button to learn more about that particular effect.
  • Try splitting the speech at moments of silence to extract individual words, using Edit > Clip Boundaries > Split (or Split New). (NB: we can have some fun with reordering the words, but please don't push those doctored speeches to GitHub: we don't need any more fake news circulating!)
  • etc

I’ll split the class into breakout groups, so you can talk amongst yourselves as needed without it getting overwhelming.

In general, when we're in breakout groups, I encourage you to unmute and have your cameras on – as long as your background sounds won't hog the microphone.

For this activity, headphones will help you isolate your Audacity playback from each other.

If/when you want to share, you can set the Audacity playback to “Zoom Audio Device,” which you can do from the toolbar, as shown below. If you don’t see that option, you may need to use the Transport menu to Rescan Audio Devices.

<img src="/cdm2022spring/assets/img/audacity--output-device-3.png" alt="Selecting the output device from the toolbar. The output device defaults to "Built-in Output." />
By default, the output device taskbar sits just above the main track window, marked with the icon of a speaker. If you haven't changed it, it probably reads "Built-in Output."
NB: If your computer can't handle both Zoom and Audacity, it's okay (not ideal, but okay) to drop out of the call for a few minutes while you're working. But do set a timer, so you can check back in after about 20 minutes.

Audacity is complex enough that I’m really expecting you can fill the time here without an EXT: there are dozens of automatic effects, each with their own options and help pages! But if you’re really happy with what you’ve achieved, go ahead and save the project, then mute the current music and add a different soundtrack. How does that shift your perception of the edits you’d already made? What else does it make you want to try?

3. Share and Enjoy (5-10 min)

I’d love to hear some of these! Set your output device as shown above to play through Zoom.

Side note on saving: project files vs. rendered files

Audacity project files, with extension .aup3, are not playable in any program other than Audacity. Strictly speaking, they’re not actually sound files: they’re a database of a large number of sound files, bundled together with the files themselves, plus information about track display sizes, whether they’re muted, how much they’re panned left or right, and so on.

(In fact, until Audacity 3.x, all these files and the index of metadata used to be separate. It’s a mixed bag that they’re not any more: on the one hand, it’s harder to mess up. On the other, it makes that unified file a lot larger.)

To make the file playable, you have to render it by using File > Export As. You’re probably fine to use .mp3 format for most purposes.

NB: I believe it'll export the whole file, across all layers, as long as nothing's selected - but it might try to export only your selection if something *is* selected when you start the export. Something to watch out for, at any rate.

4. Generative writing

As you know, the project proposal is due by next class. I’d like to spend the remainder of our in-class time using writing – some listing and looping – as a way to get your ideas flowing. As I ask the following questions, pause and reach out with your feelings until you sense an answer, or more than one – and then write down whatever comes. I won’t collect these, so they’re private to you. But I hope you’ll find them useful for getting to something shareable, moving forward.

  • In the process of writing with sound, you’re going to spend a big chunk of time listening and relistening and looping, so you want to pick a place you’re likely to enjoy hanging out in. What places (physical, virtual, or imaginary) come to mind as energizing for you to unpack and reassemble? In other words: within what soundscapes might you anchor your narrative? Make a list. Anything you’re forgetting?

  • Choosing one item from your list you could work with for now, ask yourself: What kinds of stories happen there, and which of them could you reasonably tell within a few minutes?

  • How can you represent that environment sonically?
    • For example: What sounds are relatively stable, or sustained?
    • What incidental, or foreground, sounds do you associate with that place?
  • What structures or sequences could help a listening audience follow the story?

EXT: Studio time

If we have more time left in class, go ahead and start writing up your proposal – or start testing the feasibility of what you want to propose, e.g. by searching for sounds you think you’ll need, or opening further Audacity tutorials.

If we get do there, please go to our shared notes doc, bit.ly/cdm2022spring-notes to set your working goals for today. When we’re done, you can come back to the doc and update with your progress / goals for your next working session.

Homework for next time

  • The main writing assignment for the weekend is to post a proposal for your soundscape narrative by Tuesday, including a preliminary list of sound assets you might want to include.
  • You also have some reading, as you know:
    • The term “asset” comes from a reading assignment from the book Writer/Designer (Ball, Sheppard, and Arola, eds). A scan of the relevant chapter is posted to the Perusall social annotation software on Canvas; please read it before writing your proposal.
    • I’d like you to read the following advice on sound recording, listening to the embedded clips:
    • There are also some optional further readings on Creative Commons and Fair Use. If Ball et al. struck a chord with you, here’s where to read on!
      • A short four-page webcomic explaining how Creative Commons (CC) licenses get attached to copyrightable materials, and how easily CC materials can be included and/or remixed in further creations… with, at a minimum, attribution. The subject is covered in Writer/Designer, but the comic is cute.
      • The Stanford Overview of Fair Use, which you can find in a series of four webpages beginning at fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/. This text, despite being called an overview, is really a more in-depth understanding of fair use than the brief introduction in Writer/Designer.
  • PS: Have you seen our plentiful Resources page? Be sure to at least skim both the free/licensed sounds and music section and the audio-unit-specific advice and examples.