Sonic Design : Exercises

Week 1 - Week 4 : 4 Apr 2023 - 30 Apr 2023

Tan Yi Yun 0345559
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Exercises/Audio Fundamentals
LECTURE

Week 1 : 

Mr. Razif introduced us this module, Sonic Design, that aims to introduce students to the audio environment. We are going to learn to use professional sound equipment provided in the recording studio. 

In the lecture video, we will learn about the nature of sound, how sound can be captured and processed, analyze and use it, how to convert to digital world and pro tools.

Nature of sound
A vibration of air molecules that stimulates our eardrums
3 stages: Production (creating of sound)  -> Propagation (travel of sound) -> Perception (how we perceive the sound)

Human Ear
- The outer ear: the external, visible portion of ear and the ear canal
- The middle ear: the paper-thin eardrum and a small, air-filled cavity containing three tiny bones (malleus, incus, and stapes)
- The inner ear: the cochlea (hearing canal), endolymphatic sac, semicircular canals
Figure 1.1, Structure of human's ear, Week 1(4/4/2023)

Psychoacoustics
The study of subjective human perception of sounds. This includes how we listen, our psychological responses, and the physiological impact of music and sound on the human nervous system. Some of the traditional psychoacoustic concerns involve the perception of pitch, loudness, volume and timbre. 

Amplitude: the power of a wave signal
Frequency: the number of times the wavelength occurs in one second. The faster the sound source vibrates, the higher the frequency. 

6 properties of sound
1. Pitch 
- vibration per second = frequency
- less vibration, low pitch, low frequency
- the range of human hearing is between 20Hz to 20kHz
2. Loudness
3. Timbre (quality of sound)
4. Perceived duration
5. Envelope
6. Spatialization (location of the sound source)

Week 3 : 

Basic Tools & Techniques of Sound Design
Any sound editing software or any Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) would have a set of common tools which are useful for sound design. 

01 Layering
02 Time Stretching
03 Pitch Shifting
04 Reversing
05 Mouth it

Layering
Layering is taking two or more sound and placed on top of each other. Most of the professionally designed sound are layered.

Time stretching/Time compression
It is the ability to take a sound that plays at a certain length and sonically stretch the audio within set parameters without changing the pitch. It can change the pacing but not the pitch.

Pitch Shifting
Pitch shifting is the ability to change a pitch of the sound without changing its actual length. 
Shifting the pitch higher will make the sound thinner, smaller and having high pitch (e.g. Chipmunk sound)

Reversing
Reverse an audio can give a weird and unnatural sound. 

Mouth it (Ban for school assignment ;P)
Vocalization is an important tool of sound design. Our voice is very flexible and you'll be surprise with the kind of sound you can create with it. Sound design is about exploring and experimenting, and sometimes the best sound happened accidentally.

EXERCISES : Audio Fundamentals

Exercise 1

In this exercise, an original soundtrack and the other four edited tracks are given. Students are to identify which part of the soundtrack doesn't match the original, it may be the bass or the treble. We are taught to use Parameter Equalizer to adjust the frequency of the sound. 

In the beginning, I did not use headphone to watch the recording. Thus, I found it difficult to identify the differences of the original track and the edited tracks. I only heard the differences after putting on my headphone. 
Figure 2.1, Tutorial video, Week 1 (6/4/2023)

The figures below show the changes that I have made. 

Equalizer 1
Figure 2.2, Equalizer 1, Week 1 (6/4/2023)
Equalizer 2
Figure 2.3, Equalizer 2, Week 1 (6/4/2023)

Equalizer 3
Figure 2.4, Equalizer 3, Week 1 (6/4/2023)
Equalizer 4
Figure 2.5, Equalizer 4, Week 1 (6/4/2023)

Exercise 2

We are tasked to edit the original sample voice and produce 3 different sound effects using Parameter equalizer: muffled, phone call and walkie talkie. 

Sample voice:
Muffled voice
The bass in increased and the treble is highly reduced for the muffled voice effect.
Figure 2.6, Muffled voice, Week 2 (11/4/2023)

Phone call
Phone call captures mostly the middle range and lesser bass and treble.
Figure 2.7, Phone call, Week 2 (11/4/2023)

Walkie Talkie
Similar to phone call, middle range is increased to create some cracky effect. The audio gain is slightly increased too. 
Figure 2.8, Walkie talkie, Week 2 (11/4/2023)

Then, we learnt to add reverb to the sound to create sound that bounces from a different space.  
Toilet

I tweaked the sound in toilet to become muffled and added a little bit of reverb. The space is small and it shouldn't sound too echo. (Sir said this sounds like the toilet in the airplane :P)

Figure 2.9, Parametric equalizer, Week 2 (11/4/2023)

Figure 3.0, Full reverb, Week 2 (11/4/2023)
Stadium

Figure 3.1, Parametric equalizer, Week 2 (11/4/2023)

Figure 3.2, Full Reverb, Week 2 (11/4/2023)
Airport Announcement

Figure 3.3, Parametric equalizer, Week 2 (11/4/2023)
Figure 3.4, Full reverb, Week 2 (11/4/2023)

Exercise 3

Explosion sound effect
We are given a source file and tasked to add more layers to the sound. We are introduced to several effects such as delay and echo, modulation, time and pitch, and reverb. 

Bit Depth
Measure loudness
Stereo
Two speakers (both channel)
Clipping
When the sound goes beyond 0db, the sound will be clipped. Solution: to tune the volume down using Hard Limiter. 

Firstly, drag the original file into multitrack. Edit the source file with parametric equalizer. Then, tune down the volume in Hard Limiter. 
Figure 3.5, Hard Limiter, Week 3 (18/4/2023)

Figure 3.6, Hard Limiter, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Next, apply stretch and pitch to extend the sound. The algorithm, iZotope Radius & Audition are the options of processors. 
Figure 3.7, Stretch and pitch, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Figure 3.8, Stretch and pitch, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Figure 3.9, Adjusting the volume in mixer, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Other than editing there, you can also stretch and compress the audio in the mixer, as shown in Figure 4.0. Make sure the toggle global clip stretching is on. 
Figure 4.0, Stretch/compress the audio in mixer, Week 3 (18/4/2023)

Figure 4.1, Adjusting the volume in mixer, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
I also tried the chorus and flanger effect under modulation.
Figure 4.2, Adjusting the modulation, Week 3 (18/4/2023)

Figure 4.3, Effect - Chorus, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
There is a way to apply reverb to all clips.
Figure 4.4, Adding reverb, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Then, I modified my own version of explosion by tweaking stretch and pitch. I also tried a lot of effects such as echo, reverse, flanger, phaser and chorus. 
Figure 4.5, Stretch and pitch, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Figure 4.6, Echo, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Figure 4.7, Flanger, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Figure 4.8, Phaser, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Figure 4.9, Chorus, Week 3 (18/4/2023)

Figure 5.1, Multitrack, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Final - Explosion

Punch
We are to add three punches sound effect and changed the pitch for each punch. The last punch should be the most impactful one. 
Figure 5.2, Parametric Equalizer, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Figure 5.3, Stretch and pitch, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Figure 5.4, Pitch shifter, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Figure 5.5, Pitch shifter, Week 3 (18/4/2023)
Figure 5.6, Echo, Week 3 (18/4/2023)

Figure 5.7, Adding fade out, Week 3 (18/4/2023)

Final - punch

Exercise 4
Jetplane

Figure 5.8, sound envelope, Week 4 (25/4/2023)

Environment sound
In week 4, we are tasked to try to edit environment sound as a warm up exercise for Project 1. We are given two environmental concept art to produce the sound based on the scenario. 

A) Environment 1
Figure 5.9, Environment 1, Week 4 (25/4/2023)
I layered multiple sound tracks such as jet engine as the ambience sound, noise produced by an office chair, foot steps, water bubbling, water dripping, radar beeps and heart beats.  
Figure 6.0, Editing platform, Week 4 (26/4/2023)
I adjusted the panning for sound tracks like heartbeat and water dripping. 
Figure 6.1, Editing platform, Week 4 (26/4/2023)
Final environment sound #1

B) Environment 2
Figure 6.2, Environment 2, Week 4 (25/4/2023)
I feel like this concept art is more challenging than the first one because there are more machines present in this scenario. I downloaded a bunch of sources from Freesound but a lot of them need to be edited to fit the theme. I observed that there are several laser beams from the jet machine. Also, the sound should be echoed because of the reflective materials (steel? maybe) in a closed space. 
Figure 6.3, Editing platform, Week 4 (25/4/2023)
I think there were too many clips and effects applied, which caused the software to crash and it couldn't be recovered (cries...)
Figure 6.4, Editing platform, Week 4 (25/4/2023)
After I arranged and edited all the clips, I applied a full reverb to the entire clip before exporting.
Figure 6.5, Editing platform, Week 4 (25/4/2023)

Final environment sound #2

Exercise 5

We are given a script to record in the recording studio in campus. Four people in a group, with a narrator, and the rest the sound designers. We get to explore the ways to use the equipment in the studio. 
Figure 6.6, Script, Week 9 (30/5/2023)

Figure 6.7, Studio recording, Week 9 (30/5/2023)

Figure 6.8, Studio recording, Week 9 (30/5/2023)
We then downloaded the raw voice clip and edited in Adobe Audition. I first reduced the lip smacking/slurping and breathing sound by using noise reduction (process). Next, I reduced the volume of a few high spikes to make the audio wave much consistent. The compressor part does not affect much since the recording was done in a recording studio, so there was less background noise. 
Figure 6.9, Voice clip editing, Week 9 (30/5/2023)
After the voice clip was edited, I looked for some music and sound effects to be added to enrich the recording. 
Figure 7.0, Voice clip editing, Week 9 (30/5/2023)

Final voice recording (event planning)

Exercise 6

We are asked to create two sound effects (mouse over and mouse click) for a fantasy medieval type of game. 

Mouse over
The sound is created by using effects like pitch shifter, full reverb, and time and stretch. 
Figure 7.1, Mouse over, Week 12 (20/6/2023)

Mouse over, Week 12 (20/6/2023)

Mouse click
I also applied pitch shifter and full reverb to the original sound effect (hitting a plastic box or dropping object sound). 

Figure 7.2, Mouse click, Week 12 (20/6/2023)

Mouse click, Week 11 (20/6/2023)
FEEDBACK

Week 2 : 

The toilet sound effect sounds like inside the airplane's toilet (xD) since it has less echo. The airport announcement is interesting. The other sound effects are fine. 

Week 3 : 

The first version of explosion is fine. The second version of explosion is better if the reverb is removed. 

Week 4 : 

Environment #1 is good. For Environment #2, the part where the sound coming out from the monitor is a bit...weird(? But overall not bad.   

REFLECTION
During the recent exercises on sound design, I gained an in-depth understanding of Adobe Audition software. Although I had some prior experience using it, these exercises provided me with an opportunity to learn new techniques. I discovered how to use parametric equalizer, how to experiment with effects like chorus and flanger, and how to incorporate effects such as reverb, delay and echo, and sound envelope. These skills are essential in creating unique sounds and effects that enhance the overall quality of any audio content.

The last exercise was the most challenging for me. It took me over four hours to achieve the desired results for environment 2. This experience made me realize the difficulties of being a sound designer. It takes time, patience, and a good ear for detail to produce high-quality audio content. I appreciated the fact that every sound can be fine-tuned to suit specific needs, whether for a movie or music production. The struggle to achieve a specific sound reminded me that sound design is an art that requires consistent practice and dedication.

All in all, I learned a lot from these exercises and am looking forward to the next task. I am excited to experiment with more advanced techniques and explore new creative possibilities. Sound design is a fascinating field, and I am thrilled to be learning more about it. I am confident that the skills I gained during these exercises will prove useful in the future and help me create more compelling audio content in the next task.