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Audio – Project 2 Reflection

This was one of the more difficult projects I have been presented with thus far in my compositional career. As an architectural studies student, I am combated with obstacles within the physical realm every day. With that, I must develop new ideas and approaches in order to make that problem unidentifiable to the masses. This idea is very similar when considering audible composition.  The problems are very clear to most, but very few people possess the skills to present refined versions of those problems as successes.

Throughout the entirety of this project I was uncomfortable with the medium that we were working with. I would do a voice recording over and over again to get a sound that I found would actually add to the piece, but instead changed completely outside of a pair of headphones. No matter how I recorded myself I could not find a happy medium between legibility and projection. Some of the tools within the Audacity software made it a little bit more manageable, though.

The first tool I used was simply to reduce the pitch of a track. Lowering the volume made understanding the high and low parts of the track more recognizable when listening closely. I pitched all of my tracks to be within similar ranges and realized that due to the differing sources, the volumes were going to project at different levels. With this knowledge, I went onto using the Envelope tool. This tool allowed me to pitch specific words or phrases within particular tracks, and made it easier to get correct levels for each track. My project still needs a lot more work in doing this, but the exploration of the tool will allow me to make those necessary changes come final portfolio. I also messed around with some of the Effects tools, including changing the tempo of some tracks that I spoke too quickly in as well as removing white noise. The Noise Removal effect allowed me to record a sample of white noise and then match it to the white noise that was in my voice recordings. Once I turned on the effect, Audacity did the rest. The voice sample could have probably been a little better quality though, and different forms of recording is something I will certainly look more into down the road.

The sounds that I used within my project are mostly found from the resources that were provided to us such as CC Mixer, but I did journey to YouTube to get the intro sound track. Though the NFL could probably sue me for my use of the snippet, I doubt they would mind the manor in which it was used. I did not manipulate the function of the original clip, nor did I use it to make money. The short, contextual snippet was used strictly for educational purposes and I believe those reasons validate it as fair use.

Collectively this project was enjoyable due simply to the fact that it was challenging and forced me to step outside of my comfort zone. Revisions are soon to be made, but web design seems to be plenty challenging so that will remain a focus for the time being.

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