Sonic Design / Assignment 3: Audio Storytelling

Assignment 03 Jump Link Outline

• Task
• Story Line (Slide)
• Audio Sources
• Process
• Outcome (No Sound Effect)
• Video Editing
• Final Outcome
• Reflection

Task 

• Week 8 – Week 10

Making a Fairy-Tale Audiobook for Radio: Blog Summary

For this project, you’ll choose a fairy-tale and turn it into an audiobook, complete with voice acting, sound effects, and background sounds. Here’s what to do:

1. Pick a Fairy-Tale
   Choose a story you love and think listeners will enjoy.

2. Plan Your Story
   Think about how to tell the story clearly and make it exciting for the audience.

3. Record Your Voice
   Act out the characters’ voices and narrate the story with emotion to bring it to life.

4. Add Background Sounds
   Include sounds that match the story’s setting, like forest noises or castle echoes.

5. Use Sound Effects
   Add effects for key moments, like doors creaking or magic spells, to make the story more fun.

6. Edit Everything Together
   Use audio software to mix the voices, sounds, and effects into one smooth recording.

7. Review and Finalize
   Listen to your audiobook and make sure it sounds great before sharing it.

Story Line

Figure 1.1 Story Slide PDF

Audio Sources 

Figure 1.2 Audio Sources

Process

When I received this assignment, the first story that came to mind was Rapunzel, but not the Disney version—rather, the one from Grimm's Fairy Tales, which I love the most and remember the most. I immediately started writing the beginning of the story. After completing the first recording, it was around 4:30 minutes long, so I shortened it to about 3:20 minutes. I continued refining it, and it eventually became 2:45 minutes. For this assignment, I didn't record the story myself but instead asked my friends to help, adding a more dramatic tone to assist with the recording.

Figure 2.1: Test Record, Second Attempt to Measure the Timing(Before Editing)

START EDITING SOUND

Figure 2.2: First Step (Capture Noise Print)

Figure 2.3: First Step (Noise Reduction(Process) Select)

Figure 2.4: First Step (Noise Reduction(Process))

Figure 2.5: Manually Reduce Unwanted Sound

To start, I began by capturing the soundtrack and manually cleaning the background noise, carefully listening for any unwanted sounds to reduce. I first selected a stable portion of the background sound and captured its noise print. Then, I applied the noise reduction process, adjusting the settings to remove the unwanted noise and applied the changes. Afterward, I revisited the track, identifying sounds like breathing or other unprocessed noises, and manually adjusted the volume to silence them.

Figure 2.6: Reverb Effect (Before Adjustment)

Figure 2.7: Reverb Effect (After Adjustment)

After reducing unwanted sounds and eliminating most of the background noise, I started exploring ways to remove the echoes. I tried using the reverb effect, adjusting the output levels by setting the wet level lower and the dry level higher. I found that a higher wet output level makes the audio sound like someone speaking into a microphone in an empty hall, so I opted for a higher dry rate and a lower wet rate instead.

Figure 2.8: Parametric Equalizer 

I also tried using a parametric equalizer to adjust the sound and reduce the echoes as much as possible, although it didn’t seem very effective.

Figure 2.9: Effect Rack - Echo

I also applied the echo effect, and this time, it finally made a difference (even though I just set all the parameters to the lowest)

Figure 2.10: Effect Rack - Automatic Pitch Correction

The pitch correction didn’t make much difference to the audio, but I explored it further and made some adjustments to try to reduce certain sounds.

Figure 2.11: Effect Rack - DeEsser

To reduce the S, P, and T sounds, I also tried applying the technique taught in class by using the DeEsser. I listened carefully and searched for the differences after making adjustments.

Figure 2.12: Effect Rack - Dynamic Processing

For dynamic processing, I didn’t make many changes because even a small adjustment caused a significant difference in the sound.

Figure 2.13 Multitrack Mixdown Outcome 

Final Outcome Without Sound Effect

Figure 2.14  Audio Without Sound effect(Wav)

START VIDEO EDITING 

After finishing all the slides and the story, I started to match them together.

Figure 3.1 Video Edit Page

Outcome

Wav file (With sound effect / Final ) 

Final Video 

Reflection

Even though I wasn't the one recording for this assignment, I found it really fun and interesting to tell my friends how to act and play around with it. When I received the recording and listened to it, the part I liked the most was the witch segment, as it was really evil and had the effect I wanted. For the other parts, I spent a lot of time adjusting them, and I was quite satisfied with the result. However, the hardest part was the writing and recording process, especially adjusting the background voice, searching for sound effects, and finding images. Since I couldn't find the storybook online, I wrote it myself and turned it into a slide, which took a lot of time to search for image. For sound adjustments, I used the techniques that the lecturer taught us in class, though I'm not sure what happened to my effect that i applied but There were a lot of echoes in the sound, which took me a long time to fix, but finally managed to resolve it. The sound effects were also a difficult part, as I wasn't sure how to include them, but finally figured it out. Overall, this assignment was very enjoyable, and I had fun exploring the tone of storytelling. I truly enjoyed working on it.

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