Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Class Ten Blog Assignment
For this assignment, you should describe your work on audio editing and/or mixing. Indicate what you attempted to do and whether or not you were able to successfully complete the assignment. f you were not successful, please describe the problems you encountered and provide any details you think would be helpful in trying to solve the problem.
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I have both the Audition and the Audacity audio editing programs.
When I record, I find Audacity a much simpler program to use than Audition.
I ripped a song from a CD, edited it so that only the instrumental section in the middle of the song remained. I used a Snowball Microphone (after having gone into the control panel and set it as my default microphone) and recorded my voice on a second track.
Before recording my voice, I did lower the volume on the track with the ripped audio from the CD so that it would not overpower my voice.
I saved the two tracks as a wave because I needed something for the mp3, which I did not have. I believe it had to do with encoding. Either way, the program let me know that the saving as an mp3 or as a wave would involve a mix down--which is what I wanted. I had previously saved my work as a project in case I wanted to continue to edit.
Feel free to listen to my mix down.
Last week, when I created the digital story for America Learns to use the Telephone from Engines of our Ingenuity, I had ripped a song from a CD, taken it into Audition, trimmed the part of the introduction that I wanted, and had added a fade-in and fade-out. This is the part of the digital story at the beginning, with the graphic of ET and the iPhone. The audio clip does not fade out because of PhotoStory bringing it to a close. I placed a black slide after the ET graphic and timed it to allow the audio and graphic to fade out a certain way.
Considering this was my first actual hands on experience with editing audio, I felt very confident in my work. I was able to record my voice on top of music, edit timing and entrances and modify volume to make it appropriate.
I have observed the use of a music mixer called Magix (I think). It was really a phenomemnal piece of software, but it seemed VERY advanced. It allowed for smooth transitions, speed control, and I think pitch control. It was amazing.
For now, I'm just proud to understand Goldwave.
I have not tried to mix audio on my own yet. The only time I had to experiment with anything exciting was in class. With my past experience I am always able to do it in class but when I get home it is a blur. I have yet to record audio for my project but it will be coming up soon. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving weekend!
I downloaded Goldwave and played with it a bit. This was the first time I did something like this so I could not say it was simple though the instruction in last week's lesson was quite clear. Unfortunately, my microphone did not work well and I did not check out a Snowball, so I cannot hand in my assignment this week. But I'll borrow a Snowball next week and try everything again.
I struggled a little bit with this assignment. First, I used the basic black microphone and I really noticed the poor sound quality. In addition to the poor sound quality - I also have been very sick and I have not had much of a voice.
I decided to take a Marvin Gaye song, and read commentary from a webpage about his album, What's going on?.
It took me a little while to mix on goldwave. Mostly because I thought I had a file problem, but it turned out I was misinterpreting the pop-up message.
So here's the mix:
http://mariner.coe.uh.edu/~rlacquey/rebeccalacqueymix1119.wav
I have just checked out a snowball, I will try to redo this assignment with a better mic.
Last class Jaison and I played with narration and music on Goldwave. At first it looked really complicated, but after using it, it looked better to me. We used the snowball microphone to record our voices and music from a cd. It took some time, but we got it together, or at least we think. There is more that i have to learn about goldwave and other audio editing programs, but I think I am off to a good start. See you guys after Thanksgiving.
I had a few problems mixing audio but with some practice, and trial and error, I managed to actually create a mix using my voice and background music. I have used a similar program to goldwave, and have found others more user friendly. Overall, it just needs some getting used to. Going from one window to the next in the program seemed to be confusing at first.
I borrowed a Snow Ball fromthe lab and practiced more with GW. Both are now more friendly with me now.
I tried different ways to mix my voice and a piece of music. First, I opened GW and recorded my voice directly, and then mixed it with the music. Then I changed the way of mixing by recording my voice in a separate file and saved it away, using GW. Later, I opened the files of my voice and the music and mixed them. The result was the same.
I used the DEL and TRIM buttons as Dr. Robin guided in class, but I found that we can use the buttons in the window that appeared when we right click the mouse on a highlighted audio piece. I could set the start marker and finish marker instead of cut or trim away the unwanted parts of a piece. Of course, it would look neater if I had used the DEL and TRIm buttons, but the effects were the same.
I don't know if I did the right things, but spending time with GW allowed me to know more of its way, and found my own way using it. Perhaps, this happens with other software too. The more familiar you are with one, the more you are comfortable with it and make more use of its functions.
Becca,
I enjoyed the background information on Marvin Gaye's song What's Going On. Putting creative works into historical and social context is always interesting, and you did such a nice job of providing that.
It is difficult to narrate over music with lyrics. One has to do exactly what you did, and that is to play the song so low that one gets barely an impression of the song.
One idea might be to play a few seconds of the song before narrating, and then have an instrumental section of the music loop at a lower volume in the background during the narration, and then pick up to finish some of the lyrics after the narration is completed.
I am using an audio clip of Marion Jones within my story. However, since I did not interview her personally, I needed a program that would pick up audio from her press conference video.
So I first had to download a program entitled Total Recorder. Anne was a very big help in suggesting this program to get my clips. Plus, it was easy to pause Jones' video clip where I needed it and then start it again once I had hit record in Total Recorder. I was very grateful that it recorded the first time without any complications either... WHEW!
However, transferring the file from Total Recorder to GoldWave was not as easy. In fact, GoldWave was very frustrating at first! Every time I open my audio clips and tried to play them in GoldWave I was told there was a problem and I needed to refer to the Help option to get my audio to work. After four tries of looking through the Help or closing and reopening the clip, I finally saved the clip and changed it from a .wav file to an .mp3 file. All of a sudden, the clip played! I could not believe I actually got it to work!
After that, my other 2 audio clips of Jones were easy to trim and save as well. Mixing Mozart with Jones' first clip also went smoothly with the help of the instructions in Class 10.
Next, I need to figure out how to blend all 3 audio clips together with the music mixed in the background to make one giant 'interview' clip. For this assignment though, trimming, mixing, and transferring files was enough experimentation for me!
For my audio assignment I chose to interview somebody and "mix" their voice with background music. I actually interviewed my husband on my popular culature topic: fashion. I also chose a song titled "Dedicated Follower of Fashion," by The Kinks.
My biggest problem was getting my husband to speak at the "right" volume and clarity (even though I was using the Snowball). We had to do several takes before I was satisfied. When I finally had the "interview," I also mixed it with the song several times before I was satisfied. I wanted to make sure that the voice wasn't "covered" by the song that was too loud, while at the same time, I wanted the song to be heard because it was meaningful to my topic.
I wasn't sure if we were supposed to let the song play in its entirety, even after the interview was finished, so I just let the song end.
I forgot to mention that I used Goldwave for my assignment. It was pretty easy to use because I'd used it with Ann's help in class. It seemed complicated while listening to your (Dr. Robin's) instructions, but it actually wasn't, once I actually "did" it with Ann's guidance. Thanks Ann!
Ok, I have finished re recording my vocal with a snowball - and the difference is so much better. Unfortunately, I still have a cold so my voice is not up to speed yet. But it was great to listen to the recording without all the popping that I heard in last week's version.
The difficulty I ran into was with the mix/editing - especially when I was trying to trim off the end. It took me a few trys - thank goodness for the "undo" command.
At any rate, this was much better than the last version. The only problem, is that I have not been able to upload because I am having problems with webdav. While my computer is being repaired, I am having to use another computer and my husband and I spent an hour trying to log in and connect to webdav from home. Our efforts were fruitless, but I remember having an issue before and someone gave me a file that allowed it to work. (I think).
Regardless, I'll bring it to class with me. :)
The audio I did for this assignment doubled up as an intro for one of the things I release through my website. It consisted of a recording of two people speaking which was edited in Adobe Audition for sound quality and to remove any nasty hisses and pops.
I then added a little stock music behind the male (my) parts of the narration.
The original voice recording was done using a binaural microphone system which allows for something approaching true stereo when listened to via headphones. The effect is not too strong in this recording but it should sounds as if you are sat between the two speakers when using headphones. I may use a similar technique for my final project as I think it adds a little depth to the audio.
Vocal and Music Mix
Hal,
Your recording was highly entertaining.
By the way, I definitely heard you and the other voice on different speakers, even on my laptop--without the use of headphones.
Well done!
After working with Kristal during class, I decided to experiment with GoldWave on my own. I decided to use an instrumental version of “The Sound of Music” ripped from The Best of Lawrence Welk compact disc. I found the lyrics online and chose to sing for my narration. Mixing my voice with music seemed fairly simple once I played with GoldWave a bit. I have always enjoyed singing throughout my life, usually in the shower. I used the Olympus digital voice recorder available from the CITE Lab. I thought it was less cumbersome than the Snowball, and the sound quality was as good or only slightly worse. The hardest part was finding a quiet place to record my voice. I guess it turned out fine. Sometimes Thanksgiving can be a real emotional time, especially with extended family lurking about.
The Sound of Music
I have used Audacity in the past and LOVED it. I do find Goldwave to be a little less user friendly, but I think it does have very nice qualities considering it is FREE!!! :) For this week's assignment I took a rough cut audio recording of my script and mixed it with Smashing Pumpkins version of "Landslide". (This isn't what I'm going to use for my final project, it was just an experiment.) Goldwave was a little tempermental with regard to adding the music to mix with the audio, but it worked. I do like Goldwave's ability to preview and change effects before committing to it on the file. This really helped me get the volume levels and fading to balance.
I had fun mixing the audio music with the speeches. The ease of mixing the two different types of media was great. I also learned the difference between trimming and deleting.
This is my very amateur music and narration that we played with in class.
http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~kscott/cuin7358/musicNnarration.wma
I used some of the audio provided in the in-class assignment and I thought that it came out rather well.
I was, however, a bit disappointed in the maneuverability available in Goldwave. I found it very difficult to adjust the play and mark positions to a specific point. I think that this has convinced me to do the final version of my project in Adobe Premiere.
Keyana Jackson:
This was my very first hands on experience using Goldwave to edit and mix audio. I found the process to be difficult in the beginning, and it took for Dr. Robin to walk through it step by step in class and some help from classmates for me to remember the steps because there are soo many. Once I was successful I felt confident that I could do it again. I edited speeches by Malcolm X and Martin Luther and mixed in some dramatic classical music to add effect. I saved the tracks as mp3. I look forward to using Goldwave for projects in the future.
This was my first attempt with Goldwave. It seems more complicated to me partially because of the way the software is set up. It is a lot easier to use than what it really appears to be. It was a little nerve racking at first but then I finally got the grove of it. I really see the value of goldwave. I just have to use it more and become more comfortable with it. I thought it was cool to edit and mix different voices.
Prior to this class, I did not know how to mix sounds and didn't even know that it was even possible for me to do. I learned about mixing and trimming. Goldwave looks complicated at first, however, once I started using it, it was just a piece of cake.
I decided to delete part of an original audio clip. This was difficult at first but I began to play around with it and I got it.
I downloaded Goldwave, but the format of the program looked very different from when we played with it in class. I thought it was so confusing and took a long time to find the options I wanted and get the markers to go where I wanted them to go.
I have managed to get the music and voice narration together. I had to change the volumes of both files. (Decrease the music volume and increase narration volume). I think the program takes some time to get acquainted with.
http://mariner.coe.uh.edu/~smela/Cuin7358/Functions/
Here’s a link to get to my audio file. I avoided this assignment as long as possible because I kind of already did this when I created my Engines episode. I used GoldWave to add silence to the end of the original audio clip so that it would not fade out too soon. And I didn’t want to create another piece of audio if it wasn’t going to be used for anything else. Since I knew I would be using the skills for this assignment on the final project I created my final project first and am coming back and posting the audio for it. This assignment was not hard for me. It’s just time consuming. There were times when I mispronounced words. I went back and deleted that section, recorded the correct way into a new file and copied/inserted the new version into the original. I also faded in and out between the audio selections. I think I might be able to record straight into the original piece but I didn’t want to take the chance of making more work for me by messing up. The background music is ripped from CD’s I had.
Goldwave is a very user friendly program. I chose to mix a speech from Malcolm X with music. It was pretty easy to do and I felt that the program did not require a lot of adjusting.
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