For my tutorial, I decided to show how to bleep out a section of sound from a part of the audio.

1. Import whatever sound being used.
2. Select the portion of the sound that you want to be bleeped out.
3. Then go to “Generate” and then click on “Tone”.
4. When you get to the little pop up box, change the settings to Frequency (Hz) to 1000 and Amplitude to 0.5.
5. After that is done, the selected part of the audio will look like a block and when played back, will just be a beeping sound.

This is a tutorial that will teach you how to much a clip fade out.

1. Open Audacity.
2. Import an audio clip that you want to edit.
3. Select the part of the clip that you want to fade out by highlighting it with the selection tool.
4. Select “Effects”, then click on “Fade Out”.
5. After clicking this, your clip should have the fade out effect! It should look different then before (the end of the clip should be a horizontal line).

CDM_Grove_tutorial

ENGCMP 0610: Tutorial on how to create a soundscape by mixing a created sound and adding music in the background.

Step 1: Open Audacity

Step 2: Create a new project by selecting file and then new. You can also just type (command + N)

Step 3: Import the song you wanted in the back ground by selecting file-> import-> audio.

-you will be prompted to select the audio file from wherever you have the song saved.

Step 4: Record the sound you want to make by selecting Transport->Record or by simply typing the letter R.

Step 5: Once you’ve selected record, you can start talking/ making noises and you will see audacity picking up the sound. When you are done press the button with a yellow square on it.

-Sound of a desk being knocked on.

Step 6: You can edit the sound by deleting pieces once the button with the yellow square had been hit. If you want to delete a certain section, highlight that section with the cursor and hit the backspace button.

Your final product should look like this:

If you want to change the volume of the sound, simply drag the cursor to the – or + side to change the sound effect:

In my recent soundscape I recorded a speech using my voice and aimed to replicate the sounds of a 1940s radio broadcast as if I were in the home of a listener. To start you will need your raw voice recording as well as the sound of vinyl static, as can be found here. Assuming you know how to upload and cut clips to size, your vinyl static should be cut or extended (by using copy paste) to match the length of your recording as I have here:

The next step is to use the selector tool to select your entire voice recording. Then, go to the effects tab and click the effect option “Equalizer”. You should have a flat line such as this:

If not, go ahead and hit the “Flatten” button on the bottom of the window. Your next move will be to click on the intersection of 12dB and 1,000HZ, and then next click on the intersection of -12dB and 10,000HZ. Your graph should look like this:

After hitting “OK”, you will be taken back to the editing window and you will notice that your voice recording will have increased in dB rating on both ends like this:

We need to fix this so the sound does not sound like the speaks are going to blow out. Select your voice entire recording again and go to the Effects tab and select “Normalize”. You will want to put your inputs to the following settings (Check yes to “Remove DC offset”, then normalize maximum amplitude to -1.0dB, and do not check the last box):

Hit “OK” and you are done! Go ahead and play with the volume on the vinyl static track to make sure it isn’t overpowering. This is a subjective quality, but in my opinion the recording I provided for the vinyl static is a tiny bit too loud. Enjoy!

For my tutorial I chose to show a trick I learned by watching other tutorials, changing pitch or tone of a recording. For this particular project I used pitch controls for the character’s voices. I felt as though most of the sound effects I acquired and recorded portrayed the correct sound I had intended on. But, I was unable to achieve the exact tones of the voices; therefore, I figured out how to change the pitch to add to the realness of each character’s voice.

First, you open the library (button looking like a file cabinet) on the top left corner, then open the smart controls (button looking like a volume dial) on the top left corner as well. From here, you will chose “voice” from the drop down list on the left, which then provides an adjacent list of many vocal options. I used the Compressed Vocal controls.

From the Compressed Vocals dialog box, there is a little button in the top right corner that has four black boxes in a square and then one white button underneath. Once you click on this unnoticeable button, you are introduced to a dialog box with a bunch of different dials and controls.

Once you open this dialog box, considered the “Pedalboard,” there is a search bar at the top left hand corner. Here, you can chose what type of audio tone you would like to focus on. I chose “pitch” from the drop down list. The “pitch” option then presents a bunch of different types of pitch you can aim for. I worked with the different options depending on what voice I was editing.

For example, when I was fixing the baby bear’s voice, I used the “Octave Up” option. Once clicking on this I was presented with a red, juke-box-looking screen. There is the option to either lower/high the “tone” or change the setting on the “mix” dial. I stayed away from the “mix” dial and strictly made use of raising the tone for the baby bear’s voice.

Once I changed the numeric setting of the tone, I would exit out of this “Pedalboard” dialog box and play back the portion of voice that I had just changed the pitch of. Depending on what I heard, I may have gone back in and moved the dial again, or left it because I was content with the first tone.

The following is the script I use in my podcast for the Audio Portfolio. Throughout I will use “street noises” to convey the place I meet Storm at first. I plan to incorporate a recording of him singing throughout, as it is a very important portion of the story.

“I met Storm on an unusually cold October night three years ago. The wind whipped the hair against my face and I shivered, dancing from foot to foot keep warm, as I waited for my bus. He sat on the sidewalk behind me, underneath a crooked poster of Bob Marley hanging in the convenience store window. The lights from the store buzzed into the silence around us.

“Excuse me, miss? Do you have any spare change?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t,” I said barely turning to him. Immediately, I felt a sense of guilt, because I did have spare change in my pocket.

He began to sing into the windy air a song that sounded like a blues or church melody. He belted the song without shame, and as the only person on the street, I knew he sang it for me. His voice was the most painful and yet, the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. It had me crying later on the bus home. Still, I said nothing. The bus pulled up, I got on, and just as doors closed, he stopped singing and called out “Have a good night!”

I couldn’t shake his song from my mind. The next afternoon, I made the split second decision while on a bus to go find him again. The bus pulled up to the same corner and I got off, only to see that the man was not sitting at the same place. I started walking down the street and then running, hoping to spot him in a new location. I took a turn around the block and when I arrived back at my starting point, he was there again. Sitting underneath the same Bob Marley poster, arms resting on his knees. a cigarette between his fingers.

“Here’s ten dollars, you have a very beautiful voice. I’m sorry I had no money last night.” was my way of an introduction. I guess it’s because he’s met such a variety of people that he went with it and introduced himself as Storm. I was cautious with the details I gave about myself, and he was carefree with details about himself. He’d lived in every state and had spent years in Europe playing music. We became fast friends. We talked a lot about right and wrong and his belief that by trying to do the right thing would eventually him to the right place in the end. At his heart, Storm was a musician, but his last guitar stolen was from him in New York City.

The next morning, with the sleep in our eyes and the rising sun backlighting us, we met again at the same street corner. Me, with my guitar in my hand and him, with an excitement to play that I had never seen before.

I stayed with him for an hour and listened in awe. Storm had more talent playing than I could ever wish to have. He caught every passerby’s attention.

One of the scariest moments of my life was watching Storm walk down the street with one of my most prized possessions. I took it in like it was the last time I would ever see my guitar.

But Storm did right by me. A week later, he called me and told me about all the money he had made using my guitar.

“Must be the universe is trying to lead me somewhere. I met you and through you I was able to make a buck.” Storm looked tired as we sat on the couch in my apartment, “Wait, I have something for you.”

Storm pulled out a circular clear box that holds five gemstones. He carefully explained each stone to me, his favorite was the pink tourmaline for creative expression. He thought I might need it more than him.

‘I just wanted to thank you and give you something for what you’ve done for me. Don’t lose them.”

Storm stayed on my couch that night and left the next morning on a bus to New York and although he friended me on facebook, we never spoke again. I still carry around the stones he gave me. I found out a month ago that Storm passed away during his travels at age 31. I cried because all I could remember was the guy with moppy brown hair belting out a song on a sidewalk for me. I hoped in the end that he got to the place the universe wanted him to be.”

The tutorial is a description of one skill you learned or used while making your soundscape, geared toward helping someone else learn it. It can relate to any part of the audio composition process, from foley-style “how to make [specific sound effect]” to editing techniques in Audacity. The tutorial’s format should be either step-by-step instructions with screenshots or a video screencast. Your tutorial is due on the blog before class Wednesday, 3/2. Tag it “tutorial.”