SONIC DESIGN - EXERCISES / AUDIO FUNDAMENTALS

21/04/2025 - 13/05/2025 (Week 1 - Week 4)
Thanaphorn Daensaad / 0350930
Sonic Design / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Audio Fundamentals

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List

Lectures
Instructions

Exercise 1: Equaliser

Exercise 2: Sound shaping

Exercise 3: Sound in space

Feedback

Reflection

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Lectures

Week 1 / 21/4/2025

On the first week of self-directed learning. we were required to have Adobe Audition installed for the upcoming tutorial class we would be having on Tuesday. We are also required to create a blog as this week's attendance submission.

We first learnt about the fundamentals of sound, how the sound travels and how we percieve sound.

Lecture 1: Sound Fundamentals and Equaliser

Sound - a vibration of air molecules that stimulates our eardrums.

Nature of sound

3 Stages of sound:
Production - source of sound

Propogation - medium where sound travels

Perception - sound captured by ears and translated by the brain

Lecture 2: How does sound travel in human ear

3 Areas: 

1. Outer ear - Sound waves enter the outer ear (pinna) and travel through the ear canal, hitting the eardrum.

2. Middle ear - The eardrum vibrates, causing the three tiny bones (malleus, incus, and stapes) in the middle ear to amplify the sound vibrations and pass them to the inner ear.

3. Inner ear - The vibrations reach the cochlea, a fluid-filled structure in the inner ear. Hair cells in the cochlea convert the vibrations into electrical signals, which are sent to the brain via the auditory nerve, allowing us to perceive sound.

Human ear

3 Tiny bones

Note: Sound is produced by vibration.

Bouncing back off sound is called echo.
Study of subjective human perception of sounds (how one responds depending on pitch, loudness, volume and timbre) is known as psychoacoustics.

Lecture 3: Property of sound wave

Transverse Wave - Particles vibrate at a right angle to the direction of wave

Longitudinal Wave - Vibration of particles is parallel to the wave (Sound waves)

Note: The closer the particles, the faster the particles travel.

High vs Low Frequency

Wave length - the distance between any point on a wave and the equivalent point on the next phase.

Amplitude - the strength or power of a wave signal

Frequency - the number of times the wavelength occurs in one second (Hz)


Lecture 4: Properties of sound

1. Pitch 

Frequency - vibration per second

- less vibration, low pitch, low frequency or high vibration, high pitch, high frequency

- Hertz (Hz) - cycle per second

Hertz

2. Loudness 

- The perceived volume or intensity of a sound

3. Timbre 

- The quality of a sound that distinguishes it from others

4. Perceived duration

- How long a sound seems to last, quick or slow

5. Envelope

- How a sound evolves from start to finish.

6. Spatialization

- Location (direction or distance) of the sound

Note: Human hearing (20Hz-20kHz)

Ability of hearing is affected by age, health, gender.

Supplementary note: Equaliser

250Hz - "oo" sound

500Hz - "o" sound 

1kHz - "ah" sound

2kHz - "a" sound 

4kHz - "ee" sound

Why is this important:

can tell a difference on muddy bass, boxy vocals and tinny mix

webtet.net to learn better.

Settings note

 Note:48000 bit

Week 2 28/4/2025

On this week's lecture, we were required to watch 2 lecture videos and write a reflective blog on our understanding of the videos as our attendance submission.

Note: Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) - software used to record and edit sound (e.g Adobe Audition)

Lecture 1: Basic Sound Designing Tools

1. Layering

- taking 2 or more sound and placed on top of each other

- allows you to blend and mix sounds to make a unique sound

- makes sound richer, high quality

2. Time Stretching

- ability to take a sound that plays a certain length and sonically stretch it within set parameters without changing the pitch

- change the pacing/tempo/speed but not the pitch

3. Pitch Shifting

- ability to change the pitch of a sound without changing its actual length

- Higher pitch, sound becomes thinner and smaller (Small objects/cute/toddler eg. Chipmunks)

- Lower pitch, sound becomes bigger with more bases (Big objects eg. zombies, monsters, giant, dinosaurs)

4. Reversing

- Give a interesting yet weird and unnatural sound

- The key is to layer it!

5. Mouth It!

- If you can't find the sound, mouth it!

- Our voice is very flexible - be surprise with the kind of sounds we can create

Lecture 2: The Art of Sound Design

Sound effects > visual to the story

Visuals + Music + Sound effects - more dramatic & immersive

No using more than 3 sounds in one scene

Where to find sound effects?
Epidemic Sound or Youtube

What to consider putting in video?
1. Atmospheric sound according to video (wind, traffic etc.)

2. Look at what the subject is doing in the video (if walking, observe surrounding)

3. Analyse scene thoroughly (e.g if there's people walking: footsteps, chatters)

Adding sounds to dynamic movements

Key note: Timing!

Watch Daniel Schiffer (best at it)

Note: Less is more!

Tips:

Save and organise the sound effects library

Add "constant power" to smoothly fade in or out the audio

Be creative with sound effects

Don't use the same sound effects all the time

Set your volume to 60% to 70% while editing (make sure you can hear it clearly)

Tutorial Lecture

Decay time: How long the voice stays in the room

Pre-delay time: When does the voice dies off/ sound travels wider

Perception: How the sound bounce

Lecture: Sound in Space (Environment)

Introduction to Diegetic Sound

Diegetic

- Derived from the word 'Diegesis', meaning the world of the film, and everything in it.

- Everything the character can experience within their world

Non-diegetic

- Everything the audience perceived

- Non-diegetic elements: Visuals (Title Cuts, Non-diegetic inserts, etc.)

Types of Sound 

Acousmatic Zones

- cover sounds we hear, but can't see the source

- offscreen sounds that belongs to the diegesis / non-diegetic sound that exists outside the world of the film (musical score)

Visualised Zone

- source of sound is visible onscreen

Diegetic Sound

Sounds the characters can hear

Example: Atmospheric sound (weather, vehicles, weapons), music inside the film, dialogues, some forms of voiceover

Internal Diegetic Sound: Sound coming from the mind of a character we can hear but the other characters cannot.

To help establish and create the world around the characters

Inform settings - expand the world beyond what we see in frame

Build suspense

Non-diegetic Sound

Sounds the character cannot hear

Example: Sound effects, musical score, forms of narration (if the narrator plays no role in a film)

Risk of non-diegetic narrations: Breaking the illusion

Non-diegetic sound effects: Enhance motion and movement

Used in comedy for punchline and jokes

Non-diegetic music: Enhance the emotions of the film

Trans-diegetic Sound

When sound switches between 2 modes (acousmatic zone and visualised zone) - mostly used for music, also works for sound effects and narrations

Eg: Non-diegetic score becomes diegetic playing on a character's radio, diegetic music becomes non-diegetic while playing over a montage

To help smooth over the time jumps 

Reinforce the scene

Can be a nuance way to blur the line between fantasy and reality

Creative Exceptions

Sounds that don't fit neatly into any of the categories

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Instruction

Module Information Booklet

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Exercise 1: Equaliser

For this week, Mr Razif briefed us through the module information booklet and showed us a few past students' work that would be the work expected from us throughout this semester. We took some time watching to study the audios created by the past students and guessing what everyday item is used to make the sound. The most surprising fact we learn today was about the way the sound of blast sounds created for Star Wars guns was created which is by hitting a wire on a telephone pole. That created an interesting twang then they adjusted it further.

After the brief, we proceed to testing our headphones/earphones by using the file posted by Mr Razif in Adobe Audition. First, we placed the track into the editor track and apply parametric equaliser to it to play around the frequency. After that, we got onto the multitrack panel which allows us to put all the tracks and listening to them together or as a solo track. We then are required to adjust the frequency of 4 tracks to match the original track named "flat". This exercise not only allows us to test our headphones but also to differentiate bass and treble by increasing or decreasing the frequencies.

Note: Parametric Equaliser (L - Bass / R - Treble)

Tracks given

Tracks given

Original track

han · Exercise 1 - flat audio

Equaliser 1

Equaliser 1

han · Exercise 1 - EQ 1

Equaliser 2

Equaliser 2

han · Exercise 1 - EQ 2

Equaliser 3

Equaliser 3

han · Exercise 1 - EQ 3

Equaliser 4

Equaliser 4

han · Exercise 1 - EQ 4

Exercise 2: Sound Shaping

In today's tutorial, we were required to adjust a few tracks using equaliser to shape the sounds to sound like it's coming from a telephone, radio and so on. After we successfully apply the equaliser, we have to save it as mp3 file. It's important to know the frequencies and the properties of the sounds in particular scenarieos so that we can get the correct result. 

Sample Rate: Resolution (Visual)

                        - 44100: CD

                        - 48000: Video

Bit Depth: Colours (Visual)

Channel: Number of Voice 

Big room: Longer decay time

Small room: Shorter decay time

Telephone

For the telephone effect, I studied that it would be not too clear while also being abit muffled due to the frequency interruptions. 

 

Telephone voice

Walkie Talkie

Walkie talkie is the same as telephone but louder and more signal interruptions.

Walkie talkie

Walkie talkie mp3

In closet/ Muffled Voice

For this one, to create a muffled voice, I lower the treble part and played around the frequency.

Muffled voice

Muffled voice mp3

Bathroom

For this one, we learnt to add reverb. This allows us to adjust the reflection of sound and the decay of sound. For the bathroom, it is a small space so I applied a shorter decay time.

Bathroom Voice

Bathroom Voice mp3

Airport Announcement

For an airport announcment, I made the adjustments almost like a walkie talkie effect to capture the not so clear voice capture but added echo as the airport is a big closed area so sound travels far but also bounce back because of the walls within the space.

 

Airport annoucement

Airport annoucement mp3

Stadium

The stadium is alittle hard to achieve as the space is big but open while also have a little echo. I tried to do it a few times and finally ended up with this result.

Stadium announcement

Stadium announcement mp3

Exercise 3: Sound in space/environment

Today we learn about  how sound can be represented in you space or environment. primarily to have the sense of direction and distance.

Tutorial

In week 3, we learned about stereo sound. We got to adjust the sound's panning from left to right.

Jet Plane moving from left to right.

Jet Plane mp3

Jet Plane mp3

Voice going into the cave.

For this part, I made it seem like someone was talking outside the cave, entering the cave then exiting the cave in the end. First, I adjusted the panning so I can hear the voice from left to right. Then, I lowered the clarity of the voice so it sounds less clear at the part where the person enters the cave.

Sample Voice

Sample Voice

We were then given exercise which is 2 images of an enviroment to bring to life by using sound. The key is to dissect and analyse the image and create a sound scape narrative according to our interpretation.

Environment 1

Environment 2 pic

From my observation, the image is giving a futuristic, sci-fi scene. The first thing I see is the middle piece as it looks like a cryo chamber that I assume could possibly has a specimen in it accompanied by the few little chambers on the right side. I would like to imagine my sound making as if the specimens all break free from the lab.

Sound from image:

Sci-Fi door sound from the left side

2 guys footsteps (metal ground)

Machine ambience

Ventilation

Signals

Equipment

Bubbling liquid

I thought of making a scene of panic in the end to make it about 30s into the audio. I made it seem like there was a system down which allowed the specimen in the chamber to break free then the men coming back in a rush.

Audition space

I feel like I could do better so I might redo it or make some changes to the final outcome.

Environment 1 mp3

Environment 2

Environment 2 pic

In this image, it seems to be a research facility or a lab. I assume this to be a scene of the machine  charging up to annihilate someone or something. The theme is more futuristic judging by the screens used.

Sounds from image:

Lab ambience

Electronic beeps

High heels footsteps

Normal footsteps

Tablet sounds beep bop

Machine charging up

Gears spinning

I chose to focus on making a scenario of the laser shot by adding sounds like computer beeping, countdown, cannon charging up, laser beam sound then followed by the explosion of the laser beam.

Audition space

I feel like I could do better so I might redo it or make some changes to the final outcome.

Environment 2 mp3

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Feedback
Week 1

General feedback:

Test with different output method whether it being a different headphones, speaker or earphones to see what fits the best for your hearing and judgement.

Specific feedback:
The graph equaliser 2 & 4 is almost the same just different frequency. Are you sure? It's not wrong since it's what you hear. Hearing is influenced by a few factors so maybe it could be different with your hearing or the headphones. You did touch the major parts but also the minor ones but it's good since you can detect the minor parts too.

Week 2

General feedback:

L (bass) - more thumping, bigger
R (treble) - more crisp, smaller

Specific feedback:

Passed. Add more OOMPH

Week 3

General feedback:
Experiment it yourself to get the hang on it

Specific feedback:

X

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Reflection
Exercise 1

In the first exercise, we learnt to apply parametric equalizer on the audio tracks where we were able to adjust the frequency in order to match it with the original track. This exercise allows me to explore how specific adjustments could make a big change to the track. Through this, I am able to understand sound editing through equalizer. The parametric equalizer comes in handy when it comes to altering the base or treble of the track. It was fun but tiring to hear the same beats over and over again but I would totally do this again.

Exercise 2

In the second exercise, we learnt about sound shaping which was quite fun as I was able to manipulate the frequencies, creating different scenarios of the sound. Ranging from a sound you hear from a big to small space and an open or closed space. To do so, manipulating with the echo or the way sound travels allows to effects to happen. There were some that was challenging to recreate but in the end I was able to make it happen. Anyways, at the end of this, I think the exercise is fun allowing us to explore the effects of combining the equalizer we learnt from the first exercise and echo.

Exercise 3

At first looking at the graph intimidates me but slowly as sir explains it further and through experimentation, I was able to understand how the panning works in terms of imitating the characteristics of the sound according to the location like a cave or a plane flying by. This allows me to experiment the ways to manipulate the sound according to the space and environment which will be useful for project 1.