February 2017 – Binaural Sound Experience

February 28, 2017Charles MacRae No Comments

The Cornerstones of Horror Media (LO3)

There are many things that can make horror work well. As I am focussing on audio only and have no visual accompaniment, I can’t show the listener a scary image, so I must focus on making the story scary as well as adding scary sound effects and music. But there are many things I can take from horror movies and other mediums and apply to my piece.

One of the key concepts that I can take away from horror is the idea of tension and suspense.*1 Although I am creating short pieces (1.5 minutes), It is still possible to create tension within a short space of time through the narration and with background music slowly changing or gaining in volume. Also as a full set, I can change the pacing of the pieces to slowly add to the tension, culminating in the final piece.

There are common themes within horror movies that revolve around the speech/narration that I can take away and work into my story writing/telling. *2 These themes tend to involve the supernatural or a death in some way, which is something that will already be part of the stories as it is involved in the source material I took inspiration from. Plus, for the people that go to each of the areas and listen to the pieces, it adds a layer of creepiness, especially if experienced during the night.

In some horror media (usually lower quality movies) there are a few tropes that appear to scare people, the main one that I am tempted to put in one of my pieces is jumpscares. The basic way that I could do this is to just add a loud sharp noise that the listener wouldn’t expect. However, it may be a little too cliche and cheesy.

*1 http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/scary.html

*2 https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201410/the-top-ten-things-make-horror-movies-scary

February 20, 2017Charles MacRae No Comments

Initial Ideas on How to Present the Final Product (LO4)

My initial idea for how I wanted to present my work was taken from an installation that was at the Sonophilia – sound art festival in 2016. It was called the Headphone installation trail and the main concept of the piece was to show off the history of the areas along a trail, throughout lincoln, via short stories or poems. Each of the pieces was created by a different person and the entire piece was accompanied by an online map showing you the way to travel to each destination.

I like the idea of having a set of individual pieces that are linked in a trail as it gives the listener a route to follow and means that each story can have different feelings and can come to a climactic end at the final place.

However, one thing that I would change is the use of an online map. I think that it would add to the experience if the listener had a paper map that depicted an older version of lincoln, that they could then follow.

Sound Art Installations

https://www.bing.com/mapspreview/?osid=a8e1addf-a790-47a6-9361-e8cfc20a30fe&cp=53.232419~-0.539494&lvl=16&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

February 13, 2017Charles MacRae No Comments

Initial Research – Recording Equipment (LO1)

I did some research on what other people are using to create binaural audio recordings and came upon a lot of different forums with people discussing their various different setups and equipment. There were three types of recording equipment that I could choose from:

Number 1:

A static head shape with omnidirectional microphones placed in each ear on either side. This product is used to simulate the space between our ears as well as the shape of our ears to give the most accurate replication of sound. This option would have been good if I were perhaps recording a static character in a room and just wanted the microphones to stay in one place, however, I am creating a moving piece so this was not something I could use.

Number 2:

DIY Binaural Microphones. These are surprisingly cheap to make and work very well when placed in the ear, and this is the main way that people record binaurally from what I can see on the forums, I also recently looked into Dallas Simpson and he also creates his own binaural microphones. I was originally going to use this type of microphone, however, I don’t have the equipment to make them and they don’t allow you to monitor your recording as you are doing it.

Number 3:

Roland cs-10em. These were recommended to me on many forums to start out recording binaurally. They are a combination of headphone and omnidirectional condenser microphone so that they can be used to monitor whilst recording. I made sure to find some tech demos prior to purchasing and was happy with how they sound, so these are the microphones that I will be using to record my project with.

References:

https://www.roland.com/us/products/cs-10em/specifications/

http://openfile.org.uk/archive/dallas-simpson-binaural-recording/ – “My simple binaural recording technique is to insert high quality custom modified sub miniature microphones into my ears and thus sample my own hearing.”

http://www.head-fi.org/t/544390/roland-cs-10em-binaural-field-recording

February 13, 2017Charles MacRae No Comments

Initial Research – Discovering Binaural Recording (LO1/3)

I first had the idea to create a binaural sound recording whilst I was searching through YouTube to find what I called “3D/360” sound and I found quite a few videos this way which interested me and made me want to pursue something similar.

The first few videos I found weren’t based in the horror genre but instead just showed off what you could do with binaural recording:

I then continued searching and found one that was more interesting and was more horror themed:

This was the main video that I used to kick start my idea. Originally I wanted to emulate this sort of recording of a static person in the middle of a room and have all of the action going on around the listener but after talks with Emily, we decided that it would be more interesting to have a moving piece of audio that the listener would emulate in a certain area, which made us think that the top of Lincoln, towards the cathedral, would be an interesting scene to experience the audio recording I make.

February 13, 2017Charles MacRae No Comments

Timeline of Work

Weeks 4-5 (6th Feb – 19th Feb):

Experimenting with the recording equipment.
Go on the ghost walk.
Try narrating a script.

Weeks 6-7 (20th Feb – 5th Mar):

Write up the script for the narration/story.
Begin the binaural recordings.
Experiment with creating music/sound for the project.

Weeks 8-9 (6th Mar – 19th Mar):

Record the narration of the story.
Start creating music/sounds to accompany the recording.
Record extra sounds/background noises.

Weeks 10-11 (20th Mar – 2nd Apr):

Have the bulk of the recording finished.
Start the mixing process.

Weeks 12-14 (3rd Apr – 27th Apr)

Finish up the project.
Make sure the mix sounds good.
Get it ready for hand-in.

The research will accompany the entire project and will be consistent throughout.