Binaural Sound Experience – Page 3

March 4, 2017Charles MacRae No Comments

The Horror Stories of Lincoln (LO3)

As initial research for my horror story based in Lincoln, I searched the internet for the ghost stories and myths associated with the area around the cathedral/castle in lincoln. I ended up finding a blog made by some previous students of the university going through some of the major ghost stories based in lincoln and gathered information from each of their articles. *1

I got the basic information from around 8 different ghost stories, the majority of which are situated right between the castle and cathedral. I did this research mainly to get an idea of what sort of things I could put in the story that I am writing for this piece as well as what sounds I am going to have to recreate to accompany the piece, for example, there is a story about a horseman charging towards the castle, So it is likely I will need to recreate the sound of horse hooves in this piece. It is also likely that the sound of ghosts will be present in the piece fairly often, due to them coming up in every story and all around that area of Lincoln that I will be recording.

*1 https://hauntedhistoryoflincolnshire.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/about/

March 1, 2017Charles MacRae No Comments

Initial Voice-Over Tests (LO2)

As part of this project, I am attempting to do something that I have never been comfortable with doing, which is using my own voice, this time in the context of voice-over or narration. I spent a day with an RE-20 Microphone connected to a Zoom and ran through a scary story that I found online multiple times. *1

I edited the story that I found slightly so that I could read it easier and also make it sound like something I would write/say. It took me a fair few tries to actually get to a point where I felt comfortable talking to the microphone and also got all of the words write on a single take.

However, after about the twentieth try, I got to a point where I felt comfortable and could read the piece in its entirety. My original plan was to have someone else do the narration of the story, however, I quite enjoyed the process and I want to try and get better during this project.

*1 http://www.creepypasta.com/stairs-2/

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