“There are words that everyone needs to hear.”

The audio project that I will be working on for the rest of the MMS 172 class can best be described as poetry reading with a cozy ambience. The poems that I will voice out are collectively themed around finding one’s purpose, fulfillment, and the beauty of life. In conjunction with the inspirational tone of the poetry is a curated ambience to give the audio a warm, cozy feeling. The idea is to give the listeners a scenario wherein the narrator is inside during a rainy day, who then makes some tea and lights candles before opening a book and reading aloud from it. I want to make this project comforting in its atmosphere and motivating in its subject matter. I hope that it can give some encouragement to those who need it, for those who are on a rainy day.

Why poetry reading? I especially have a deep appreciation for Desiderata – a friend I’ve met since high school introduced me to the poem and it taught me a lot of valuable life lessons. So, when I saw the instructions for the project, my mind went straight to the poem. I also have to be honest and admit that my capabilities are quite limited in this arena as I am not musically inclined. Desiderata’s length unfortunately doesn’t quite reach the time length requirements so I decided to incorporate other works of a similar nature for a collective reading. I’m taking this project as a chance to engage with the literature on a deeper level, especially in amplifying it, as I think these poems contain priceless messages that everyone needs to hear in their life at least once, even me.

a. Vocal

I will be doing the narration in a simple, conversational tone, as to not detract from the message of the poetry. When it comes to the language, the poems are on the straightforward side, light in their abstraction. Moreover, the chosen poetry ranges from free verse to prose poetry. Hence, I think this directness calls for a simpler delivery. The three works that I will be reading out are: Desiderata by Max Ehrmann, Wild Geese by Mary Oliver, and Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte. The texts of these poems are below:

b. Ambient sound

To curate that cozy atmosphere of the audio, I plan on adding an ambient audio track of rainfall. It will be recorded from inside to give that spatial distinction in the audio, actually making it feel like they are inside during rain. Another track that I am planning on recording is the ambient sound of a crackling fireplace. Recording the sounds of an actual fire will be virtually unrealistic in a controlled environment, but I have seen tutorials of recreating fire sounds using plastic bags of chips. Though the rainfall sounds will for sure be added to the project, I will still be doing some trial-and-error with the fireplace sounds, and it will still be dependent on how realistic it ends up sounding. The ambient tracks will be playing throughout the track at a minimum.

c. Foley sound effects

As mentioned earlier, before reading the poems aloud, the narrator will be doing some self-care rituals like making tea and lighting candles. I think it further adds to that chill mood of the project, setting the tone for what’s to come. Furthermore, sounds of flipping pages will also be incorporated in between passages to make it feel as if the narrator is reading off a book. It also gives some breathing time in between poems for the listeners to absorb the messages. All of these sound effects will be recreated foley-style.

d. Synthesized background music

For the final audio track, there will be background music incorporated in the project. Truthfully, this is the most challenging aspect of all four tracks as I don’t know how to play any instruments nor do I own any. However, I do think that using some pre-recorded royalty free music online might be too easy of an option. With that, my idea is to play around with virtual instruments and recreate an existing song. I think this is a good middle ground given the amount of time left. Though I’m still exploring ideas for which ones to use, I’m currently leaning towards using midi.city’s crystal synth. I plan on recreating the song Frosti or Batabid by Björk on the instrument. Stardew Valley's soundtrack also has some quaint-sounding music that I am considering as a second option. These songs are purely instrumental and have relatively simpler melodies, especially the latter, which I’ll hopefully be able to recreate. They have a mystical sounding mood that I think will incorporate nicely with the project.

Since I will be voicing out pre-existing literary works, the bulk of the project tasks is strictly for the recording and mixing. Below is a GANTT chart of my project:

Textually, the schedule is as follows:

PRE-PRODUCTION – July 27 – August 2
RECORDING
Foley, Music – August 3 – 16
Vocal – August 10 – August 23
Ambience – August 3 – August 23*
MIXING – August 17 – September 3
PUBLISHING – August 31 - September 3

Most of the tasks are scheduled by week in a linear fashion. For the recording sessions, I decided to be more specific with it due to possible constraints. As of writing this, I’m currently down with the flu – very congested, and my voice is definitely not at its best condition right now (even if it’s just for speaking). Hence, I decided to put the recording of background music and foley effects as the first ones. For the ambience sounds, on the other hand, I left a very open schedule for three weeks. I’ll be recording rain as it happens. Additionally, I’m specifically looking for a gentle rainfall rather than torrential rain so it wouldn’t be too disruptive in the context of the project. Setting a more rigid timeframe for that will be tricky. I also plan on doing multiple takes of the tracks, especially the vocal, and choosing the best ones accordingly during post-production. I dedicated a three-week long period for the mixing part, as I want to take as much time as possible in getting as full of a grasp as I can with the DAW and polishing the final output.

Most of the process will be taking place at my workstation in my bedroom. Unfortunately, my room isn’t sound-proofed well – I’ll often hear outside noise like our neighbor’s dogs barking, which gets picked up by the mic. My workaround is to record strictly at night, when it is quietest around the area. Turning off the fan and air-conditioner is also a given, so I’ll have to record in the heat to make the environment as silent as I can make it.

Now, more specifically, for the recording area, I have loosely followed this tutorial provided in the forum for a DIY booth. I’m in no position to do bigger scale acoustic treatments in my room, so I think this is a decent alternative. Fortunately, I already have one of the ottoman storage stools used in the video. I lined it with a folded blanket and positioned my mic in the middle. It sits on the nightstand beside my desk. When recording the ambient rainfall, I plan to move the DIY booth and mic closer to the window such that the open face of the booth is facing the window.

Below are photos of my production area.

Hardware

• Microphone
  Maono AU-PM461TR USB Condenser Microphone (cardioid pattern)

• Pop filter
  ONAIR Mic Screen Pop Filter

• Speakers
  Edifier X100B PC Speaker System

• PC
  Intel Core i7-12700 PC build

I purchased the microphone and pop filter around 2023, and have since done a lot of voiceover work on it, both for creative projects and school requirements. It’s a decent mic, certainly much better than recording on my iPhone earphone’s mic that I used before. I’ve had decent sounding voiceovers on this mic before, and hopefully with my new makeshift vocal booth, I can see some improvements. My PC build including the speaker system, on the other hand, were all purchased last year after my laptop started blue-screening. It has so far been very adequate for editing work.

Software

• Digital Audio Workstation
  Davinci Resolve Fairlight

• Virtual instrument
  midi.city

For the DAW, I decided to go with Davinci Resolve’s Fairlight module. I have used this software for years now both for doing voiceovers and post-production. It might just be because it’s also a video editing software, but the platform feels like familiar ground for me. I think going with Fairlight will also serve me well as I plan to keep using the software in the future as I take video editing more seriously.

As mentioned earlier, I’m not totally sure on which virtual instrument to use yet, but I’m currently leaning towards midi.city’s crystal synth. The site has a piano that is playable using the keyboard. I suppose that this is enough for my needs – I’ll take the playing little at a time, stopping whenever and splicing them together into one full track if needed. 

Others

• Materials for Foley effects / ambience
  match, candle, tea, mug, book, chip plastic bag 

I think the signal inflow for my project is quite straightforward – three of the recorded tracks will be picked up by the microphone, while the virtual instrumentation goes straight to the DAW. As I will be using a USB microphone, its output goes straight into the DAW as well, eliminating the need for a separate audio interface. For the outflow - my PC build does not have a dedicated sound card, so the audio goes to the integrated Realtek ALC897 audio codec in the motherboard, before finally going to the speaker system.

I plan to publish the finished audio on either SoundCloud or Google Drive, then embed the file on the blog of my final output.

I’ve already briefly touched upon the possible problems I’ll encounter in the process, but I’ll list them down below together with possible solutions.

• Outdoor noise. As mentioned prior, my bedroom where I’ll be doing all of the recording and production is not sound-proofed. Hence, my solution for this is to strictly record at night. There will also be occasions where our neighbor’s dogs bark loudly even at night, or other noise issues like loud vehicles or our neighbors loudly singing karaoke. With that, I think allocating two weeks for the recording can provide a good enough opportunity where everything is hopefully silent.

• No rainfall. I allocated three weeks to record the ambient rainfall noise. Since we’re still in the monsoon season, I believe I’ll be able to find an opportunity to record. However, there is obviously a scenario where it doesn’t rain. In that case, I will instead be using the Foley fireplace crackling sound that I’ll record by its own. Granted, I might have to reimagine the project’s title if I end up with no rain sounds, but everything essentially remains the same.

• Voice condition. I particularly scheduled the vocal recordings a good two weeks from now so I can give my voice some time to bounce back.

• Difficulty in producing synthesized music. Since I’m not musically inclined and I can’t play any instruments, I am obviously anticipating a lot of difficulty when having to play the virtual instrument I’ll use for the background music. I deliberately picked a simpler melody to play, and I also plan on recording in very short intervals and just splicing the tracks together.

Before proceeding with the production sessions, I definitely have a few lingering thoughts I’d like to share in this post. Creative projects are always exciting for me, but with it comes the looming feeling that I won’t be able to deliver something decent. That being said, I know that I picked up a lot of valuable lessons about sound during this class so far, and I’m hoping it will all culminate with a serviceable output.

Serviceable. I have to be realistic with this and manage my expectations. With my current skillset, I decided to keep the project as simple as possible. I feel that making it too complex will get too overwhelming for me since I’m still figuring things out. As I only have a few tracks to produce, that will hopefully get me to really zero in and focus on the smaller details and fine-tune as much as possible.

What about my goals? Other than making an adequate output, my ultimate goal is to have a fuller grasp of a DAW. I’ve been trying to take video editing more seriously, and, as mentioned prior in our very first unit, I also tend to treat audio like an afterthought. Hence, my videos tend to be incongruent in that it has polished visuals but subpar sound. This is also why I ultimately picked Resolve’s Fairlight for my software, especially since it was mentioned on a forum once. Partaking on a project that's strictly audio can hopefully give me a fuller grasp of its foundations.

I’m diving into this project with feelings of both excitement and nervousness, but I’m hoping I can channel that energy to ultimately be productive. I do like the concept I came up with and I think there’s potential for something interesting, but hopefully I can have some fun with the process as well.