Final Project

AN AUDIO DRAMA

For the past few weeks, I've been following through my project schedule.

Within this section, I would be guiding you through how I did my output below :)

SHOWER THOUGHTS

by Dave Clemente

Let's dive in!

OVERVIEW

1. Scriptwriting

Story / Monologues / Dialogues
Planning of Foley / SFX

2. Recording

Foley and Props
- Collection
- Execution
Voice Recordings
- Internal
- Verbal
MIDI
- VST Plugins
- SFX

3. Mixing / Mastering

Plugins
- Compressor
- Reverb
- Limiter
- Delay
Fades / Automation Curves
Panning / Gain Controls
SFX
- EQ

1. SCRIPTWRITING

So, the first thing that I did for this project was to conceptualize a scene that would evoke a lot of sense of hearing. I was inspired when I was taking a bath (from going in to going out) in which I set the setting to be in a bathroom.

I wanted it to be an audio drama like what I hear from afternoon radio segments. So, I thought of having internal and verbal voices of the characters paired with immersive sounds and music that can affect emotions.

I decided that it would be better if it would be something I relate with. Which is about being a student, and as a person that have many questions in life. As you can see (on the script on the right side), I set the character to be a UPOU student like myself. While taking a bath he would think a lot of things, from things that matter to those that do not. And by the end, he'd realize how far he had come despite his thoughts of worries as it was revealed in the end that he was coming to his graduation ceremony with his friends.

Writing the script on the right, I included the foley recordings that I would aim for, identifying the verbal and internal voice recordings, and where music could be placed.

2. RECORDING

Toothbrush Sound

Water Sound

Faucet Sound

Towel Sound

Footstep Sound 1

Footstep Sound 2

Foley and Props

Since I already know what sound I am aiming for with the script, fetching the feasible props for foley were the next step I did. As you can see from above, recording them was mostly like that. However, there are sounds that I could not capture since it is immobile like for doors, I had to make an addition on the signal inflow wherein I had to go from microphone to DAW to microphone to phone recorder to DAW.

Voice Recordings

To be honest, I completed the voice recordings (all me) much earlier and prepared for it earlier (by practicing the lines). I just did the prop collection sequentially first. If you had been following along my blogs, I presented my workspace and that is where I recorded this part with pop filter.

While I categorized voice recordings into two: verbal and internal to, it is a matter of mixing. I would be explaining how I did that later.

MIDI

This part was quite hard and nerve racking for me (during mixing). This is where you really had to learn about more of Tracktions Waveform's not obvious tools when something does not work as intended, and I had to scourge different YouTube tutorials for it and for melody theories and chord progressions.

For this section, I made use of different VST Plugins (for virtual instruments since I can not play one) like Spitfire's BBC Syphony Orchestra for the string and piano instrument and LAB's Synth.

I plan to have a reverbs for these but I will discuss it later in mixing along with other plugins.

3. MIXING / MASTERING

Cleaning the Tracks

This is the end product of all my tracks, it consists of what I already planned: Internal and Verbal Voice Recordings, SFX, and VST instruments. I duplicated some, since a lot would overlap with each other so there are Verbal 1-2 or SFX 1-3 tracks. The first thing I did was to first, import all the recordings I have and roughly arrange them in the right time sequence.

Then, I proceeded to:

Split and cut clips with noises and uneeded parts.
Used the plugin MCompressor (Melda Productions) as noise gate for most tracks (Voice to SFX).
Silence (parts that are not affected by compression) and merged the clips
Roughly adjust the volume of each clips within the tracks about the same highs and lows.

Verbal Voice compressed to -60 dB, -12dB peak

Internal Voice compressed to -48 dB, -18 dB peak

Layering tracks accordinly in terms of sound priority. Typically: Verbal > Internal > SFX > Music. But music peaks in outro.

Other Plugins

1. EQ - applied after compression to balance the highs and lows in my virtual instruments, also serving the voice changer and effect of telephone call in verbal voice track.

2. Panning - I used this to differentiate the verbal (stereo panning) and internal voice (centered pan), an obvious example in my final mix is during the toothbrush scene where brushing pan left to right and vice versa.

Panning

3. Natural Reverb - Since the setting was in a bathroom that is an enclosed place, this creates space in my verbal voice (said out loud). Light reverb was used since I imagined a small space. There are also short delays added to really sound a natural echo.

In MIDI Plugins, there are different settings with its reverb, mostly changing into larger size and heavier mix for strings and piano to sound more emotional that do not clash with the voices, layered with delay.

4. Limiter - the last applied in verbal and interval voice tracks to solidify the ceiling for crossing the peak levels I intended (right above).

5. Fade in / Fade out - there are sounds that I intend to make sounds going louder / fainter. This plugin was used to control sounds like when I tried a footstep effect (going from near to farther away), or when I tried to make clear vocal voice into murmurings. To further make it visually easier to control, I used automation curves to differentiate rate of loudness in different clips (like the MIDI tracks at the right side).

Natural Reverb

Limiter

Fade In / Fade Out

Natural Reverb

Limiter

Automation Curves

Mastering

As for mastering the track, I noticed upon publication in sound cloud, the audio was comparatively lower than I was hearing in my DAW and wav file. I opted to put a final adjust with a limiter (MLimiterMB) on the master track for input gain (+4.50 dB) until it hits sufficient loudness meter (higher than -12 dB and -18 dB peaks). While, a release was increased (from 10ms to 100ms) and attack was slowed (from 0ms to 20ms)

Voila! Thank you for reading!

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