Pre-production Assignment

Project Concept Statement 

I plan to narrate about one to two stories from Reddit, which is where many modern horror stories originate, and recreate the ambiance and feel of them through audio. I gathered some stories from the r/nosleep thread on Reddit and then tweaked certain parts to align with the sound production. I drew inspiration from this for my pastime hobby, which involves watching animated Reddit stories on YouTube. This time, however, I'm narrating it and creating the mood and setting using audio only. The story originated from a written script only and sought to create something that had not been made yet, or had not been typically created in YouTube animation. 

Basically, it is like a story from the radio, but make it more modern in terms of horror setting, events, and audio effects. I am planning to either narrate it in my natural voice, or if needed, for dialogues, will change my voice delivery for other characters. My goal is to frighten the audience., I hope so, because if not successful, it will be very cringy. 

Project Plan

Logistics

I will be recording all instruments myself. Will be using virtual instruments, and my hardware setup can endure the software needs by then. Making this work will include a lot of retakes, changing of pitch, preparing every single part of the story, also maybe a third ear to listen to and get feedback from, and lastly, a lot of listening and critically assessing it.

Everything is done in the little corner of my room. The room is basically with big cabinets and a bed, but we will try to fix the acoustics and isolate the mic for recording. Since I will be using a cardioid microphone, it will be beneficial to be as close as possible to take advantage of the pickup pattern. The room is air-conditioned, so I can lock it during a recording session without any hassle to control possible noise. I also plan to either take cover on my duvet or sneak below my table to isolate recording as much as possible. Since my place is cramped up, getting as close to the microphone won't be a problem, but trying to minimize breathing sounds and mouth clicks will be my challenge. In terms of sound effects, I will be trying my best to record all of it through my external microphone, but if push comes to shove, VST will be my back up on sounds I cannot simply create with props.

Equipment

I am using the following equipment in an attempt to create a project. I have listed all possible equipment I can be able to use, but not all will be used depending on the song needed and theme. Most of them are mine, excluding the physical instruments, as these are all borrowed from my younger siblings. Below is a list of the equipment:

Microphone

• Havit Gaming Microphone GK52

Headphones

• Samson SR850

Physical Instrument

• Guitar

• Ukulele

Digital Audio Workstation

• Tracktion Waveform

• Different VST plugins, and MIDI

Recording and Mixing Tools

• Acer Nitro 5 AN515-57

• NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 3060

The plan here is to keep the narration at the center of the audio but using other elements to set the ambience and create the bothering feeling in it. My initial plan is to use my microphone for narration and singing. I also want to play around with VST plugins to capture the eerie and anxiety-inducing sound that will be played in the farthest part of the audio, just setting up weird vibration to create the fear effect to listeners. I may put some reverberation here to make it really far from the main narration, but I will try to generate it first without it, as a challenge. I initially was about to use Audacity, but I had a problem with the microphone not being read by the application every time after I recorded one sound, hence I decided to use Tracktion Waveform. 

In terms of the physical instrument,  I will either use a guitar or ukulele, but I am planning to either to a simple strumming pattern or a plucking. I will try to record it by myself, but I do have flimsy fingers, so I will also record my brother playing the same strumming and pick one that will l suit the stories.

All of this process and magic will be recorded, saved, and mixed via my laptop Acer Nitro 5 AN515-57 with NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 3060. This will be enough to work with all software and hardware mixing together.

Signal Flow

Since I have variations of signals in and out to complete the whole Reddit story narration, I want to track and understand how the signal flows from one track to another. Please do keep in mind that I am loading everything directly to my laptop and only using a built-in soundcard, as I don't have an audio interface, so delays and differences of audio quality will need to be worked around during recording and mixing.

Signal Inflow

I have indicated both inflow and outflow of the signal and also highlighted materials used, as some affect the signal flow. There are multiple inflows of signals, but only one outflow. This is because there are multiple tracks needed and will be coming from different sound source. The outflow, on the other hand, will go straight to either speaker or microphone as the multiple tracks has been merge into one final track already. 

Sound effects, coming from the talent's voice and instruments, will use the microphone with a cardioid pickup pattern to record the audio signals. This will then be directly recorded into the built-in soundcard of my laptop and straight to my DAW. However, a change in this pattern is where I will use VST, or virtual instruments. The sound effects will come from some MIDI inputs and plugins, which will not play sound by themselves without a VST. Then the VST will be recorded with the use of the DAW's internal recording. Basically, the input of the recording here will be from MIDI channels and VST plugins. Compared to the previous flow, this can be a little bit complicated compared to direct recording from the sound source to the microphone.

The signal outflow is considered one, other than the non-ending cycle of relistening to it, because it is expected that the multiple tracks will create one final output, hence one signal flow.

Timetable

My MMS 172 Final Project is expected to be completed according to the timetable above. The project started on July 19, 2025, and this will be the start of week one, and the last week will end on September 3, 2025. The task, either big or small, is done on a weekly basis while I also follow up on needed blogs for the project. I will try to record the story firsthand just to get the hang of it, so any retakes will be considered as practice. Typically, the first week is room for error on any story changes, recording setup, and technique. But the timeline itself is an internal deadline to align the needed parts of the project to the available time I have.

The pre-production plan was a week's worth of planning, outside the main blog submission. I also want to lay out some plans in my mind and try to do it in the first week, and if it is outside my capabilities, changes can be made to the pre-production plan. Practice here is less as this is more of narration hence, cutting some parts of the story to remake it can be done on the recording and mixing week. I did put a lot of room for error on multiple listening tests, maybe having a 3rd ear to listen to the story, or I, myself, assessing where it is lacking or overpowering.  The final week will be room for finishing touches and possibly checking for little errors, which I can clean up before listening to the audio output as a whole again.

Although a timeline has been presented, it is acknowledged that certain emergencies, happenings, or events can overlap some dates, but this timeline will serve as a guide to at least know where I should be now on the output within the timeline grid.

Recording and Mixing

In terms of recording, as mentioned previously, I will be using my microphone to record the main narration of the story, and maybe some sound effects. I also want to use an acoustic guitar for ambience, and also use my voice to create an eerie effect if needed. I will also use household equipment as a way to recreate sounds in the stories if there are any.  Furthermore, I might use some VST for some sounds I cannot create or have access to the instrument needed. But the 4 main tracks will be compromised by the following: 

• Main Vocal for Narration

• Singing Voice for Ambience

• Guitar to Support background singing or humming ( The talent will be my younger brother,  and I will proctor the recording)

• VST and other sound effects ( usually the static produced by the TV and bass )

In terms of mixing, while the timetable flattens out the plan, I want to make sure mixing will be enough before finishing touches to ensure that the horror aspect is indeed alive on the story itself without any visual help.

Final Thoughts Moving Forward

The goal of this project, other than completing a requirement for a course, is to apply the lessons learnt and produce an effective product based on the project plan. It might be a different experience for each listener, but the goal here is to induce fear and unsettling feelings. I want the experience to be authentic. Getting to such goals can require a lot of re-listening and revisiting the recording and mix. A lot of patience and listening power is needed to push through the production. 

Moving forward, I also expect to follow my original pre - pre-production plan, especially the core and foundation of it, to prevent drifting away from the expected output. This will also guide me to know what the focus of my project is, rather than being lost in the moment. Goodluck to me and to others as well on the same journey of creating an output out of what we have learn on this course.