Soundscape 3

Another soundscape! It has certainly been a while since I’ve done one of these. This time I needed to capture an outdoor location. Honestly, I was stumped trying to find a location that wouldn’t already be done to death (e.g. the beach or the woods). That is, until Wednesday when inspiration struck! I decided to record the incoming storm for my soundscape! On Thursday, I left my dorm and recorded around 16 minutes of audio from me walking to the Point. I tried to capture some specific sounds like the generator outside Sokokis or the waves near the Point. However, the only thing that comes through is the wind hitting the microphone. Needless to say that I am disappointed, especially because I tried doing a “reporter on the scene” bit at the Point and that got completely drowned out. I tried experimenting a little with the edit here. For the first time in a soundscape, I wanted to put music in the intro and outro. I wanted to have a smooth transition between the sound of the storm and the music, so I did a crossfade. I think it works wonderfully. Similar story with the other sounds that I had to pull in later for the generator, walking, and waves. The music selection was a bit of a hassle. I wanted something intense and classical on strings to give the storm a type of menace but I was not able to find any that were satisfactory. Thankfully I did find the piece that wound up being used in the intro and outro (Unison by Marty Ehrlich). It’s weird and off-kilter in a way that isn’t necessarily menacing but is off-putting. It fit well enough for my purposes. My narration was surprisingly loud this time around. I had to really compress it and bring down the levels in order for it to not peak.