Unfortunately, Mocha is the quietest dog ever! Luckily, I was able to interview some humans.
This week, I’ve been working on my audio story and learning to use Adobe Audition. Audition has proved to be easier to manage than Photoshop and Illustrator, however…
Interviewing people is NOT easy D:
I started this audio story pretty confident because as I said, Audition is simpler to use. That was my first mistake! I did not anticipate how hard it is to get people to talk to you, remind them to speak freely and use their normal voices. Some of the people I interviewed felt so self-conscious by the sight of my cell phone recording that they could not relax and talk to me naturally about dogs.
(Here’s to my newly found respect for Terry Gross and Ira Glass…HOW DO THEY DO IT?)
The process for doing this audio story was like this:
Narration.
- I made a rough script of what I was going to say. I tried recording my ideas without a script but I had too many mistakes.
Actualities / Soundbites.
- I found people to interview. This took some convincing. I asked them 2 questions:
- Tell me about your dog
- How do you feel about your dog?
- After collecting my raw data, I looked for sounds and music that could work for these audio stories. Here is when I tried to “interview” Mocha or get him to bark… he just starred haha. He rarely barks, so of course, I also had to look for dog barking sounds.
Music and sound effects
- I used one song and two different barking sounds, all of which I downloaded from freesound.org, are under Creative Commons License CC0 1.0 “Public Domain Dedication.”
Putting the acts and tracks together
- Mixing, trimming, re-mixing, adjusting volume. I did a lot of editing to remove filler words. English is not my (or my interviewees’) first language, so getting rid of filler words was definitely a must.
Creating scenes with audio
Adding the music and sound effects the right way made a huge difference. Once I had the audio story in order, I added different sounds to try and create “scenes” for my interview. I liven in a city that seems to be permanently under construction, so I recorded the interviews inside a bathroom haha (the only quiet spot I could find #cityproblems).
I added a music bed and apart from that, I mixed barks and the sounds of a happy dog (mostly Mocha’s dog tags) to try and create the different scenes.
I’m quite curious to see what others think! Communicating through sound is harder than I thought!
Wags and kisses,
Mocha’s mom
Dog Pawrents of the Bay Area 
Karla! All of your projects are so awesome! This one is the best one yet! I really like the music here and the natural feel. I can tell you layered really well in Audition and it all sounds really natural and put together. The intro especially is very nice and doesn’t sound harsh or too loud with the barking. That fun noise at 0:54 is nice but a little louder than the rest of your audio. I think lowering that sound effect will be nice and is easy to do. At 1:13 the speaker breathes into the mic a little heavily which I am not 100% sure on how to minimize that sound without lowering the volume and making her sound too quiet. Instead I think you can take that portion out and begin with the part where she says “I absolutely love-“. Instead of her restating the question.
Awesome job again! Excited to hear the final!
Lizzie
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Thank you Lizzie! This is really helpful. Hope you’re staying safe!
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This is such a fun audio story! I love the happy doggy sounds in the background and the music you chose is so fun and pairs perfectly with a story about dogs and dog parents.
I do think the background music is a just a smidge too loud and would consider turning it down a little. I would make hearing all of your interviewees a little easier.
Additionally, at about 1:13, your interviewer breathes very heavily into the microphone – you could easily remove the heavy breathing here without losing what she’s saying.
The last section of your story, starting at 2:08 (the part about oxytocin) I like this a lot, but it’s A LOT to throw out all at the end. Maybe consider breaking this section up amongst interviews as well?
Looking forward to hearing the final piece!
–Leann
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Thank you Leann.
I really like the idea of breaking up my “fun fact” and make it feel more a part of the story.
Karla
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I really appreciated my colleagues’ feedback.
To be honest, I hadn’t noticed the super loud breathing of one of my interviewees, so I’ll be editing that.
After my classmates also pointed out how the music felt too loud, I decided to listen to my audio story with different headphones and on the computer directly. I realized I had been using the same headphones for everything and didn’t notice certain things. The music does drown out the voices in certain parts of the story, I’m going to lower the music volume and improve the transitions.
I added a fun fact at the end and Leann pointed out that it felt like a lot of information crammed at the end. I really liked her suggestion and I will be breaking up that information to make it feel like a more organic part of the whole audio story.
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Hi Karla! I love your topic especially because it was just National Puppy Day! It’s great to hear anecdotes from other dog lovers. I think it adds to your story and gives a different perspective than just your own. It also reminds me of a project I did in college about why people adopted their dogs. The music you chose is also perfect. It makes me think I’m in a Pixar movie and I’m about to have talking animals around me. I do think that some of the dog barks and collar jingles (I think that’s what the sound is) might be just a little too loud in some sections so you may want to adjust the volume. Also, some of your interviewees sound louder than others and even you at one point in the middle section, so try to match pitch or volume and I think you should be good. I can’t wait to hear the end product!
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Hi Karla,
This is a well-crafted audio story! Everything flowed really nicely, and I like how you used sound effects to aid transitions.
I liked your choice of music, but the way it shifted between loud and quiet was a little distracting since the volume of human voices remained much more constant. Granted, this might have been extra pronounced on my headphones and it may sound fine on other speakers. If you want to bring the volume of the track towards the middle, Audition has a compressor (found in Amplitude and Compression > Dynamic Effects) which reduces a track’s dynamic range.
One of the interviews sounded a little echoey around 1:58. This might also be from my headphones, but it almost sounded as if the speaker was facing a wall instead of the microphone.
Overall, this was great! I’m looking forward to hearing the final version!
Zack
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