For this assignment, we had to discuss why we chose to enroll in DS106.
To do this, I recorded myself and then added the audio to audacity. I completed the assignment by adding a song as background audio. The song was found on Purple Planet Music, a royalty-free music download website.
So I loved this assignment and decided to make it my own, by saying why Andrea Carr is involved with #ds106 (because this is the question we all want to know). Take a listen:
For my last audio assignment of week 4 I only needed .5 stars. While looking in the assignment bank, I came across the Audio Self-Reflection assignment. This was an easy and quick assignment. All you had to do was answer the following questions in a 3-5 minute audio clip:
I opened up audacity once again and hit the record button with the list above in view so I could just go down the list. I didn’t practice as I was pretty confident my ability to answer those questions haha. The assignment also recommended to add some background music to personalize it some more. I went through my iTunes library and found a favorite album of mine, Trxye EP, and picked an appropriate song. I ended up picking the song “Fun” and I dragged the file from my iTunes and dropped it into audacity, where my voice recording was. I embedded a youtube video of the entire album if you wanna take a listen to it.. Im a fan. Anyways, I knew I would have to make the background sound a little quieter as it would drown out my voice. I adjusted it using the tools in audacity until I has happy with it. Pretty simple. There is an opportunity to share your audio file here if you do it.
1.5 STARS
For my third audio assignment I did a reflection on my time in ds106 so far. I had to answer the questions, “Why am I here?” “What brought me to DS106?” and “Why did I stay?” I was completely honest in my post and it was really nice to get it out there as to why I am in the class and how I feel about ds106 now, as compared to when I first started. I put my audio over the song “Allison Road” by the Gin Blossoms to really personalize it.
To do this I used some of the Audacity skills I learned in the past and with doing my earlier assignment this week on reversing a song. After using the voice memo app on my iPhone to record my reflection, I dropped it into Audacity. Then, I chose “Allison Road” in my iTunes and made an AIFF version of it so I could also put it into Audacity. All I had to do after that was make the song quieter with the tone tabs in order to make my audio portion louder over the music. In the end it worked! Now I have the perfect third and last assignment for the week because I was able to talk about some of my trials this week in my reflection!
I am always dreaming of this day to come. It’s my final year! I am almost there. I can see my diploma being handed to me on stage. As a first year generation, it is a dream come true. This road has definitely been a journey to remember, a memory to pass on to future generations, and a new standard to continue.
I created this audio by recording my reflection through SoundCloud with nature sounds playing from Youtube on a different tab. Next, I uploaded the file to my MacBook and saved it in my iTunes folder. Then, I uploaded the file into this post.
The assignment prompt was very straightforward, and that made the creation and editing of the assignment very straightforward as well, even though it was time-consuming. I used Camtasia to both record and edit the audio, since it is on a free 30 day trial and this class lasts less than that, and has all the functionality I’m likely to need in the next 2 weeks. I first began by creating a script – reflection, for me, is something I think through and can’t do off-the-cuff. Then I simply read it off while using Camtasia’s Record Voiceover function, pictured below. Recording had a minor hiccup at first – the RealTek audio drivers for my motherboard were interfering with recording a voice narration, so I had to disable them and then restart my computer to finally get the options to light up instead of being grayed-out:
This process was made more convenient by the fact that Camtasia automatically took the clips I recorded and stuck them in the Clip Bin for the project in question, where media of any type can be dragged and dropped onto tracks in the desired order.
Once that was done, I listened to the base recording several times, and made note of the parts I liked and didn’t like. I saved the process of eliminating “Ums”, “Uhs,” and breathing for last, since I needed everything to go together smoothly first. During this phase, I used the split tool early and often to grab the parts of the original clip I liked, right under the highlights Voice Narration tool and next to the scissors.
After grabbing the parts I liked, I re-recorded the parts I thought needed redoing, revising my script at the same time for flow and to eliminate redundancies. I eliminated silences during the starts and ends of disjoint clips to make them fit together at this stage primarily through the Cut and Split tools, and I had to move around the “refuse” clips before deleting them to make room for actual audio.
Once I had the entire thing put together the way I wanted and I liked the way it sounded, I started eliminating “Ums”, “Uhs,” and breathing sounds. This I did primarily through the “Silence” tool, located under the “Audio” menu:
This is a photo of the completed project, and the silence button is right above the highlighted “Audio” menu. If you select a part of an audio track and hit “silence”, the small green dots you see on track three pop up to indicate a silenced part of the track. This was great when eliminating Ums and Uhs, because it instantly gave me pauses in the right places to seem like I was speaking naturally instead of from a script.
Track 2 has the calming music I imported and dragged onto the track, which I didn’t edit at all except to turn the volume WAY down to keep it in the background, the button for which is visible in the screenshot near the “Silence” button.
After all that, I clicked File -> Produce Special -> Export Audio As option to export all audio in the project as an MP3 file, which I then uploaded to SoundCloud.
The music itself is copyrighted by Kajiura Yuki, titled Once We Were, and is from the Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Part 3 – Rebellion film. I claim no ownership over it. Please support the official release.
- David
Have a listen as I get into my experiences of the DS106 and all its glory.
Song is by Electric Grocery, entitled “Hot Spot.”
**All musical right belong to Electric Grocery.
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/audio-self-reflection/
Share your DS106 impressions by creating a short 3-5 min audio self-reflection. Add background music to personalize it even more. Want to meet others and hear what they’ve done? Pop on over to theDS106 Community Self-Reflections.
I’m not going to explain here! That’s what the audio is for silly.
I really enjoyed learning most of the programs for DS106. I will definitely be making some GIFs in my future. Here is the self reflection part of my final project.
Difficulty: 3 stars
