I did it! I successfully used Audacity! I did need some help from the Digital Knowledge Center at UMW, but I did it! My Sound Effect Story isn’t very interesting, but it’s relatable. It is intended to be the story of someone’s morning as they head to work. It begins with the sound of a coffee pot getting going since I cannot really start my day without a cup or two of coffee. Then it is a dog barking because most people start their day letting their pet out or taking them for a walk. After that, you can hear the sound of some keys jangling, hinting that the person in the story is heading off to work. It is then followed by the sounds of New York City’s streets. Whoever is in the story is walking to their office for work. Then you can hear the sound of someone typing on a computer- the person in the story is at work.

I was really frustrated when I first downloaded and opened Audacity. I had no idea how to even begin using the application or even how to add sounds from freesound.org to it. I went to the DKC this morning in the hopes someone could help me and it ended great! I was able to make the final version on my story on my own and successfully exported and uploaded it. It’s rewarding to accomplish something I initially was very doubtful about!

For my sound effects-only story, I had a hard time trying to come up with a story to do. I first thought maybe I should try to follow along the sounds of two people falling in love, getting married and having a baby? But that was so difficult to do without any talking, so I decided against it. I also thought well hey, maybe I could do a child’s life? But I didn’t think it was quite the same without developing the child’s name into the story plot. I went back to the example, where they were brushing their teeth, taking a shower, etc. I found that the footsteps sounded like godzilla, and then it hit me-godzilla terrorizing people on a nice sunny day! I could create the sounds of a peaceful day at the beach, and then screams when godzilla shows up! Perfect! hahaha

To create this, I used free sound-sound bites and used Audacity to edit them in together. It really isn’t a hard program to use once you get the hang of editing, clipping sound effects, and changing pitches. Not too shabby.

When I was done and listening to the final product, my fiancé was doing homework next to me. She liked it so much she didn’t think that I made it! LOL! She asked to hear it 3 times and laughed saying it was so good. Now that’s the best darn stamp of approval I could’ve gotten

Here it is below, I hope you like it.

-Caty

Listen to this short audio story with headphones before continuing:

Thanks for listening to my short ‘wordless’ story. I consider this to still be my wordless short story– despite the people speaking in Italian; because they provide no actual narration to the story. (That is, unless one of you speaks Italian, in which case, I have no defense.) This all being said, I wanted to make a mystery themed short story.

This post was super helpful in the making of this clip, and I suggest all of you watch it in case you need help looking for a place to start.

This brings me to my questions for the listeners. Did you notice anything that interested you about the placement of the sounds ‘inside of the headphones’? That is to say, certain sounds from the left or right? Did anything sound like it was muffled, or farther away? These were some of the things I was going for while I was editing it. I actually really enjoyed playing with the Audacity software, and it was cool to make something out of completely unrelated clips.

Now that you’ve already heard it, I can get into the details of the story itself. The audio is from one of my spy character, Rich’s last mission in Italy. He was sent to spy on and take photos of a high-level mobster and his associates. They were suspected of human trafficking, weapons sales, and smuggling heroin into the US. After tracking them to a safe house, Rich took photos of the scene from afar in his car. Everything changed when his target, Antonio Macci was killed by right hand man, along with everyone else in the room. Rich drove off after the murders because he needed to make some urgent calls back to the states.

Let me know what you think of the story! If you listen to it after reading this, does it make more sense? Let me know down below.

Listen before reading

This is the story of Apollo. He was born, it was beautiful, he played the lyre, then Zeus came (he did some bad things-hence the thunder!). But, in the end, it was okay again and he played the lyre and lived happily ever after.

For this assignment, I had to tell a story using only sounds and no words. Did you get that story from the sounds? Probably not, but with the context of Apollo and his life, does that help? Here is a link to the myth of Apollo if you are interested. It was my inspiration for this assignment.

This was the Sound Effects Story worth 4 stars.

For this assignment I wanted to interoperate my created character Rocket Richard. For this particular task I had to create a story using only sound effects. For this I used the suggested free sound website to grab my audio files. I ended up creating the scene of Rocket Richards Father’s death. In my story Rocket father dies in a car crash and I wanted to recreate that the best I could. I used a lot of sad sound files that I thought represented death. I also tried making it a little creepy. I used audacity for the assignment and overall had a great time creating it. I think it turned out fairly well.

When I saw this (3.5 stars), I thought it would be good to tell the story of commuting to classes. I am a commuter student, so this is my routine of driving to campus everyday. I used freesound to find all of the sounds and was amazed with all of the options. I started by finding the most realistic sounds. I found the sound of a house door locking and then added the sound of keys dangling. I then used a car door opening and shutting to represent me or someone getting into a car. I found a car starting and then added a radio station to that. I always listen to music in the car, so I found radio sounds. I then added normal car sounds and found a car parking. I layered the car locking with footsteps.

This was a great assignment for me to practice mixing and adding sounds to each other. I also like how many different sounds I was able to use to create the story.

Until next time,

Emily

My Sound Effects story – boy this was DIFF – I – CULT!  But I got through it and am glad I did!