Sonic Design / TASK 2 [Auditory Imaging]
Week 5 - Week 8 (20 September 2025 - 14 September 2025)
Muhammad Zaky Aulia [0367842]
Bachelor of Computer Science
Auditory Imaging
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TASK 2: AUDITORY IMAGING
WEEK 6 / Project 2: Auditory Imaging
This will be our first serious project that is given to us by Mr. Razif.
The task is to create an audio image that lets the listener to visualize the world/image through the audio based on either the six options that were given to use or if the options aren't up to our liking, we are able to propose our idea to Mr. Razif.
The 6 options that were given to us are;
- Wildlife + Background
- Everyday Home Life + Background
- Cities + Transport + Exterior Atmosphere
- Industry and Electronic sounds + Background
- Weather + Background
- Market + Rural atmosphere + Background
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STORY LINE
The story-line I came up with only popped up when I saw the options again before starting to write it. When I saw Everyday Home Life + Background, I thought that it would be a nice atmospheric and intimate short story that I'd like to capture through usage of only sound effects and light human muffles. I'd thought of a story of a kid going home after a hangout with his brother, however the weather is horrid, which affects the overall mood of everyone. I tried to capture that awkward home environment, where the Eldest brother is very moody with the accompaniment of the sharp sounds of fluorescent lamps, stale air conditioning, etc.
Figure 1.1 Storyline for Project 2: Auditory Imaging
After writing down the story, I also laid down all the foreground and background sound effects that will be used and relate to the story line. The list of sound effects has been listed in the figure above, underneath the story I have written to assist me in what sound effects I should be searching and looking for.
Below are the websites that I use to gather crisp and clean audio files that will be used in the sound mixing;
- FreeSound.org : https://freesound.org/
- BBC Rewind : https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/
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PROGRESS
The Settings of the Audio File and Thought Process
The atmosphere and sound environments I want to capture in this specific sound file is that it would start with an establishing audio of how the weather is outside, stormy, then the listener will hear the car coming from a far. The audio will shift its perspective into inside of the car, then it follows the main character into inside of the house, the living room. From the living room, the MC (main character) will go to the kitchen, go back to the living room, then go upstairs. Upstairs, the MC will try getting into the toilet, but it's locked, then they'll eavesdrop, then continue to their room, passing by their other brother's room, then into their own room where they will sleep.
Rain Track
Once I have gathered all the sound files/effects I would need for my project, I started importing the sound files I will need. I laid the sound files according to the scenes I have jot down in the Google Docs above. So the first scene I will be focusing is the Car/rain scene.
Since the rain will always be constant throughout the sound file, I laid it on the first track. The original sound file was only about 58 seconds, therefore I had to find a way to loop the sound. The way I went with to loop the audio was by remixing the audio. By changing the Target Duration to how long I want the audio file to be. Originally I made the Target Duration around 3 minutes, but the image below shows it as a minute as it is a cut clip of the original duration.
Figure 1.2 Remixing to Loop Audio
Because of how the rain is constantly in the audio, I had to edit the rain based on the current perspective of the story. At first, since it is an establishing shot of the environment, the rain was fairly loud, however when the perspective shifted to the main character, the rain's sounds has to follow suit based on where the main character is. Due to that, the rain had to be automatically lowered at times, and had to be edited using the Parametric Equalizer to emulate that the rain is coming from outside of the house. Below is the finalized rain track for the audio file.
Figure 1.3 Finalized Rain Track
Bus and Grouping of Tracks
I only made stereo bus tracks to group up the constant environmental sounds such as the rain, thunder, and wind into one bus track and the car tracks into another stereo bus track. Why I did this was so I could listen to the characters sound effects.
Figure 1.4 Rain, Thunder, and Wind Tracks.
Figure 1.5 Car Sound Effect Tracks.
Figure 1.6 Car and Weather Stereo Bus Tracks
Main Character, Other Characters, and Background SFX
Figure 1.7 Tracks of MC, Elder Brother, Dad, and Background sounds
I put every sound effect that correlates with whatever activities the Main Character is doing into one track and I did the same with the Eldest Brother and the Dad.
Final Multi track.
Figure 1.8 Final Multi Track Window
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FINAL AUDIO IMAGING
Google Drive Link of Sound Files, Mix down, and Final MP3:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1-danOMA5cWUJovEiFbkzRpB7Y827Yk6c
Final Storyline:
Figure 2.1 Final Storyline
Final Audio Imaging:
Figure 2.2 Final Audio Imaging
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REFLECTION
This Project is the culmination of what we have learned throughout the first month and a half of our Sonic Design module. I had to use whatever I have learned throughout the classes that I have had, such as using the tools provided by Adobe Auditions. I really like the story writing part and the idea of having to tell it through an auditory method, except without any dialogues nor narration. I tried to convey distance using the panning and even decreasing the volumes. I played with the Parametric Equalizer in order to make a sound coming from outside. This project is one of the more difficult tasks so far in this module, however the end result is quite satisfying.
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