Produce your Audio Story

This week, you’ll use Audacity to produce the audio that you’ve already recorded into a story. I will grade this assignment primarily on your successful completion of the steps below. Follow the steps here, and you will do well.  I will also factor in technical proficiency with your use of microphones and edits, and the general impact of the story.

  1. Arrange all your media files into one folder. Open Audacity and save your .aup file in that same folder.
  2. Import your interview audio first and normalize it. Listen carefully to this audio and decide what parts of it you want to include. Do a rough edit of the interview — chop it up into themes, and then arrange those themes into the storyboard that you want.
  3. Import your environmental and ambient recordings. Fit those into your storyboard to create a multilayered story. You final piece must include interview, environmental, and ambient audio.
  4. Ask yourself: do you need to record more audio to complete the story? Does this piece need a voiceover? What kind of music is appropriate? Check out the YouTube audio library or Free Music Archive for music you can use. Import that content into your Audacity project as needed.
  5. Now that you have the rough storyboard worked out, fine-tune your piece by editing out the “ums” and irrelevant content. Smooth out the transitions. Adjust the volume so that the audio fades in and out without abrupt breaks.
  6. Export your final piece as a .wav file. It should be 2-3 min long. Save this file in the same folder as the rest of your media files.
  7. Upload the audio file to your website, and embed the audio player onto your page.
  8. Write a brief reflection (4-6 paragraphs) about your experience recording and producing this piece. What went wrong? What worked well? What will you change next time? Are you confused about anything?

Due date: Sept. 24, 6 p.m. Please talk to me if you’re having trouble with Audacity.

Audio Production


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