SONIC DESIGN / ASSIGNMENT 02

Naura / 0356798 / Interactive Spatial Design
VSA60304 / Sonic Design
Assignment 01: Auditory Imaging

Instructions:

• Create a soundscape from a first-person point of view.
• The piece should tell a story or illustrate the chosen scenario without using any voices or dialogue.
• Choose one of the following scenarios:
1. Wildlife + Background
2. Everyday Home Life + Background
3. Cities + Transport + Exterior Atmosphere
4. Industry and Electronic sounds + Background
5. Weather + Background
6. Market + Rural atmosphere + Background

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Sir Razif instructed us to select a scenario and develop a storyline to serve as a guide when constructing the audio narrative later.

I was torn because each scenario felt challenging to build a narrative around without using voices or dialogue. Ultimately, though, I chose the last option. You might think, “Isn’t that even harder since a market atmosphere usually depends on the sounds of sellers and buyers chatting?” You’re absolutely right, but I decided to push myself and take on the challenge... My inspiration comes from the K-drama Hometown Cha Cha Cha, where there’s a seaside marketplace that captures a lively, unique atmosphere. Below is my storyline:

Fig 1.0 | My Storyline

I then highlighted the foreground sounds in yellow and the background sounds in blue, as Sir instructed, making it easier down the line to envision the soundscape and find suitable sound effects for our narrative. I also divided the sound effects according to scene as well as estimating how long it'll take..

I got my sound effects from multiple sources such as freesound, pixabay, and zapsplat. Here is my list of sounds:

Fig 1.1 | List of Sounds

Looking back, I’m honestly not sure why I chose this scenario... I've only been to a fish market or harbor once in my life, and that was ages ago. One of the hardest sound effects to find has been the shucking of an oyster and the tearing of squid—these sounds just don’t stand out against the background noise. So, I adjusted the storyline; instead of squid and tentacles, I switched it to the sounds of cleaning and scaling fish, as well as cutting them.

One of the sounds had background noise, which is understandable since it was recorded during a field study. However, the thud of the knife wasn’t very clear. To fix this, I used dynamics processing, activated the auto-gate, and adjusted the limiter threshold. I also applied a parametric equalizer to enhance the crispness of the sound.

Fig 1.2 | Dynamics

Fig 1.3 | Parametric Equalizer

I noticed some clipping in one of my sound effects (the oyster shucking). Despite applying a hard limiter on both the effect and the master mix and setting it to -6dB, the audio meter still showed clipping in red. To fix this, I had to adjust the volume until the clipping disappeared. Here’s what my volume and panning envelopes look like after making those adjustments.

Fig 1.4 | The hard limiter settings 

Fig 1.5 | Doesn't show clipping after the audio

In our Week 7 tutorial and practical session, we had a quick consultation about our assignment. One piece of feedback that really stuck with me was about my audio—apparently, it was too "boring" (oops!). Sir Razif suggested that I add more layers to the background, as markets are usually quite lively and noisy. He also recommended increasing the wave amplitude to enhance the ambiance, making it less dull and more immersive.

Fig 1.4 | My final(?) soundscape

Another piece of feedback I received was that the scene needed more noise and chatter to enhance the ambiance. So, I added additional background noise to create a fuller, more immersive atmosphere. So below is my FINALFINAL mp3.

Fig 1.5 | Final Final (real ver) mp3

Below is the google drive folder to access the project session folder:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1na7Ny-O23UmT3eXQBtmUah9BNnOhfS1k?usp=drive_link

My thoughts:
Creating a soundscape from a first-person point of view was both a rewarding and challenging experience. My chosen theme, Market + Rural Atmosphere + Background, required blending a variety of sounds to create the feel of a lively rural marketplace. One of the biggest challenges was finding specific sounds that matched my vision. Often, I had to get creative and substitute with similar sounds to capture the atmosphere I imagined, but even then, sometimes it didn’t feel quite right despite all the effects and adjustments. This process was incredibly time-consuming—balancing and layering each sound to make it immersive without overwhelming the listener took hours of careful tweaking.