Supplementary Brief - Sound

Unit Brief

Produce and design 10 noises for a desktop sound scheme.

Proposal

I intend to produce several sounds suitable for a desktop sound scheme on the theme of car noises. I chose to do this as cars can produce many different sounds, e.g. indicators, engine, horn, etc.

I will record the sounds using a Sony ECM-DS70P stereo condenser microphone and Adobe Audition 2.0 on my notebook computer.

Research

All the material for my project will be recorded and edited by myself.

I used the help feature of Adobe Audition to guide me through getting started with using the product and for instructions on managing and editing my recorded sounds.

Web sites I found useful:

Planning

The sounds will be available for download from this page in MP3 format within a compressed ZIP file.

I made a list of all the possible sounds I could think of that a car could make:

  • Door Open/Close
  • Engine
  • Gears
  • Handbrake
  • Horn
  • Indicator
  • Lock/Unlock
  • Seatbelt Fasten/Release
  • Window Up/Down
  • Windscreen Washers
  • Wipers

I then went on to record these. These recordings can be found below.

After I recorded them I listened to each and rejected the ones that didn't sound very good. I edited the ones which were ok by using only selections of the recorded material, fading in/out, and amplifying where necessary.

Recorded Sounds

Below are a list of the sounds I originally recorded and some comments on them.

You can download all these sounds by clicking on the link on the right (Approx. 4.5 mb)

Door Open/Close

A good sound which could be used for a connect/disconnect event.

Engine

The recorded sound is quite quiet, but sounds good.

Gears

I rejected this sound because it was quiet and not very interesting.

Handbrake

This sound was not very interesting, so I decided to reject it.

Horn

The horn in this recording is very short, but effective. Could be used for some type of alert or error message.

Indicator

This recording isn't very loud, but is quite interesting.

Lock/Unlock

The sound of locking and unlocking the car sound very similar, so would probably be best to just use the lock sound.

Seatbelt Fasten/Release

A good sound. Could be used for some type of connect/disconnect event.

Window Up/Down

The window up and window down sounds also sound very similar, so I will perhaps only use one of them in the final piece.

Windscreen Washers

The squeaks in this recording from the windscreen wipers didn't sound very nice, therefore I rejected this sound also.

Wipers

This sound recording starts of ok, but the windscreen wipers begin to squeak later on.

Final Piece

Below are a list of the final sounds and some comments on them.

You can download all these sounds by clicking on the link on the right (Approx. 0.5 mb)

Final Sounds

Critical Stop - Horn

This sound is short, but is a good match to the critical stop system event.

Device Connect - Seatbelt Fasten

An interesting sound which suits its purpose.

Device Disconnect - Seatbelt Release

Goes with seatbelt fasten as from same original recording and for a similar event.

Exit Windows - Window Down

Winding a window down is like closing something down, so this is why I chose it for the exit windows event.

Program Error - Lock

Again, a short sound but relevant to the system event.

Start Windows - Engine

A nice sound. The sound of an engine gives a sense of something happening, like when you start windows, your programs loads.

System Notification - Indicator

A car indicator indicates something, so this sound indicates a system event.

Windows Logon - Door Open

You open a door to get in which could be compared to logging on to something.

Windows Logoff - Door Close

You close a door to get out which could be compared to logging off to something.

New Mail - Wipers

An interesting sound, but not that relevant to the new mail system event.

Review

The project worked mainly as planned. It could have been better if the original sounds were louder, but I managed to amplify them in Adobe Audition, so it was ok.

I had trouble getting the microphone to work with my notebook computer as it required a plug-in-power jack which my computer did not have. I had to buy a battery pre-amp module to overcome this.

The sounds could be developed further, by attempting to record them at a higher quality and finding other noises related to cars to record.

Files