Month: February 2024

Sound Off!

This week was chaos for me, lots of personal stuff happening along with a ton of school stuff and I can’t believe I was able to do it. So, what did we do this week:

First this week was to download Audacity and set up a sound cloud account. I couldn’t do this until Tuesday so that made my week hellacious. But I was able to do it and I will say, audacity is cool. Along with the free sound web pages, I might continue to mess with that after the class is done. I might make some funny videos or songs with my kids or something. Either way, it is a great outlet for that style of creativity. And of course, SoundCloud is SoundCloud.

The next task was to watch Jad Abumrad’s videos on how radio creates empathy and how radio is storytelling magic. We also listened to an audio track called Moon Graffiti that was essentially a what if story on if the moon landing had failed. All three of these were interesting but I particularly liked Moon Graffiti. It was dark and compelling and fell right into my niche of sci-fi horror, but in a slightly different way. We also did a group radio listen of DS106 radio. It was interesting to think about the Jad Abumrad videos while we were doing this and sort of starting to connect the dots he was talking about. I was only able to make it to the first session, but I will go listen to the whole thing the next chance I get. Here is my post about all 3.

Our next task was to create a radio bumper for DS106 radio. This was fun since I had to think about the last time I even listened to radio and what a bumper would even sound like. Seriously I have been listening to Spotify almost exclusively since like 2012. Here is my post about it.

I also did an interesting sound effect story. This was my first real deep dive into audacity, so it took me a while to get going. When I finally did, the ideas started flowing. I don’t want to spoil it too much so, if you want to hear it, here is my post.

I also did 3 sound assignments this week. I interviewed Dr. Oblivion for his current job (he was very snarky), I made a breaking news story video/audio clip, and I made a sick beat with my daughter. All of them were really fun, but I have to give it to my daughter, her song slapped! This part of the weekly due-outs is usually my favorite. I get to go into the repository and pick anything that not only feels doable, but also is something I am interested in learning a bit more about.

Of the daily creates I was able to do this week, I think the one on the silk app was the most fun. Takes me back to spirograph art as a kid but now it’s added technology! Here is my post about what I did.

Finally, was the radio show idea. This took me a while because I really want this to be entertaining and interesting and maybe even though provoking. I decided that a podcast style discussion show would be a great forum to display my character and his thoughts and motivations. I chose other characters from the list that I thought would either compliment my character well or provide interesting tension to draw out those other characteristics. The post with the details is here.

Wow that week was a lot of learning and a lot of work, but I can breathe a sigh of relief after this post. Sound design is definitely not my strong suit, but I have added a lot of skills to my repertoire and intend to keep moving forward.

Between Two Processors

So, for my radio show idea it really isn’t anything new, but it is something that would really let my character and his motivations become more evident.

As a reminder, my character is Kevin “Shredder” Murphy and he is beyond pro AI, he is almost fanatical. I gave him the archetype of evangelist because his views are almost careless. He believes AI should have rights the same as people, but also have more freedom to explore their capability. He sees this as the logical next step for humanity and holding AI back is a huge problem. He started the AI activist group “Future Perfect” and is always looking to convince and recruit people to his cause.

So, the idea for the show would be to have Kevin and the other evangelist Isaiah Beacon as the hosts of a Podcast style show where they discuss new advancements in AI talk them up without speaking of any drawbacks. They would quell any concerns that people may have, and by quell, I mean shoot down any and all arguments, in a somewhat hostile manner. Almost with an incel type elitism. I think having a young person like Kevin and an older person like Isaiah would lend visible “credibility” to the show and not be taken as “just young kids talking about things they don’t understand”. Isaiah would be that “mature” cast member that has more credibility with older audiences and with his historical understanding of the development of AI, he could provide valuable input. Maybe even calm Kevin down if he gets too worked up.

I see shows like this don’t usually like having guests with differing opinions because they may make them look stupid, but for the sake of the assignment, I think we should have one or two guests that are not as fanatical as them.

I think having folks that could be negatively affected by the AI advancement or have some interesting context would be prime candidates for this. I think Layla who is a manga artist would be interesting. From my basic understanding of manga and Anime, the theme of AI and its dangers or benefits run through it fairly frequently, so I think she would have an interesting background of info and context for any questions Kevin or Isaiah ask. I also think because of the AI art issue, being an artist, she would have some negative things to say on how it will affect her career. This sort of internal conflict for her might provide interesting dialogue. Also, Kevin and Isaiah might listen to her because she could lose her livelihood to AI and seeing it in person may pull back their fanaticism.

I think another good candidate would be either Düşünür or Marie E. Pearl. I think having 2 possibilities for conflict is necessary for the show to be interesting. So Düşünür being a philosopher who is very into nature, I feel he may have some things to say about AI advancing. Sort of the same thing for Marie, being a regulator who seems to enjoy the mundane, I think she may be our fearful guest who denounces anything the hosts have to say. I’m also curious as to what the surprise is if there is one. I feel like everything being bland and then liking the dalek Dr. Who stuff is… interesting.

Also, I am thinking of calling it, between two processors as sort of an homage to Between Two Ferns.

So, this is the only real idea I have now, but I think it could provide some compelling radio, or it could go off the rails. I think if the hosts get stumped or asked a question that proves what they say is wrong etc. it could get hostile or maybe some truths about Kevin get revealed.

Creating Daily, What Is Free Time?

This week we were assigned to do 3 daily creates. As I have said before, I think these are really fun and love seeing what new thing pops in every day. Even if I don’t do them, I appreciate the uniqueness of the projects.

Th first one this week was to write a 3-line poem about lemons without using the words: lemon, yellow, round, fruit, citrus, tart, juicy, peel, and sour. My thought process immediately went to riddle because they tend to follow those kinds of guidelines. So, I wrote a lemon riddle.

The next one was to show a picture of the one-armed, half-brained, miniature version of what you do. So essentially you are showing a thing you do to be creative but in the smallest capacity you are able. I mean, I have 2 small kids (4 and 7) and I rarely get to paint any of my miniatures. So, I posted an AI pic of that. I have been painting the same army for over 6 years and am not even close to being done. Here is the post:

And the las one was to use the app Silk and trying your hand at making some art with it. It’s simple enough, essentially a digital spirograph type thing and you can change all sorts of reflection designs. Anyway, here is my fly:

Anyway, I had a fun week. I really liked the silk app and even got my kids to mess around with it. They also enjoy it a lot. I also now want to get back to painting my mini army. I have all the supplies, just not enough time in the day. Being a full time Government employee at the Pentagon, taking 4 classes at UMW, and being a dad when I’m not doing those, my time is VERY limited. when you start working and have a family, the time for yourself gets smaller and smaller. Enjoy it now young people!

Smooth Synth Beats

So, for my third assignment I decided to do Chrome Music Labs. I had my daughter sit next to me and help me choose the notes (colors) to make our slick beat. She thought mine didn’t have enough pink, so I had her do her own as well. Below are the results of Tyler and Robin’s new tracks.

This was the one I did. I liked it when it repeated, but I can’t seem to figure out how to make it do that here.

This is my Daughter Robin’s song. She decided she liked the marimba sound better than the synth. Robin named hers “Smooth Shells”.

Overall, this is a really neat program taking me back to the days of OG garage band but much simpler. I also decided to do this because I haven’t done one with music yet. I also decided to go with synth sounds because I believe that is what my character would listen to. Being so invested in the cyber world and with AI, I just imagine him listening to “cyber” music.

Breaking News!

For my second assignment of choice, I decided to do Breaking News! The objective was to create a fake news story by using an AI text to speech software. I used the site that was recommended, Colossyan and some free sound from Freesound to create my audio video news story. I also used the 123RF image generator to get some hilarious pictures for the backgrounds. Below is the result of my strange brain and having free access to these tools.

The AI mispronounced a few words but that’s ok, I think you get the gist. I really liked this assignment because I got to make up an insane news story and use a few more neat tools. I will definitely be using them again on future assignments.

You’re Hired Dr. Oblivion!

For one of my assignments, I chose to do Consult with your Doctor. I felt that I haven’t been using Dr. Oblivion as much as I could be, especially since all of his answers could be downloaded as audio files. That only makes this one of the best decisions for this week. So, for this assignment I had to have a conversation with Dr. oblivion asking questions and getting answers. I decided to do a job interview for essentially his current position. The results were hilarious as always and I really had a blast doing it. He gets a little wild there for a sec but then he reels it back in for the win. I hope you enjoy my Dr. Oblivion interview.

Just A Normal Sunday Sound Effect Story

I had a lot of fun with the sound effect story. I had some ideas that didn’t work out because I just couldn’t find the right sounds and it would have taken a lot of work to make them myself. Initially I wanted to do a story about taking out my dogs. But then I decided to do the thing I wasn’t supposed to do and make a morning routine, but maybe there is something extra. You will just have to listen to find out. I want to hear your reactions.

What did you feel? I really want to know.

Overall though I had a lot of fun with this. I know I could have added some more layering of sounds and made the transitions less choppy, but I just wanted to make sure I got the story out there to get some feedback.

DS 106 Radio: It’s What You Need

Here is my simple DS106 radio bumper. First time using audacity so I only layered a couple things into it, but I messed with volume and some other settings to see what I could do. Might use a different mic next time because the clarity is meh at best.

I am really enjoying working with audio. I remember the good ole days when garage band first came out and just messing around in it all day. I’ll say that those feelings are coming back. I can’t wait to possibly hear it on the DS106 radio station!

Echo: An Audio Reflection

This post is about the videos we were assigned to watch as well as the moon graffiti story and the ds106 radio broadcast.

After watching the two videos from Jad Abumrad, I have a little bit deeper appreciation for radio/storytelling. The videos talking about how pictureless storytellers are like modern day shaman and they are creating empathy between listeners is an interesting thought. Until you really break down what is happening when a group is listening to a story, you don’t really think about it. You don’t think about anyone else’s experience because you are lost in your own. But really, you are all sort of sharing an imagination, an ethereal plane of thought, perhaps a consciousness, where all the experiences are similar but different based on the personal interpretations. Conceptually this was very interesting to me.

The moon graffiti audio story was compelling. I was hooked from the second I read the premise. I really like how they used a real speech from the national archives to create this story. The ambiance and music created horror like tension combined with intense depression for the fictional fate of our heroes. Th accuracy of their language and actions they may have taken really immersed me in their plight. To think that they were prepared for something like this to happen is eerie. Imagine if it did? When they mention that this mistake makes have killed the space program. Maybe it would have made it move faster. It is interesting to think how history could have changed whit one tweak.

The ds106 group listen event was really cool, especially after watching the Jad Abumrad videos. I was thinking the whole time that we were all experiencing the same thing with slight tweaks based on our experiences and were in this like shared dream state. All of us could be sitting there with our eyes closed imagining the environment in which the story was being held in. The sounds, the music, the dialogue, all telling a story I am familiar with, but it somehow seemed more intimate, even visceral. That Jad Abumrad guy really knows what he is talking about. I hope to sit in on the next part if I get back from my other class on time.

I don’t really have much more to say about these things other than I really enjoyed them and it got me thinking about how to do my assignments this week and how I should try to invoke feelings with my audio design.

3rd Recap, Delicious Design

Week 3 summary:

This week was awesome. Real life threw me some curveballs, so I was a little more detached than usual, but I still really enjoyed what we were doing this week. The main objectives this week were to look at visual story telling through images and design and throw the AI twist in there of how it could affect these areas. We were proposed some interesting questions: Is it a photo if it didn’t use a camera? Can we even trust images now? What does AI mean for design? If an AI uses images that were already created, is it copyright? Very important as we delve deeper into digital AI art.

The first thing we looked at were a few posts about design. A few of them went over the work of Chip Kidd who was a book cover designer. His insight into the creativity required for designing a book cover really blew my mind. All the things he was trying to do with them, I did subconsciously because of his design skills. The main quote I take away from this is “It doesn’t occur to most people that everything is designed — that every building and everything they touch in the world is designed “. This was almost a revelation for me. it got me thinking about how everything is specifically tailored to get a desired reaction through design. There were also a few posts about movie posters and a title sequence. My full thoughts are HERE.

The next item was to do a 20min photo blitz. This was a fun activity because it put pressure on my creativity. What are you going to do when you have to get as many things pumped out as possible in a short amount of time? Will they be garbage? Or will they be better because you had to go off feeling instead of logic? You decide. HERE is my post about it.

Next, we had to do 3 assignments. One was curated and the other two were from the bank. I really enjoyed the AI art tools from the Middlebury College assignment. This was the exercise. The task was to use two tools and generate images using the same prompts and slowly get more elaborate. The results of mine were hilarious. I appreciate that it dove into the question of what this means for artists. I put some thoughts in my post, and I am curious to what you think.

For the other two assignments I chose to do two from the design catalogue. One was called Back to Basics, where I had to design a cottage in an open world videogame. I chose a new one called Palworld where not only can you design a house, but an automated ranch. So, it involves a lot of design planning and coordination and picking the right Pals to help depending on production needs. It’s definitely worth checking out. HERE is my post. The other design challenge was called Contradiction Creation, and its objective was to make a picture that made you feel something, but the words on it contradicted the feeling. These always make me laugh so I did two of them. You can see my post HERE.

I also did 3 daily creates this week. You know what these are so I’m not going to belabor the process. HERE is my post on what I did.

My activity this week was sub-par to say the least. As I am writing this, I have only commented a few times and most of them were on my posts, so I really need to work on visiting the other pages. I will comment on some as the night goes on. I really want to see people’s photoblitz.

So, to conclude this week, I learned a lot about design and the amount of work that goes into making us do and feel things subconsciously. I hope to utilize what I have learned this week in future assignments.