Sonic Design : Audiobook Production Project (Week 8~10)

 

 Sonic Design : Creating Audiobook


Date : July/1st/2025
Name : Mabuchi Arata
Lecture : Sonic design
ID : 0351579

1, Introduction

In the module of "Sonic Design", we've done so far to learn about the techniques to edit the vibration of the air particle -sound- to create very unique world. The software we used in this module is called "Adobe Audition". The software itself enable use to edit either single or multiple audio file to make them such clear or unique sound. In this project. We have to create an audiobook based on story to choose by our own and record voice and convert it with assembled any other audios to create a story audiobook.

2, What I've done so far?

Since I started to use the Adobe Audition. I have learnt these things shown below. :
  • Equalizer
  • Echo
  • Reverb
  • Speed
  • Pitch
Especially equalizer can reduce the noise during the recording for audio and it can even use to create different atomosphere by changing its rate so it feels like it is recording in different media. On the other hand, the edo and reverb are both also taking one of inportant place for audio editing, Echo and reverb are both phenomenon of sound that is all about reflection of sound when it hits to the onject. Unlike echo which is delayed individual reflection fo sound,, Reverb is dense collection of overlapping (extended) reflection of sound. With wise use of both echo and reverbing function, The whole audio impression may be sounded like recording in different location.
As I have already explained before, by adjusting the frequency and duration of audio, pitch and speed of audio in other words, the character's voice or phrase may produce total different impression from giant monster to cute little hamster.

During these weeks, I have learnt new function called "Dynamics" which is the Adobe Auditio's functions to control Audio's output. Sometimes the part of audio is playing too loud and other is too quiet The "Dynamics" funcation enables to adjust the whole volume of audio into equal/close to equal loudness.

3, Audiobook Production

For second assignment for Sonic Design, We all have to create Audiobook to tell stories to tell. I have to use every Adobe Audition techniques I've learnt in both class and individual. For Audiobook Project, I choose story of "Little Mermaid".


To make a audiobook, I firstly started from writing a script for the story itself, therefore, I checked the original tale of little mermaid and rewrite the story to fit in the required length of the recommmended video length around 3 minutes. I used ChatGPT to fix any spelling and grammer errors and improve the quality of text itself enough to show in audience.


After creating a script for Audiobook, the process has moved to next process of recording. To record my voice, I had to organise my room to capable to record my audio. To achieve this goal, I have to ensure that the environment around must be covered up with soft material that may absorb any sound vibration. I came up the idea to use my bed as wall and cover my phone with towel to record my audio.

For about the little mermaid voice, I have contacted to my friends to either ask them directly to record the line for the mermaid or ask their friends to take a voice and send it to me. I asked several friends to do that but in the end I used Kwai Pin's voice for little mermaid.

The problem for about the voice of little mermaid is that the location where Kwai Pin recorded her voice has quite a lot of noise and I had to remove the noise of surrounding as much as possible. To achieve this goal, I had to use equalizer to emphasize part of record and function of noise remover as much as possible to remove the noise of recording.



For the part of line of Sea Witch, I recorded it by myself. To do this, I had to cover my head by bad I usually use for shopping and cover my neck by towel to absorb any noise, then I went to my bathroom to record my voice for sea witch.
After adjusting every audio, I opened Adobe Audition to assemble them to create an audiobook. After I combine every audio all, I downloaded the any background sound I needed to make a background sound, The point I focused here was I tried to reduce the background sound a bit so I can emphasize the voice of narrator. I also aimed to add effect to the voice for the phrase of little mermaid and sea witch as if they are talking in the ocean, but in the end the voume of voice itself has been ended up too blur.

4, Summary



In the end the audiobook of little mermaid has been completed. The aim was trying to record every line for narrator accurate and remove all noise for every record as much as possible, then I also tried to make background sound to emphasize the environment of every scene too. I guess about the removing noise and make a good background sound has been achieved well in my opinion. On the other hand, noise reduction and sound effect was sometimes too much and recording environment isn't good enough for removing noise 100% correct. I have to learn about noise reduction and equalizer much better as my next goal in future.

Additionally, my regret for this project is that due to delay of my production. I had no time to create any visual images for my audiobook in my final product. Perhaps I want to create a better version to be used in my portfolio so it is enjoyable with image and some video. I want to create much better audiobook if I have time.

5, References


・Hans Christian Andersen, "The Little Mermaid", 1836, Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories, Zvi Har’El, December 13th, 2007

・freesound 

・BBC SOUND EFFECTS 


・freepik

・Special Thanks : Kwai Pin

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