As I was unhappy with the rough idea for the beginning of the soundscape, I have decided this week to record the guitar part myself. This was done by learning the intro to ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ on my guitar and then using an SM57 on the cab an inch away from the speaker cone to capture the sound. It took around three takes to settle on deciding that the third take was good enough to work behind the audio samples at the start. The rest of this week was once again spent making sure my music sounded right in each of the movements and changing different levels. As the end of the project is coming closer I am hoping to start mixing next week and this will leave me a bit of time before the deadline to master the whole mix. I have been adding to my research area of the blog too this week and I feel that during this project I have learnt a lot about the history of the civil rights movement in America, not to mention learning a lot of how to integrate samples around music.

I also spent time this week making sure that all the scripts I used in the narration were made visible in the ‘Supporting Materials’. This was to let people know what was recorded in the narration recordings and what was used and what wasn’t in the final piece. The research from the four main people used in this project was used for the script writing process and it helped me gain a better understanding when it came to piecing together different samples edits. There are just a few sound effects that I need to put into project in the upcoming week which will hopefully really bring the soundscape to life, then it is a case of adding processing to certain tracks and using panning to create a good stereo field within the soundscape. I have learnt that a lot goes into the production of a soundscape, much more than I imagined before starting this project.

After completing the narration recording and collecting the samples I needed for my soundscape, this week was spent editing together all my parts for the project. Using pro tools, I have been placing together all the parts where I needed them and keeping a rough mix throughout while I got everything sounding fluent. One major issue was the fades on each clip and cutting them exactly where I needed them, this produced an issue when ‘breathes’ could be heard but with careful cutting this was solved. I used compression on my narration tracks to give the dialogue some strength in the mix and I will also be processing the tracks further in the weeks to come with a light reverb and EQ. I have not began to pan any tracks yet as I feel this should be a job to be done at the end, editing the session has taken a lot of time this week but it is very important to ensure that the music and rhythm’s work against the narration and samples.

This week has also involved roughly mixing my levels and getting the narration and samples to blend together. As a lot of the samples are very old, they are low quality but I feel that this gives them a more authentic sound to them. The next week will include recording a guitar part for the beginning of the piece and a completion of all the editing tasks. I intend to have a week to fully mix and master the project before the deadline and so the upcoming weeks will involve applying certain production techniques and checking I have everything I need in the soundscape. So far the soundscape is slowly coming together and I am starting to hear the piece I envisioned.

As the Easter break is coming up I thought it was best to bring Oliver Dyson back into the studio and record the narration for the two other people that my project will in centre around. These two individuals are George Lincoln Rockwell and Martin Luther King, Jr. It made sense to get all the narration recorded before Oliver went home for Easter as it would mean that all that was left to do in the upcoming weeks is music and editing before the final mixing and mastering stages. Before Oliver came to the sound theatre to record, I once again wrote a script for the Rockwell and King pieces which was based on research I had found using the university library and various sources on the internet. The recording situtaion and setup was exactly the same as before as I wanted the same sound and feel to the recording so it would flow throughout my whole soundscape.

There were no problems during the recording session and I got enough takes of the narration to cover me incase there were any problems at a later date. After the session I thanked him for his time and agreed to send him a copy of my soundscape once it had been completed and handed-in. Week 8 will involve composing music for the first two movements and this will then give me a good idea of how the project is coming on in regards to the timescale. With music behind my narration and samples I will be able to get a vision of how the final product may sound when it is completed. I was very happy with the tone of Oliver’s voice in the narration and I feel it went perfectly with my audio samples.