Berthoud Foursquare Church

Over the course of both parts of assignment 2: A thirty second recording of the main area, and a thirty second walk-through recording of the space for part 1; and a sixty second mixed recording that expressed the space for part two; I came across many frustrating and difficult situations with equipment, general recording, and editing.

Starting with equipment, the root of most of my frustration, I was never actually able to check out any of the equipment we were expected to use, for either part of the assignment. There was a limited number of microphones and recorders, meaning that there was not enough for everyone in the class,so I was one of the few who was unable to reserve the equipment needed for the assignment.This could have easily not been an issue if I had been able to record before the bulk of the reservations made for the weekend, or if I had managed to reserve the equipment beforehand for the weekend; however,this was not the case. My site is only open and active during the weekend so I can’t access it during the week, and since most of the reservations for the equipment are made for the weekend I was one of the people who wasn’t able to reserve equipment fast enough to have it for the weekend, even though I went to reserve it early. So, for the first part of the assignment I was only able to record with a DR-70 Tascam instead of the DR-40; which was not too big of a deal despite some small difficulties with my recordings; however, for the second part of the assignment that required: a shot gun microphone, XLR cable, boom pole, and DR-40, I was only able to check out a DR-40. I tried to check out the required equipment early on, but again I was too late to get a shot gun microphone, or any microphone in general, so I fear that because of this problem my recordings will not be of the quality expected for this assignment.

Aside from equipment, recording had it’s own challenges. For part one of the assignment I recorded in the pews near the alter while everyone was going to their Sunday morning classes, and I attempted to record again during the sermon, but the recording for the sermon didn’t come out well during the edit so it was cut from the main area recording. As for the walk- through, I had trouble in fashioning my walk to focus more on the texture of the sound (encouraging Reduced listening) rather than the cause of it (encouraging causal listening), as mentioned in Chion’s “Audio Vision”, since my footsteps rather than the sound of the old and splintered wood came through more; yet I also believe my recording of the walk-through to demonstrate more of an Acousmatic Listening: “a situation wherein one hears the sound without seeing its cause” ( Chion 32) ,in which “could encourage reduced listening, in that it provokes one to separate oneself from causes or effects in favor of consciously attending to sonic textures, masses, and velocities. But, on the contrary, the opposite often occurs, at least at first, since the acousmatic situation intensifies causal listening in taking away the aid of sight” ( Chion 32); since my recording was without visuals, though this is kind of a stretch with Chion’s definition. I feel that I faced a similar issue in my part two recording mix ,as I was going for a Internal logic of flow of sound to give a sense of harmony and togetherness between the sounds I recorded ,so it could come across as a unified expression of my site; yet, I worry that the editing of my recording mix is not unified enough to give that sense of harmony and togetherness between the recorded sounds.

Editing wise has been the most difficult over all for me, since I still don’t have a grasp on how to go about properly editing my recordings to achieve a sense of texture and togetherness; nor do I really know how to use adobe audition, despite the lab from last Wednesday. I had to go to the adobe audition site several times to figure out how some of the features in the software worked and how to export my file, and even after that I still don’t feel all too confident about my editing of the second part of the assignment that needed it most. I mostly went on instinct for what sounded good during my edit’s, and what brought out a sense of texture and togetherness for the expressionism of my site. I had forty three minutes worth of audio to edit through, so it was quite a struggle to piece together a minute’s worth of audio that I felt expressed the site best; but even though it was a difficult and very frustrating process, I feel like this assignment sparked more of my creativity and interest than the previous, and I hope to do something similar to this assignment again in the future.

"Adobe Audition CC." What Can You Do with Adobe Audition? Adobe Systems Incorporated, n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.

Chion, Michel, Claudia Gorbman, and Walter Murch. Audio-vision: Sound on Screen. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. Print.