Week 3 – Guide to Adobe Audition CS6 and recording good audio

How to ensure audio being recorded is of good quality

When recording interviews in public, it is important to get good audio quality. There are a number of steps that can be taken to help ensure the quality of the recorded audio is as good as it can be.

The first thing to consider is the proximity of the recording device to the person speaking, if it is too far away it can be too quiet and if too close the audio can sound muffled.

Another aspect to consider, especially in public, is background noise. This is most commonly wind or other people talking, in order to minimise this in the recording it is a good idea to stand with either, your or the interviewee’s back to the noise. The body helps to block out some of the sound getting to the recording device.

Gain is also something that should be considered, again a good balanced level is important, too high can cause peaking and too low can result in the audio not being audible. In order to check if the audio being recorded is of good quality it is good practise to use headphones so you can hear the quality of the audio being recorded as you record it. This then allows for any changes to be made during the interview rather than having to edit the audio later.

The last thing to consider, while seeming relatively obvious, is battery life and storage capacity on the SD card. If the SD card is full you cannot record any of your audio, and if the battery isn’t charged could run out during a recording.

Adobe Audition Steps

The first step is to add the files to the program.

This is done through clicking File – Import – Highlighting the files and clicking open.

Once the files had been added I clicked the Multitrack button underneath the toolbar. After this it will generate a new multitrack screen, I then clicked Ok to use the default settings.

I then clicked and dragged the files shown on the left and dragged them into tracks.

I then dragged the files into the same track and placed them in a line one after another.

Then I played the track by pressing the space bar and listened to the audio, I noticed it was quiet so clicked and dragged the yellow bar on the audio files up to increase the audio to +15db so it can louder.

After ensuring I could hear the audio I then clipped the silence off the begging and end of the first clip. I did this by moving the red vertical line over to the end of the silence and pressed Ctrl + K to create a cut. I then deleted the silence and moved the files back together so there was no spaced between them.

On the third clip I realised some of the audio was much louder than the rest. I lowered the volume of that section to +6.8db but creating 4 key frames by clicking the yellow line on the clip and lowering two of the frames to the +6.8db level while leaving the first and last key frame I created at the same level creating the dip in audio for that section.

By using key frames it is also possible to create a fade in effect, this is done by creating a key frame at the beginning and lowering it to the bottom of the file.

It is also possible to have audio transition from one to another by dragging one clip into another.

When the file was finished I exported it by clicking File – Export – Multitrack mix down – entire session. I then renamed the file and selected the location. I exported this as a .wav file.

Week 2 – Vox Pops: Transcription and Evaluation

Interview preparation – Group Work

What information are you looking to gather from this interview?

People’s opinions on Jeremy Corbyn.

List the questions/questions you will be asking?

How do you view Jeremy Corbyn as a politician?

Are they open-ended or closed questions? Why?

Open-ended because it means that the interviewee can give a detailed answer, and opens up conversation and allows for a broad answer.

Explain how you made sure you used neutral questions?

The question is balanced as there in no emotive language is used.

Provide a written summary that introduces the topic you are covering. This is to be read to interviewees that have no prior knowledge of your interview’s subject matter (to bring them up to speed).

Jeremy Corbyn has recently been elected as the leader of the Labour Party. He has been in the news a lot recently regarding his views and ideals towards issues such as the migrant crisis “How do you view Corbyn as a Politician?”

Vox Pop Interviews answering the question – “How do you view Jeremy Corbyn as a Politician?”

“Best thing to happen to British politics in like forever. When everyone else wanted to raise taxes for the poor and lower them for the rich and everything like that, he was fighting against the Apartheid and bringing about nice things”

“I feel he is very different to other politicians that are currently that currently surround him, whether he will survive as a Politician is down the media and that is not a good thing.”

“He’s useless. That’s it.”

“I think he’s a bit of a d**k head to be honest, like when he first joined, he went to the Pub straightaway.”

“I like him as a Politician because as far as I’m aware, he seems to have stuck to his political opinions and his standpoints – he’s stopped them. Lots of Politicians have changed their tactics depending on the current mood of the country. I don’t know, I could be wrong, he seems to have kept the same thing going; same opinions, same views. One of the things I like about him is that he appeals to the things that I care about. Things like Palistein, he’s a big supporter of that cause. He has the courage to stand up and speak about his views. He’s got my respect for that. As far as I’m aware he’s got an honest mind and if people don’t like it, that’s fine because that’s why we have democracy and stuff.”

“Well he’s different for a start. I don’t think that he has enough backing in terms of young people and trying to get them engaged. As a Politician, I’d like to see him do something for the Labour Party, being the President of the Union here, it’s important that he does speak out to younger people and that he does speak for Trade Unionism, especially against all the cuts the Tori’s are making. I admit I didn’t vote for him but it’ll be interesting to see where he comes. He has a more left wing approach, which at the end of the day, is getting more people engaged. I mean membership has gone up, which is a good thing so maybe he is the one to lead us to a 2020 victory.”

“I feel that he is radical and stubborn in a good way and that he’s sticking to what he’s promised. I feel that Labour needs a shake up because to me it’s drifted more and more right wing, where I was always told that Labour was left wing but I didn’t see it, so right now it needs to be shaken up.”

Evaluation of interview technique

Induction – My Career Action Plan

My Career Action Plan final