Ambience Recording Podcast
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As one of the first projects as an audio student, our task was to record a variety of ambiences around Houghton, Michigan. This was my first experience with not only field recording, but recording in general. The project forced me to apply field recording techniques and consideration of acoustic obstacles such as wind and unwanted chatter.
Credit: John S. Beasley (Recording) |
Robot Sound Design
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This project is a personal favorite. The task was simply to design sound for the given video. My team and I wanted the most consistent production, so we decided to record Foley in an improvised dorm studio. A majority of the used sound clips were original recordings. The songs featured in the video were written and produced by myself.
Credit: John S. Beasley (Sound Design) Tristen Sorensen (Sound Design) David Hodgeman (Sound Design) Christopher Plummer (Instructor) |
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Jet of Blood
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This was the most involved project of my first year. The goal was to design audio for a virtual reality game called Jet of Blood, being developed by the Rochester Institute of Technology. The game is based off the play by Antonin Artaud. This experience showed me the joys of releasing your creativity, but also the difficulties of remote collaboration.
Credit: (Sound Design) John S. Beasley, Aiden Conrad, John Hughes, Sam Dykgraaf, Jacob Bruski, Grayson Asbury, Isaac Noe, Noah Lukkari, Vincent Bellinger (Instructor) Christopher Plummer |
Hell N Back - Bakar
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This was likely my favorite project thus far. The assignment was to record a song with at least four live instruments and mix and master the recording into a final deliverable product. As the project lead for this recording, this was my opportunity to practice leadership and creative decision making in a team setting.
Credit: John S. Beasley (Drums, Producer, Lead Engineer) David Hodgman (Guitar, Vocals), Aidan Conrade (Bass Guitar, Saxophone) Dennis McKaig (Instructor) |
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Cowboy Bebop - Ballad of Fallen Angels
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In this project I was required to design sound for a chosen clip completely from scratch. What challenged me most in this video was the design of the gunshots and bullet ricochets. I didn't have access to a gun range so those sounds would have to be synthesized. This ended up being a mix of recorded transient impact sounds from a dropped textbook mixed with metal clicks and hits. Together they represent the firing mechanism and the explosion of gun powder. The ricochet sound was completely synthesized as a custom preset in Xfer Serum and is midi playable.
(Instructor) Kyle Knickerbocker |
A Christmas Carol - Sound System Design (Rozsa Center)
System Plot |
ArrayCalc Vocal Reinforcement Simulation |
Here I was tasked with designing the sound system to be used for Michigan Tech's production of the classic story: A Christmas Carol. The fundamental design is based on vocal reinforcement and intelligibility of the cast. With the help of D&B Audiotechnik's ArrayCalc, I was able to simulate the coverage of my design to determine its effectiveness for the use. Next, I wanted to push the theater experience further into emersion with SFX and reverb sound systems on top of the vocal reinforcement. To do this we used speakers positioned in the catwalks above and around the audience seating, firing into the ceiling to take advantage of the space's natural reverberance. We also had speakers surrounding the audience similar to a 7.1 surround sound system. The main seating had center, center left/right, side left/right, and rear left/right speakers. The most challenging aspect of this project was designing a system before the sound designers knew how they wanted to use it. This meant that I'd have to design for flexibility. The overall system ran great, integrating Q-Lab with Altiverb reverb in Logic, routed through Dante networked audio.
2023 AES Winter Carnival Statue
Build Process |
Complete Statue |
Of all my projects at Michigan Tech, this is my most cherished because of the dedication and drive the Audio Engineering Society demonstrated. The build process began in January, one month before Winter Carnival (February 8th), but the design began in November. For ease of building, the statue is designed off of 8'x4'x4' blocks. These blocks are filled with a mixture of snow and ice (slush) which solidifies in the cold. Stacking these blocks we build the basic shape of the statue. Next, the statue is carved into the final shape and the towers and subs are hollowed out to create the speaker enclosures. Next, the baffles are installed by building them into the statue with hand packed slush. Finally, the drivers are installed into the baffles. This system includes: 2 Electro Voice Model 253 Multicellular Horns powered by Celestion CDX1-1746 compression drivers for highs, 4 Eminence Alpha 8A for high mids, 8 Eminence Delta 15A for low mids, and 6 Eminence Impero 18A subwoofer drivers.