PDanforth Norm001

PDanforth NoiseReduction

PDanforth ClubJade

For this assignment, I broke down the sounds you hear while driving a car, recorded each sound separately, and then mixed them together to create a scene where a person gets into a car, turns the car on, drives around for a bit before eventually shutting the car off and getting out.

For the first sound, I recorded my keys jingling, unlocking the car and opening the door. This was then overlapped with a clip of me sitting down on the leather seats, turning the car on, and putting it into drive.

From there I recorded several extended clips of the engine running as I drove around. Since they didn't sound amazing (mostly due to the various ambient sounds outside the car that weren't audible while I was recording), I added a dehummer to the engine sound layer, making the effect much more subtle. I then added a slight reverb to the entire track to give the engine sounds a little more texture.

I then layered the engine clips with various other sounds. Like the window being rolled up and down, and the phone going off several times while the car is driving.

A sound that is also in there that I found absolutely grating was the sound of the windshield wipers going, the wiper blades need to be replaced which gave them a rough sound as they bounced across the windshield.

For the clip of the radio, I found a station that sounded terrible, which isn't hard in DeKalb, I used 101.1 and then I made the beginning and end fade out, making the few words of Buddy Holly by Weezer that briefly can be heard the focus of the clip, the lyrics were originally much harder to hear, but I adjusted the volume of the clip and it became more prominent. Since the station sounded terrible It gets quickly shut off.

I then used several different turn signal clips, since my right turn signal is out, it have an audibly different sound for both arrows.

Eventually as we reach the end of the track, the car stops, I fade out from the engine sounds and added in a clip of the car being shut off, the keys removed, and the door opening and shutting. 

By editing the clips together how I did, I turned driving from several different trips in a coherent story, however mundane, editing it all into a drive lasting just over 3 minutes.