D1

Evaluation

Mentioned in M2, I was tasked with giving out questionnaires to my peers and asking them to give me feedback based on the audio soundtrack I made from my animation. In M2, I responded to that feedback, explaining the criticism I received and explaining how I can improve the audio. This post will go into detail about the feedback I received and how I made changes to the soundtrack based on it.



Based on all the feedback I received, I have decided to focus on the responses I got on question 6 of my questionnaire. This was the question that allowed the audience to make a more detailed response and tell me exactly what changes they would make to the soundtrack.

The first response was in regards to the quality of the foley tracks. There were also a few other responses that were reviewing this aspect of the audio. They described it as being low quality and unintentionally distorted. Apart from this, they did not have any issues with the other audio tracks. I agree that the foley audio tracks after editing were quite low quality, however, at the time I did not how to normalise and improve the quality of the audio. Now, if I were to improve or make changes, I will use Adobe Audition to re-edit the audio and make improvements to the quality to make it match the quality of the other audio tracks.

Another suggestion someone made was that they suggest that I change the equipment I used to create the foley sounds. Due to the limited equipment available, I was stuck only being able to use what I had access to. However, I do still heavily agree with this feedback: If i had the choice, next time I will use a heavier object to recreate the gavel sound to make it sound more wooden and loud. Also, next time, for the gate sound, I will use a heavier sounding door. It also did not help that the quality after editing was not very substantial.

One of the audience members suggested using a different soundtrack as an alternative to the one I used: This is because the soundtrack I used was from a video game that contained copyrighted music. I decided to use this soundtrack initially as it supported the theme of the animation and had similar qualities to my audio tracks. Despite my reasonings for why I used it, I agree with this individual that I should have still considered using copyright free music. I can do this by using a copyright free audio library or finding a copyright free song on the web, such as YouTube.

When making changes, I will create 2 finalised versions: one with the desired music, sound effects and foley tracks, and one with copyright free alternative sound files that are still similar sounding.

Other than this the other responses were positive and mainly pointed out the fact that it had a very recognisable style as it was inspired by the vide game OMORI. One strength I can point out from this feedback is that I know how to take inspiration and use it while having my own charm and uniqueness in my work.

Overall, I can clearly state that one thing that desperately needs to be improved is the quality of the foley sounds: after gaining more experience in using audio editing software, I can confidently say that for when I make improvements, I will be able to normalise the audio and make improvements to the audio where its needed. Based on the analysed feedback, I will begin to make changes to the soundtrack to improve it.



Based on the analysed feedback, the first change I made to improving my soundtrack is normalising the audio. To do this, I imported all of the sound files into Adobe Audition for a second time, and went to the effects panel to find the normalise option (as shown in the screenshot above). This effect is my best option for improving the quality of the audio, which is why I am choosing to use it again. Once I had selected the option, I made sure that the "Normalise all channels equally box" was checked, so that all of the sounds were normalised equally. Once this was done, I exported the sounds again as WAV files. I chose the WAV format because it preserves the high quality in the audio.

In my previous discussions, I highlighted the utilization of songs from the OMORI soundtrack, as they perfectly complemented the desired theme. However, it came to my attention that these particular songs were not copyright free, which posed potential issues such as copyright strikes and non-compliance with regulations. To address this issue, I took the initiative to create an alternate version of the animation, replacing the copyrighted songs with appropriate, copyright-free alternatives.

Among the assortment of royalty free alternatives at my disposal, I carefully selected a song that resonated with the overall ambiance of the OMORI soundtrack. This chosen piece emanates a hauntingly melancholic atmosphere, reminiscent of the original soundtrack. Therefore, I firmly believe that this alternative serves as a compelling substitute that upholds the intended emotional impact of the animation.














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