RadioEdu Week 05

Friday, October 25th, 2013 by WLOY Staff

Concepts: Reverb and Delay, Advanced Editing

Since we briefly introduced the concept of Reverb last week, we started with a discussion of Reverb and the students were able to understand how room size impacted sound, and why engineers would seek out certain rooms for recordings. As an experiment I had the class clap in our moderate sized room, and then predict what would happen if the room were smaller and larger. I said that next time they were in the school auditorium they should clap and report back whether or not their claps matched their predictions.

We also had a brief discussion about why room size would matter, and this lead to an introduction to acoustics and sound waves. We then revisited the story that they composed last week and M was able to edit the track herself! She went into the audio editor and cut the small dialogue section from the story, pasted it to a new track, added Reverb to the new track, and then silenced the section on the initial track. This is a very advanced concept and she was able to understand the need to put it on a separate track, and was able to perform the editing herself. As the original recording of the story was posted in last week’s blog entry, this week’s proof of concept is M’s edit with the section of dialogue cut and pasted to another track. This is a clear demonstration of the ability to follow through with an idea that was planned in advance, and a great introduction to some of the edits and manipulations that occur in post-processing of a recorded piece.

(TBA Caveman Story with Edit)

Posted in News, Radio Edu | No Comments »

RadioEdu Week 04

Friday, October 18th, 2013 by WLOY Staff

Concepts: Introduction to Effects, Project Planning, Homework Help Newscast

This week we learned about effects and how engineers and producers use them to enhance their production. We began with an introduction to Reverb and a discussion about natural echo and room size. As an experiment I had the students list times when they were in different size rooms and to describe the sound. We determined that the sound in the school auditorium would be different than the sound in a bathroom, and this was the perfect transition into talking about Reverb.

As RadioEdu is project-based, I had the students load a guitar and vocal sample onto an empty audio track and then add Reverb to the effects rack. The students learned about wet and dry mixes, and this drew an analogy to cooking. Once confident with the ‘flavor’ of Reverb, the students brainstormed a project to demonstrate its use.

Proof of Concept:

The students created a story about a caveman where the dialogue would have Reverb on it, as the lines were spoken inside a cave. They determined that they didn’t want the Reverb on the narrator’s voice, but only the dialogue. This was an example of Project Planning in action, as the students were thinking about how to integrate effects into their productions, but also noticed that they would need to determine a method to isolate the parts that they wanted impacted.

Evolving from their interview practice in the previous weeks, the students developed and recorded an introductory ‘homework help’ show where they would create weekly segments detailing math questions and strategies of the week, as well as study tips, vocab words, etc.

(TBA Caveman Story Pre-Edit)

Posted in News, Radio Edu | No Comments »