Gamasutra: People are often shocked when they hear themselves recorded, because things sound totally different inside your head. Things sound much softer in there, more full, in a way. This is because a large part of what you hear is your voice resonating inside your body, in your jawbone for example. Try blocking your ears while you speak or sing; that’s the sound I’m talking about.
10 comments:
Yes, I hate the sound of my voice on recording! I’m glad to know that it actually is different. As to the main point of the article, this is brilliant. I’m not a sound designer, so this is all very foreign to me. Sound inside one’s head is both a familiar sound quality and uncharted territory. While I can’t fully appreciate the technical skill that went into this project, I have a lot of respect for someone who comes into work with a skull (where did he get it), removes the jawbone, and starts setting up some microphones because he has an idea. It makes me think of my high school art teacher. She called her grading criteria the 5 Cs. The fifth C was courage, which could be any part of your idea or process where you took a risk. On the first day she always showed a powerpoint of some former students: a girl who had only ever done photography, but took up painting, and a guy whose entire portfolio used roadkill (respectfully). I never took that big a risk, but I think it positively shaped my artistic process being in an environment where you are encouraged to try just about anything, and I like that the same is true at CMU.
It is seriously weird how different the two tracks sound and the only change in recording was having it vibrate through a skull. And the track run through the skull is downright creepy. The first track could be the somber-yet inspiring opening to a game, while the inside track is something from a creepy cave or abandoned ancient temple. The entire mood of the song changes and knowing that that was mostly because it went through a skull is chilling. How many sounds do we distort into creepiness on the daily? It almost explains why when you are home alone in a dark house you start to second guess your logic and jump at noises. When there is no familiar noise of the busy world we fall back onto the subtle noises that vibrate through our bodies. I am seriously impressed with the change that this composer was able to make to the same track by running it through a skull.
It's unbelievable to me that you can see work like this and NOT see sound design as what it is-- an art form (Tonys, can you hear me?). This is incredible for many reasons: 1. He managed to acquire a human skull 2. He thought of resonating the sound through a human skull! It kind of makes me think about what we talk about and discuss in the class "Cake Every Day"-- about taking that one idea further. Everyone has heard of the idea that your voice sounds different processed through your skull through the vibrations, but I've never thought of/heard of anyone actually going through about processing sounds through an actual skull! The difference that the two clips have is crazy because the sound processed through the skull sounds much more organic in a way. I also think it's great of the sound designer to want to not use this kind of process for another game, to keep the integrity of the soundscape for "Inside."
When I saw that someone used a real skull I was intrigued and curious. Though I understand why people think their voice sounds different to there own ears versus recordings, I thought it was kind creepy to play the sound through a skull. However, I will admit that the sound clip does sound really cool after being edited and played through the skull. I think neat that someone came up with the idea to play the sound through the skill. It’s unique and innovative, but I still can’t get over the fact that they used a human skull. I wonder if there would have been a way to get the same quality without using someone’s head. The writer mentions how the right object and lead you in a right direction. Its cool how someone to their inspiration used it to enhance their idea. I hope that people can take the idea that inspiration is everywhere and allow it to encourage them to create new techniques.
First, this concept is super cool. The idea of working with the fact that our voice sounds different to us because of the way it moves through our skull is really interesting. Second, that is the creepiest sound recording setup I’ve ever seen. It looks like some sort of strange scientist’s lab. The sound is very different after it has been processed through the skull, going from ethereal to ominous. I definitely like the effect the skull had on the soundtrack. However, I’m not super convinced that the post-skull sound couldn’t have been achieved through traditional means. It sounds eerie, but not unlike things I have heard before. That being said, I am aware that even if the sound could be created without the skull, it wouldn’t have been since the skull was there as part of the creative process, not as a technical tool. Even if the results aren’t completely unique, the experiment itself is interesting. I would like to hear other sounds processed through the skull, for example, the sound of someone talking, or perhaps something like a rainstorm, the sounds of traffic, or other familiar noises. I’m curious about what effect the skull would have on different sounds.
I couldn't stop but wondering - is that a real human skull or a handicraft one? If it's the former one, where did he get it?
Anyway, it's a pretty cool idea. I remember growing up thinking I have a somewhat full and deep quality to my voice until one day my teacher said I talk like a singing lark. And then of course when I get to hear myself on a recording I couldn't believe this is what other people hear. And then mystery was solved the junior high physics teacher.
The sound designer is pretty innovative for using human skull to create another layer of resonance and to make the sound more distinctive and unique. Because we all know the fact that the sound quality and texture we hear in our head is different from what other people really hear, but Martin Stig Andersen actually combine this common knowledge with his training in electroacoustic composition and utilize one of the most unconventional medium. I also wonder if he will start all kinds of skulls..... because the difference in the shape of skulls will result in different resonance. This sounds like something worth exploring.
Quick side note, musique concrete is something I’ve been really getting into recently with my Intro to Music Technology course and I think it’s a very cool genre of music which could have very interesting theatrical applications, especially if worked into folly somehow. I think that would be really cool. As far as the article goes, I question the efficiency of the author’s method. If the skull caused a resonation and effected the audio in a particular way, why wouldn’t one just figure out what those are and develop a group of audio effects or an effects bus to do just that, and then use a bus to re-correct the audio. I understand the want for the cool effect, but I think this way you get very close to the effect, plus saving a lot of time which should be valuable to the artist. I am all for wasting time on cool projects, but I would be interested to hear the difference in the audio if the artist did execute his process the way I proposed above to see how much the physical object and physical resonation actually improved the sound over an electronic recreation.
What a neat idea! Replicating how sounds would actually sound to people is a great way to better immerse your audience in the story. This looks to be an idea with a lot of potential. Maybe it will be developed into something more permanent. No one likes it when the teeth in your test skull fall out... I think the ideal way to expand this idea would be to make a plugin for audio editing software that allows you to customize the different parameters of your skull (size, shape, position, etc.), then modifies the sound in order to emulate the skull's effect. It's too bad the creator doesn't want to continue the project, though. A "SkullSound" plugin could be big hit in the horror film scene. Now, what if the sound was mastered binaurally? That would create an immersive experience, for sure. I think there's some interesting paths of exploration branching off of this idea for Inside.
This is a really interesting idea developing sounds so they sound better because of ow they resonate in the skull. i wonder if an application could be created to put sound in and get the optimal sound out. i also wonder is the size and shape of your skull would effect the sound to a great enough extent that you would have to change it to get the ideal sound from person to person.
The human perception of sound is so interesting to me. It is mindboggling and strange to question what your voice sounds like to other people. I don’t know if I will ever really be able to listen to my own voice like other people hear my voice. Hearing is such an interesting sense. This project using the human skull to filter sound through to create the soundscape for a videogame is so unique. It just shows how out of the box ideas have to be sometimes. Sometimes you have to step into the unknown and experiment in order to grow and find new things. This is really relevant to sound and this specific project but it is also relevant to a lot of other things in life. Sometimes you have no idea how the results will turn out but you have to step into a project or a situation whole heartedly and just go with it and sometimes the results will be astonishingly amazing. This is such an important thing for all designers because we are working with new materials all the time and usually using them for something they are not intended for trying to create something completely unique. This doesn’t let us look up things to see how others have done it; we have to just jump in and see how it turns out because we are charting uncharted waters. That’s one component of design that I absolutely love but also intimidates, the unknown.
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