I was not planning on participating this week, but I had a few minutes to myself so I started to browse sounds on Pixabay then became inspired to start layering them. I first looked for a lightbulb buzzing sound and found one called “Factory Fluorescent light buzz.” I am not sure if the pictured light bulb is actually “fluorescent,” but I do imagine hearing some kind of buzzing sound coming from that light fixture. On top of that, I wanted to add the ambient noise of some heating or cooling appliance. I first looked for radiator sounds, but settled one called “Concrete Hallway with Air Conditioner.” I liked the low end and I definitely picture this room having mostly bare concrete walls. I also see this room as adjoining another one, but also having a wall or a glass block window facing the outside. So I gathered two sounds: “car passing by” to simulate traffic going by and “People talking in small room” to simulate indistinct chatter coming through the wall. Even though I pictured mostly empty walls in my mind, I did think there might be a ticking clock, so I also grabbed 'Wall Clock Ticks, Quartz Clock." Finally, I also pictured the people talking in the adjoining room as listening to music. Not wanting to do a search for a song that I would need permission to use, I just grabbed my submission for Project 0619 because it had a heavy kick sound that I wanted to simulate as coming through the wall. I layered all of the tracks and then organized them to only last a minute - because, as the prompt suggests, I would only want to spend that much time in this room! I added a low pass filter to the sounds I imagined coming through the walls and panned them to each side to suggest they are coming through different walls. I had to play with the mix for awhile to make the volume of the light bulb buzz and ticking clock appropriate. I added some effects like putting all of the tracks in a group and adding a “small room” reverb, compressor, limiter and then exported after I found myself spending way more time on this track than I anticipated. In the end, this was a fun experiment and I am glad I tried my hand at some of these sound design techniques because I learned a few things.
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