Activity 3: What Sounds will You Mix? 

(30 minutes)

​

Listen to the nature sounds you recorded. Open your recordings in a new project in Audacity. You could try editing out background noise, like the sound of cars driving by. Also, play around with adding effects to the nature noises, for example, slowing down a birdsong or speeding up and magnifying the sound of raindrops or adding an echo to the sound of a dog barking. Here is an overview of effects in Audacity.

 

For help with Audacity, visit this tutorial.

After you have listened to your recordings and maybe added a few effects, consider mixing your nature sounds with a song or beats from Creative Commons. Creative Commons is an organization that allows people to share creativity and knowledge in the form of photos, songs, data, scientific research, and more. For this project, you can use Creative Commons beats and/or audio to mix in with your nature sounds. Browse and search the Creative Commons audio library at dig.ccMixter.org. When you find a file or two that you like, download it and save it to your computer.

Activity 4: Put it All Together

(20 minutes)

​

After you have experimented with your recordings, try playing all the track together. You may want to repeat one of the nature sounds or keep it short and move it to the middle of the song. The key is to try a lot of things. Keep playing it back until you like the sound. When you think you have your finished song, follow these instructions on merging the tracks into one exportable song.

Activity 6: Submit

(5 minutes)

 

Want to earn a few digital badges in audio production? Email the digital media you created to BGCAmediamaking@gmail.com