Apr 07, 2016 Audio Projects for the U of U School of Architecture

Greetings,

This is Robert Nelson, the Audio Projects Librarian for the Marriott Library. Since 2010, I have helped Faculty and students in nearly every discipline at the University of Utah adapt audio content for their curricular projects.

This particular post will be about an Audio related project collaboration. More importantly, recording and editing a narration to a PowerPoint Multi-media lecture/podcast for Shundana Yusaf, who is a Prof. of History & Theory in the School of Architecture.

Prof. Yusaf came to me with a typical sound need. She was giving a lecture at a conference. She was using PowerPoint for her presentation and wanted to embed an audio narration, using her voice, to describe the slides.

Her topic was Horse Culture in Eurasia.

1. I recorded her narration using our professional microphones and sound proof Audio Studio in the Marriott Library’sFaculty Center.
2. A Sound Engineer establishes the microphone settings and records the performance using the ProTools Digital Audio Recorder.
3. Since I was in the Control Booth actively listening to Prof. Yusaf’s recording, I could then take the raw sound file and edit the contents using the Audacity Sound Editor.

Most extended voice projects always have the usual vocal hiccups and miscues: (“ands”, “umms”, and long pauses). I strip all of that out and deliver a perfect sound file to match the professional level of the slide presentation.

4. Yusaf took the edited .mp3 and incorporated the sound into her slide presentation which functions as a podcast.

She was thrilled with the result:

“God bless you. I will leave it as is for now and come back to you after the conference for follow up. Thank God I have found peers like you who are enthusiastic about working with me.” –Shundana Yusaf, Assistant Professor, History and Theory 

Because of my own personal sound projects, I am a perfectionist. To bring a project from concept to performance to final result is what I strive for every time. The role I play is Sound Consultant. I have to be a good listener and communicator to take someone else’s idea and produce a meticulous end result. A Faculty (or student) conception/story board translating that vision to a reality in sound.

If you are an educator and you don’t know sound, or you don’t have time to learn sound, they rely on my nearly 30 years of experience manipulating sound.

It is very satisfying and validating to participate in the Multi-media creation of knowledge on the University of Utah campus.

Robert Nelson
robert.nelson@utah.edu