Sound Design Media – Course Description – ARCH11008
Semester 1- 20 credits
Course organiser -Dr. Martin Parker
Taken in year one if part-time
Course website – digital.eca.ed.ac.uk/sounddesignmedia
Essential Prerequisites
Experience of using sound recording technologies (microphones, recording equipment etc.)
Experience of using sound editing tools such as DAWs or wave editors, mixing tools, digital or analogue.
Synopsis
In this course students will become acquainted with the technologies that are used in contemporary sound design. Of particular emphasis will be the possibilities of sound production in the recording studio and editing in the digital domain. This course will be lecture and workshop based and hands-on in its teaching approach. Students will develop their own resources in the studio, and with digital audio processing tools. Students will apply these to creative sound design tasks outlined in the project brief.
Learning Outcomes
- Ability to work with professional sound design software tools.
- Experience of recording sound in a controlled recording environment.
- Ability to work in a collaborative context of group review and critique.
- Ability to engage in a creative task within tightly constrained bounds and to present the outcome to conform to precise specifications.
- Ability to interpret and apply a set of requirements pertaining to a sound design task.
Lecture and tutorial schedule (please note, subject to slight change as the course progresses)
Criteria for Assessment
Work will be assessed on the basis of
- Demonstrated competence with sound recording and sound manipulation tools
- Skills in creatively deploying allocated resources, whatever their quality
- Precision and competence in presentation
- Ability to meet the requirements of the project brief and deal creatively with its open-ended aspects
- Design quality of the work in terms of meeting functional requirements, legibility, clarity, and appropriate use of media and sound tools
- Account will also be taken of the risks taken and degree to which the design deviates from standard solutions
Please note that assessment will take account of tradeoffs between the above criteria, particularly in light of the diverse backgrounds of students in the class. You are encouraged to seek feedback during the development of your work, but please note that adhering to feedback does not guarantee a high assessment of the completed work. Note also that the assessment of the work is not necessarily commensurate with the amount of time spent on the project work. The issues of design and its evaluation will be further canvassed in Media and Culture.
Teaching Method
Work in this course is project-based. So the project and its tasks provide the focus, with skills being taught in targeted lecture/seminars as needed to progress the work or to enrich your thinking about your craft and its purpose.
You will be expected to work in proximity to other students in the class and benefit from each other’s developing expertise. Some of the software used may have highly advanced audio capabilities, beyond those needed for the project work. Any specific software will be introduced at a basic level through lectures and tutorials. There will be opportunities to develop further skills in any of the software in other courses, and into the Final Project during the summer.