Cai Gwilym Pritchard

In classes we have been talking about mixing surround sounds as a method for achieving immersion for a sound piece and it has got be thinking a lot about applications in my personal medium of podcast audio drama, I feel that it is an interesting pathway for quite unique experiences within that medium however due to the specfic needs of 5.1/7.1 etc, it does not feel like it could/should develop into a massively widespread way of listening to audio drama.

5.1 is a 6 channel sound system which utilises a surround layout of 5 speakers (centre speaker, left and right front, left and right surround, and a subwoofer for bass) the 7.1 system adds and extra 2 speakers on the side. Before I start gushing about the positives and possibilities I should mention the issues and hinderances. To both mix and listen in 5.1/7.1 (herby referred to as just surround sound) requires a lot of equipment, at school there is a setup of a rack of inputs and outputs which allow the sound designer to route the various channels in their DAW to the speakers around the room, to listen in surround it requires less equipment but still needs the 6-8 speakers and the space to keep them in. More problems arise in the transmission of a piece of work in surround, you cant encode the instructions for a surround piece into a .WAV file and it must be encoded into a specific format, meaning you would not be able to transfer the surround mix over a podcasting platform.

That is not to say though that it is not possible to transfer a file with surround sound, it can be easily put into a transferrable file over the internet and so perhaps it would not work for regular episodes of a show but instead special episodes, season finales, Patreon specials and the like. In the spirit of this I’ve started to consider how I could incorporate surround mixing into Chain of Being, the season finale of the show is on the horizon and I’m thinking about how I can make it special. For a while now I’ve been thinking about how to make it different, in terms of content and actual sound design. However since the possibility of surround mixing has been introduced to me I have been theorizing another way to make it unique. When the time comes to it I think I might mix it in 5.1 and hold a live listening, not everyone has a system capable of handling 5.1 and it would make for an interesting experience to have a live version. To make it slightly more accessible I could release an encoded file for those that have such systems at home, releasing it alongside the regular episode.

For now this is all speculation, there are lots of things that could provide an obstacle, it might not be artistically worth doing, feeling more like a novelty than anything but I will only be able to see in practice.

After taking a look at the opening scene to Blade runner the idea of using a bassy heartbeat rhythm has been stuck in my head, after taking a look at the autopan function in class I decided I’d give it a go, after tweaking a basic synth drone I put it through the autopan effect, offseting the phase and using a wave function that would give the impression of a heartbeat. It has a certain ominousness that I like and I feel it fits in well with the theme of the fourth man.

I did some free writing in order to get a sound source of the voice with a good provenance, I went in trying to write from Shackleton’s perspective at the time of the march in the snowfields. this is what I ended up with

I then recorded myself reading this into ableon live, I put on a slight affect as I read, trying to ‘perform’ it rather then just read it aloud, hoping to emulate Cathy Berberian in some way, in Ableton I then layered a few effects (including glitchmachines fracture XT, and the OTT compressor preset) inspired by this track by Charmaine Lee, this was the final product:

For use in the final piece it might be good to cut it up and use as emphasis in certain moments in the piece as it would cut through very effectively

I interviewed Casper on the 17th of may, I had never spoken or really interacted with Casper outside of organising and actually doing this interview, however I had seen them around and to me seemed quite prolific within the community. We also had other interviewee David Orion as a friend in common. Casper is “an actor in various forms and a podcaster for many series like “Jar of Rebuke“, “The Queer Thesperience“, and more”.

Having never met Casper I was slightly nervous about meeting them in the context of a soon-to-be published interview but quickly I became relaxed, they were a vey interesting person to talk to. I think knowing how much they were involved in the community and such I felt that they would have a very valuable insight into said community and ultimately hearing their thoughts on things made me feel a lot more confident in my views on the matter.

One of my aims for ‘The Fourth Man’ is to create a sense of immersion within in the space of the piece, my initial approach was to do the usual formula of sound in both diegetic and non-diegetic form (score and ambience, sound effects and soundscape) under the speech, but recently I have felt this approach to be too in my comfort zone. With this experiment I’ve tried to mess around with space using the DearVR plugin which allows for a good control over the direction of a sound source. Inspired by my classmate Buki’s idea to move the voice around and have it be the ‘fourth man’ I’ve used it to move the voice around the listener

here I’ve bounced a set of footsteps from freesound with the voice and moved that recording around so it seems as if there is a figure physically moving around the listener, I’ve tried to subtly (or not so subtly) move the sound around in a way that’s incongruous with the footsteps, hopefully having a slightly off-putting effect.

Unfortunately I still feel this isn’t a big enough difference with how I usually do things, it still feels like narration with sound effects, I think my next steps will have to be something that cuts up the flow of the voice, perhaps warping it or adding it into a sampler. I’ve always had the desire to try and feed speech through a granular synth and to then try and piece together the original sentence with the fragments that come out the other end with a great deal of editing.

Unfortunately, due to issues with the internet at my student accommodation the recording of the interview with robin was lost, luckily they were kind enough to send me the written answers to their questions.

Robin is the creator of the audio drama ‘Seren‘, a dystopian sci-fi podcast in which they also star, write, and produce. I had interacted with Robin before, they were one of the first to talk about my own podcast, marvelling at another welsh creator. This was my first time talking to them and it was unfortunately cut short, however I did enjoy what time we did have

• What was it that drew you to audio drama as a medium for telling your story?

I think it really came from listening to audio drama and realising that I could use it as a way to tell a story. By the time I started writing Seren I’d been listening to fiction podcasts for nearly two years – and a lot of them! And I knew that I could use audio to tell the story, even though it would mean having to learn a lot of new skills. I hadn’t tried publishing anything else through any other medium, but I knew that I would have control over the creation and be able to put it out to the world myself, just by uploading a file to a website. 

• Had you ever considered going via a different medium to tell your story, why did you not end up going with that?

No, I’d never thought about using a different medium, it was really the accessibility of audio that made me realise I could put my story out into the world. I’m not even sure I would’ve had the idea otherwise, it’s very much tied in with my love of listening to fiction podcasts.

• The major assumption in this essay is that the AD community is very rich in members of the community, would you agree with this?

Definitely. The vast majority of friends and people I talk to in the community are queer, nearly all of them. And so many people I follow on Twitter are too, both creators and fans.

• If you had to attribute a reason as to why the AD community is seemingly so Queer, what would you say that would be? 

I think it started off with queer people seeing it as a way that they could tell their stories, without anyone telling them that they couldn’t tell queer stories or wanting to change them. It’s a more accessible medium, which also allows you to have full control over your creation. Then the more queer people there are, the more queer people it’s going to attract. Fans and potential creators are going to see that it’s a safe space for queer folks, that they can listen to stories about queer folks by queer folks, and that then attracts others. Queerness in the community is much more “normalised” compared to the world in general, even the Western world, and it allows folks to create queer stories without the fear of judgement.

• What does it mean to you to have Queer rep. In AD?

Firstly, it means that I can finally see people like me. I’m demisexual, and the first ace representation I’d ever seen was in a fiction podcast (ars PARADOXICA), and I remember how huge that felt to me, I’d never seen anything like it before. It means that I have a space to be comfortable to accept and explore my sexuality and gender, which I wouldn’t have otherwise, and to talk to other folks who have had similar experiences. Being in this community has helped me so much in understanding who I am, and I’m very grateful to have this space.

• Do you feel there are any groups that are underrepresented in the Modern Audio Drama community? Why do you think that might be? From my experience, the AD community is very white, especially in the UK. This could be tied in to ‘traditional’ audio drama, even I didn’t listen to BBC radio drama growing up, it was too English and middle class, it wasn’t something I thought I could relate to. Even though audio drama is seen to have a low barrier to entry, there are still barriers, especially to folks from marginalised backgrounds. There aren’t many working class folks either, the UK community is very middle class. You still need a certain amount of money to get started, even if you’re going to be operating on a shoestring. And not only money, but time, which is going to be more difficult if you’re working lower-paid jobs. 
• How welcome do you feel in Audio Drama?

Generally I’ve felt welcome, and a lot of people have been very supportive, but there are some who have made me feel very unwelcome. I feel like my lack of formal education/training is a barrier, and I do often feel like I don’t fit in because of this, or that the work I do isn’t up to scratch. It’s difficult when so many come to the medium because they have some kind of relevant training, and it was a natural move for them because of the relevant ease of getting into the medium, and feeling like you have to meet the same standards if you’re self-taught or you’ll be criticised harshly.

I interviewed David on the 12th of May, these days he’s very busy with his job outside of his podcast and so I was very thankful that he managed to find time for me. David writes, produces and stars in his podcast ‘Dos: After You‘ a podcast about a trans-man in love with a god. Each episode is also produced twice, once in English and once in Spanish, something which never fails to amaze me.

We talked about publishing, the ease of which audio drama can be produced and had a look at which groups in audio drama are not so well represented. A lot of what David says I whole heartedly agree with and I think it is most likely another reason we get along so well as friends/ David has featured as a minor role in my podcast however I fully intend on bringing him back.

Ando Valentine is a writer, musician, and creator and star of her audio drama podcast ‘Shadows of a Dark Past’, their talents are many and their skills even more so. I have known Ando for a while as first a fellow player in a game of dungeons and dragons and then as a friend.

I interviewed Ando on Monday the 10th of May over Zencastr. Ando’s experience in other mediums gave them a different perspective on things, she has worked in many different areas and so, unlike me, is able to compare telling a story in audio drama to another (as were a few of my guests). For Ando listening came first and acted as a “second iteration” of the story of SoaDP. We also talked about how the internet tends to force people into sub-communities and bubbles and how this would form the basis of our assumptions on our own community.

Jaci is the co-founder of the podcast network ‘Faustian Nonsense‘ (of which I am a member) and a showrunner of upcoming audio drama ‘Jack of All Trades‘. She works tirelessly to keep FN afloat alongside other co-founder Amelia Kinch and is working on ‘Caveat Emptor’ as well and joins Amie in being a ‘recovering attorney”

Jaci spoke with me on may 7th, back to back with Amie, specifically avoiding listening in on each others interviews to give unique answers. We talked about the qualities of making an audio drama, underrepresented groups, representations within audio drama and the transition from listener to creator. Having worked on the survey that accompanies these interviews and forms a major backbone of the essay a lot of my thinking became influenced by Jaci, the shape of the essay and the methods by which we acquired the data which we did. I found in doing this interview a lot of our experiences were shared in making Audio drama, we both have found how direct the move from idea to actualisation is within audio drama.