4DSOUNDS is a sound design studio that focuses primarily on spacial sound technology and immersive sound projects. One of their most notable immersive sound experiences that they have been involved in was called, ‘Between mind and matter’ in 2019. This immersive sound piece ‘explores the subtle and diffuse transition space between physical and perceived reality’.

This kind of immersive and interactive audiovisual design, stands out in my mind due to the forward thinking and creative ideas, of specialised sound having a perceived physical effect on its surroundings. In ‘Between mind and matter’, there is a laser projection of a single line on the floor of a large and open room. This projected line is the influenced in many different ways by sounds, such as the sound moving close to the line, pushes it away. If the sound was loud and sharp it would have greater effects on the line as opposed to a quiet and noisy one.

This whole concept shows that music and visuals can be utilised in an interactive manner to increase the consumer/viewers immersion. This has sparked my interest in having sounds effect a physical object, as I would enjoy experimenting with this concept in a virtual setting.

https://4dsound.net

This is the music video for my remixed Tetris track. I created this video using Adobe After effects and its extensive library or tools and effects. The simple idea behind this was to incorporate the colourful blocks, or tetrominoes, along with my personal favourite affect of the audio waveform

Originally, my first plan or idea was to have all the blocks falling down from the top of the screen, like in the game, to create filling lines that would encompass the whole screen before shattering at the end. However, on more consideration and experimentation in After effects, I decided that this idea was far too simple, so I hit the drawing board again. This is when I decided that it would look better if all the blocks and shapes were instead falling into the centre of the screen and building up from there, whilst rotating around the centre point.

Now, with this idea running around my head I just needed to introduce the colour elements. I though about keeping the blocks the original colours of the shapes that are in the game, but when looking for the colours, I found several variations in both colour and pattern. During this time of searching I stumbled upon a music video on youtube that was simply just the animated audio waveform in aline. This made me wonder if I could replicate this visualisation in after effects.

Thankfully, I learned how to recreate what I had seen, and challenged myself to create the Tetris blocks, tetrominoes, made entirely from this audio wave form. I thought this was a simple challenge, as I could already wrap this waveform around text shapes and reactively change the colours as the music. This transitional process, from text to shape, took far longer than I expected. Nevertheless, I worked it our and could finally start building my scene, this was when I had my third realisation, so close to the end.

Realising, that my time was running out and I was only half way through building the scene, I decided to simplify and constrict my idea. I was suggested to explore the possibilities of using camera effects and controls to give the same effect I was trying to achieve but on a smaller and more efficient scale.

Overall, I am pleased with the path my project took and the learning I did along the way. From complicating the simple, to learning waveform techniques, all the way to simplifying the end scene, and ending with a shattering finish.

This piece of artwork was directly inspired my my first mix that I created here at the UoG, Tetris. I aimed to capture the essence of shapes whist still making it vibrant and recognisably styled.

Firstly, this video was a lot, I mean a LOT of fun to edit and create. The whole idea of this video came about when I was just perusing through youtube, as you do! I ended up landing on a video about the different dance styles through out the history, seeing how energising they were in the past got me thinking. I took no time at all to find, in my opinion, the perfect song for these old school dances, to be danced to, and it was ‘we no speak American’ by Yolanda Be Cool.

Admittedly, the editing process took longer than expected, I did not find it tiring or tedious. Due to the fact that the video clips I was editing were entertaining and different, I still had to match some timings to the beat however.

Overall, I developed a goal of trying to show that older dances can still be danced to modern music, and that the styles of the dancing have changed to directly represent the sounds of music throughout history.

This is a mash up/ compilation video that was created in the online workstation called, Mix the City. I Chose to use the sounds and clips provided by the website to create this video, as the audio and the visuals were already in sync. This provided me with the opportunity to create a new track, without having to worry about anything other that the sounds.

I made several attempts to create this track, as the website provides you with access to multiple different ‘city’ soundscapes. After playing my way through some major cities, such as Berlin, Glasgow and Mumbai, I finally settled on the soundscapes of a smaller city called Mannheim, Germany. As you can probably tell, by the link above, the sounds provided were quite modern and unique, yet somehow indicative of the different region of Germany.

Both my track and the accompanying video are much longer than my first few attempts at capturing the sound of Mannheim. The final version that is linked above is effectively an amalgamation of the first 3 attempts I made, hence the extended duration and transitions. Ultimately, this track was what I wanted to achieve, the sound of Mannheim in my mind. Quite modern, and a homage to the refined and diverse Germany.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton