knowing where I'm at
(part two-audio)

I listened to half of the recordings by students in the volunteer group and glanced through all of the portfolios in the main class to see if any recordings stood out to my peers. If I were to give an estimated number, I listened through ~15 recordings. All in all, the recordings were a mixed bag. However, it favors the positive side wherein most of the recordings that I've listened to can produce good sound if it's edited in post (specifically, noise reduction). The recordings that stood out to me are the ones from Paulyana B, Jordan C, and Anna DV. The overall quality of their recording was pleasant to listen to but this may be more on the quality of their voices and less on their prowess when it comes to recording audio. I also appreciate how two of these recordings were recorded using a phone. It does give off an implication that when it comes to equipment, the phones that fit in our pocket may be enough for simple audio work like recording one's voice. 

So far, however, I have yet to see a recording that has the same quality as the instructor of this course, Sir Al, but I have yet to see a raw recording from Sir Al. The lack of data does not allow me to give proper judgment. 

Finally, there are students who made recording mistakes like Riann L. whose voice record is only present on the left channel, and Marcial B. who has muffled audio that may be due to mishandled microphone setup. Given that these are just errors that can easily be fixed, I am much more confident to say that there are no or there are very few students who will need a lot of work should they hope to pass the course. 

Relative to my peers, I would rate myself to be slightly above average but at the same time, still have a long way to go in producing audio that I would accept as well-recorded. I am still having difficulties in understanding certain terms, and as such this has encouraged me to dedicate some time to learn about audio and music theory outside of academic hours.

Additionally, I still find it challenging sometimes to describe audio accurately in ways that can easily be understood by other people. This is directly coming from my inexperience, however, I am proud of my progress after noticing that I'm now able to define audio in terms of amplitude and frequencies instead of vague terms such as crispiness, etc.

In regard to this, my recording sounds flat and lacks low frequencies. This may be fixed due to mic placement as upon testing it now, I was able to introduce these low frequencies by bringing my head much closer to my microphone. Since my microphone is unidirectional, I need to be wary of this in future recordings. Additionally, I will record future activities by directly plugging my Rode VideoMicro into my camera instead of a phone as that may also create better sound because the mic is originally designed for cameras. 

I'm still torn in choosing which audio editing program to use. For now, I am still leaning towards DaVinci Fairlight as this will grant me access to a program that I'm much more comfortable editing audio in. There's a lot of work to be done and while this has induced a sense of pressure in me, it has also instilled excitement. I dream of creating well-produced stories, and having well-recorded audio is part of that goal. Therefore, I am excited to learn more and dive deeper into audio in the coming weeks.