Sound Research

The principles of sound

Sound is produced when something vibrates against air molecules which pick up the vibration and pass it along as sound waves. So if there is no air there wont be sound, which mean there is no sound in space as there is no air. We hear sounds when these vibrations hit our ears as our eardrums are sensitive to sound pressures. Sound waves travel outward from the sounds source at about 1130 feet per second.

The functions of sound have many different principles. One of their main purpose is to express emotion in entrainment such as films and games. For example in a film with a sad scene sad music will be played to enforce sad emotions on the viewers. In interactive media you hear two types of sound, diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic sounds are sounds that would naturally be there, like the sound of cheering in a stadium or the sound of a car on the street. These sounds are used to add more realism to any form of interactive media. Non-diegetic sounds are sounds that would not naturally be there, for example music playing in the background or a narrator. These sounds are used to add more emotion depth. Both sounds are used often and for different purposes.

Audio cues are commonly used in interactive media as a sound design principle. These are sounds that people can recognize really quickly without wondering what that noise was. They play a sound when something happens on screen so the user is aware of it. For example when someone receives a message on facebook a short sound plays so you know you have a message. Another way sound is used in interactive media would be in the form of Acousmetre. Which is like the sound of a narrator for a video game or a movie. They speak throughout the game and movie to tell the story they are never seen. This sound is non-diegetic as it would not normally be there.

There are two types of sound used today analogue and digital and long going argument over which one is better.
Analogue sound is sound that has come directly from microphone recordings. Their information is stored in simple waves that can be fed through a speaker in its original form. In a tape recorder, for example, the microphone’s signals is taken and placed onto tape, which will get you the exact copy of the recorded sound.

Digital sound is digitised pre-recorded analogue sound waves that are converted and stored on the computer in the form of numerical information, which are processed by the computer to create and play the sound directly from the information.  This conversion is normally called sampling analogue sound. Look at music on a CD, the sampling rate is normally 44,000, meaning there is 44,000 numbers per second of music. To hear the music, the numbers are turned into voltage waves.  In conclusion, the higher the sampling rate, the better the quality of the sound, the bigger that file.

Both analogue and digital sounds have advantages and disadvantages. For advantages digital sounds never degrade over time like analogue and does not take up as much space as it can be compressed. Also digital does not have an annoying hissing sound in the background like analogue does. The advantages of using analogue sounds is that it will all ways be the best quality of sound, as there are no sampling rates.

Over all it depends on the preference of the person as some people prefer the hissing sound that analogue sounds have as the say it sounds more natural but I, my self find it irritating. So in my opinion digital sound is better as it takes up less space and lasts longer.

step by step

To start of the creation of my soundtoy I had to make the keyboard using cinema 4D.

To start I created a cube then resized it in to the shape of a mac keyboard.I also rounded of the edges to make it look better. 

Next Created a cube and resized it into the shape of a key on the keyboard and positioned in on the keyboard. Then I duplicated it to make the other keys. 

For some of the keys I had to resize them again to match certain keys on the keyboard. when I finished creating each key I checked to see if I had the correct amount of keys and that they were in the correct position.

When i finished that I then got a picture of a mac keyboard to use as a texture for each key.

To start I opened the picture in preview and selected the key I wanted and went on edit cut the edit paste in new.

I then saved it in a folder and done this for each key on the keyboard.

Next I created a new material and on the material open the key texture and then applied it to the correct key.

I done this for every key on the keyboard.

When I finished I rendered it then imported it in to unity. After importing it in to unity I encountered a problem and that was that the textures did not work and I would have to redo them all again in unity.

In unity I created a square room using four cubes and resizing them and positioning. Next I place a spotlight and the keyboard inside the room making sure the keyboard was in the middle and the brightness of the light was good. Then I put in a camera and used the mouse orbit script and made a few changes so it will only move the camera if you click and drag and I made it so the cameras centre is the keyboard.






Next I added my help icon, so I done some research on scripting buttons and found out how to make it so the text will appear if the button was clicked and disappear when clicked again.













After recording my sounds and editing them in audacity I then imported them in to unity. Next I made a new input key for each letter on the keyboard. Once i finished this I researched how to change a objects colour when key pressed and for a duration of time. I also researched how to play a sound when key pressed. After figuring out what code to put I then done a script for each key and sound after that my soundtoy was finished.

Sketches and flowchart

Using Lucid Chart I created a flowchart for my 3D soundtoy interface.

These are the buttons I used for my paper prototype and wire frame.

I used these buttons as they are very clear and visible and also because the are Visual cues meaning the people using my sound toy would not have to think about what each button does as hey would already know.

Mood board

Button designs

Final interface design

Interface Layout designs

Word search

wireframe

After completing my paper prototype i done a wire frame with a few changes from the results of my paper prototype. I removed the music note symbols for after the key was pressed as they would not be need. To test my wire frame I got 3 people to test it and screen recorded it. 

The results were pretty much the same as the results from the paper prototype once each user clicked on the help icon and read the text they easily understood how to use the interface. All 3 users were able to use the record and play back function successfully without any troubles.

After testing this wire frame I came to the decision to change my soundtoy a bit. I decided to remove the key animations and have them change colour when they were pressed and return to the default colour when the sound had stopped.

Paper prototype

For my soundtoy interface I made a paper prototype and recorded 3 people testing it. I done this to find out if the interface was successful. 

User 1 click on the help icon to start with but quickly understood how to use the interface after and did not take long deciding what to do next. User 2 was also able to quickly understand how to use the interface after pressing the help button even though they took longer on making decisions of what to do next than user 1 they were still easily ably to get the hang of the interface in a short amount of time. Also user 3 was able to quickly understand how to use the interface quickly without having to put to much thought in to it, so this shows that the interface for my soundtoy is not to complicated and does not make the user think about it to much.

Evaluation

Using unity i have created a working 3D soundtoy and with a interactive design interface. It is a basic white room with a apple mac keyboard in the middle of it, which I modelled in cinema 4D. the users press and letter on there own keyboard and the button on screen lights up and plays a sound. Each sound I recorded and then edited in Audacity before importing it into unity. I've learnt tons from the creation of my 3d soundtoy. For example, I now have an understanding of basic scripting and coding using JavaScript. During the time I spent solving a lot of coding problems I improved my problems solving skills finding new and quicker ways to solve complex problems. Also i learnt about interface design principles and now understand each one in more detail, which helped me when I was creating my interface.

I think the point of this unit was to give us an overall understanding of how interface design works. From this I learnt about interface design principles and how to apply them to my own interfaces, which will help with my work in other units. Also the scripting and coding I have  learnt during this unit will help me in the future whilst communicating with programmers.

Overall I am happy with the result and I now have a working and enjoyable soundtoy, even though there were a few things I could of done better, like with the way it looked. I could of made it more appealing by adding more colour or more detail, because at the moment I think it looks quite plane. Also I could of done a better job with the sound editing, so instead of having a slight delay on some of the sounds they start straight away. Next time i work on a project like this I will put more research into coding before hand so I don't spend as much time solving problems and ill also spend more time planning everything out.