Audio Story- Final

Industry Interview

For my audio story, I chose to conduct an interview. The purpose of this interview was to obtain market research in relation to what candidates look for in a prospective company. I “went to the field” in a matter of speaking. A coworker of mine was gracious enough to let me bombard her with questions. Below you can listen to the actualities, narration and music that make up my Final Audio Story.

If the embedded audio below is not working, click here.

Rachelle Berrigan, HR Specialist, interviewing Tabby Decker, Learning and Development Adviser, about working in the malt industry.

Inspiration

Working in Human Resources, everyday discussions include benefits, employee satisfaction, retention, culture, compensation, etc. The intent of Matching Talent is to provide an opportunity to explore these topics through getting in the minds of candidates or employees who perhaps don’t discuss these topics on a daily basis because it is part of their job.

Human Resources is always trying to find the right way to engage current and future employees. However, sometimes I wonder if what our employees really want gets lost in all of the data, policies and initiatives.

This is why I chose to conduct an interview for my Audio Story. I wanted an opportunity to hear from an employee what is important to them. Another reason why I chose an interview for my Audio Story is because I knew I could use some of this material for our next project, the Video Story.

Research and Raw Materials

I started gathering raw materials when we were working on our Audition Tutorials. The first person I interviewed was my boyfriend who is currently a full time student. After splicing down this interview for our Audition Tutorial, I realized I was definitely going to need additional material for this Project.

The Interview

In preparation for the interview, I wrote down questions that would guide the interviewee to share their perspectives. I also reached out to a coworker to schedule time for us to meet. Although I was ultimately going to need 3 minutes of audio, I made sure we had at least 30 minutes to accommodate for the set up and take down, along with a 10-15 minutes interview.

This is the lovely and most helpful Tabby Decker, who was gracious enough to let me interview her.

Just finding a conference room to conduct the interview was challenging. We work in manufacturing, so in most of our conference rooms you can hear a light rumbling from the plant. Once we found a conference room that worked, I tried to decompress the interview stress before starting the recording.

In order to get the camera angle I wanted of the interviewee, I had to be in a position where my laptop microphone could not hear me very well. This resulted in me having to make separate recordings of myself asking the questions. This challenge resulted in some additional time editing, but also gave me flexibility to rearrange the narration of my questions.

Music

Selecting music to pair with this interview was not easy. There are so many options out there and each will communicate a different feel to the listener. I ended up selecting two clips of music I found on SoundCloud that are legal to use under Creative Commons.

The two audio clips I used are entitled Feelings and Blossom.

Technical Process

Interview Soundbites

The entire raw interview was 7:39 in length. I listened to this several times to select the actualities of the interview I wanted to use in this Audio Story. I used the razor tool to cut the material down to about three minutes. Next, I recorded the voice-over of myself asking questions that paired best with the interview responses I intended to use. I saved each of these files with appropriate titles to easily differentiate them in Audition.

Using Multitrack, I dragged each of these recordings to the “Files” section of Audition. I went through both of these audio tracks A LOT of times. I used the razor tool to edit out unnecessary “ums” along with other redundant words or sounds that did not add value to the audio.

After editing the track of Tabby and the track of myself talking individually, I aligned the two audio tracks so that the conversation flowed without significant pauses. At this stage I listened to the audio a few more times and made a few more edits with the razor tool. I increased or decreased the volume in attempts to compensate for pitch fluctuation. I also overlapped some pieces of audio as you can see in the screen shot below.

Music Tracks

Next I added the first music track, Feelings. The Feelings audio track makes up the first minute and 58 seconds and the last 6 seconds of the music used. For the rest of the interview I used a section of the music track, Blossom.

Maintaining a timeline hierarchy was very beneficial during this stage.

In the introduction, the music fades in at a value of 40 at -14.8 dB as I introduce myself. When Tabby introduces herself the fade peaks and the volume decreases to -30 dB over the course of 1 second. After Tabby introduces herself, the volume decreases slightly to -36.5 dB, at which it remains until the exit of the interview. I wanted the music to continue throughout the interview, but at a lower volume. In my draft the volume was -33 dB, and I had made the music introduction very complicated. Some feedback suggested that the decibel of the music was distracting, so this has been simplified in the final version. The music volume is -36.5 dB for the majority of the interview.

From 1:56 to 1:59 the music fades out at a value of 71 when I ask “How would you describe the culture here?” This is when Tabby says “passion describes our culture.” I wanted to bring focus to this section. During Tabby’s description of the passionate people in the malt industry, the music changes to the Blossom track and fades in slowly at a value of 0. At this value the music gets louder the more passionate she gets in speaking about the people.

At 2:28, the music begins to fades out at a value of 43 before I ask my last question, “What is your favorite part about the company?” Here the music begins to fade back in at value of -5 with an intentional pause where the volume decreases to -53.3 db for almost 2 seconds as Tabby says, “The people.” The fade climaxes and the volume returns to the standard -36.5 dB.

This picture shows the edits made during the segment in which Tabby is talking about “The people.”

At 2:34 a different section of the audio track Blossom fades in at a value of -5 before it fades out at a value of 24.

After Tabby answers the last question, at 2:54, the music cuts back to Feelings and fades in quickly at a value of 84, then fades out at a value of 13.

This capture shows all of the Multitracks in Audition for the 3-minute Industry Interview.

Overview

This was a nice opportunity to hear from an employee’s perspective, what sets malt apart from other industries.

Citations
Music:
1. QK Beats. “Blossom.” 2020. https://soundcloud.com/qkumba-beats/blossom
Channel: www.youtube.com/c/QKBeats
2. Sad Mur. “Feelings.” 18 June 2017. https://soundcloud.com/sad_mur/feelings-chill-free-to-use
Picture:
1. Nikon D7000 “Condenser Microphone.” Pixabay. 21 November 2016. pixabay.com/photos/audio-conden…hone-music-1844798/