Critical reflection focusing on technical execution of sonic ideas.

I think sonically my piece could have benefitted from centering a specific voice more rather than being a busy selection of sounds. I perhaps could have focused more on composition, creating musical motifs rather than a soundscape. I also could have used more extreme techniques learnt in Ableton over this unit to warp sounds in more experimental ways.

I think the successes of my piece were the complex techniques which I used to create a complex soundscape. For example, I used analog techniques when working with a Eurorack modular synth rack and a Korg Minilogue synth to create music, drones and background textures. I think I also used my instincts as a sound designer in an effective way to decide what sounds I could use to build the soundscape and to respond to the themes of my project

I think if I did it again I would create sounds which evolve over a longer period of time, rather than a collection of short sounds happening only in the moment. In terms of planning, I would maybe choose a direction for the project before I started – like using mainly analogue synths and making this more prominent, or using mainly hydrophone recordings.

However, I think given that the brief was to use a piece of spoken word, the sonic environment I built lended itself well to this project. As I needed to use spoken word, I think it worked well that I focused more on the words and used voice and speech to create the sound design rather than creating more of a musical or natural composition.

Overall, I think the sound design was successful for the unit brief and responded well to the assignment brief, but given how many avenues I could have gone down – there are other pieces I could have made which might have been more successful.