The Swamp

This provided the start of the Bridge, The idea was to fool guests into thinking they were surrounded by trees and night time animals.

The basic track started with collecting all the various night elements we felt might be present. I collected various night time WAVs of swamps, babbling brooks, wind rustling through trees, crickets, cicadas, frogs, jungle type birds, etc. Just use your imagination and keep looking. You have no idea of how many types of swamp there are until you start searching. A good tip is to create a new folder for all the samples you save to your PC so you can find them quickly when you want. Click here for animal WAVs or Click here for ambient sound WAVs

Samples collected, I started by creating a single low level sound bed to create the ambience. Open up your audio editor of choice, I used Audio Edit by Mystic Media for this Project which was a dream to use. Since the samples collected are generally small usually only 1 or 2 seconds maximum, you have to copy and paste a sample few times to give you any length, but since it is low level audio the repeats are not that obvious once you’ve overlaid the other sounds. Selecting either both channels or just the left or the right, I then started altering the sound levels slightly at different points along the length of the track by highlighting various sections of the track and changing the amplification level to provide movement and create a few differences here and there. Once you’ve edited the track and got it to a suitable length, say about 3 or 4 minutes, then save it under another name. I used swamp bed 001 through to 004 for the ambient tracks and then swamp track 001 through to 13 for the final versions, that way if you decide you don’t like the way the track is going you always have a copy to go back to. The other tracks or portions of them can also be pasted back into your working track to give you even more seeming randomness in the audio.

Try creating two or three different basic versions from scratch using the various ambient samples until you are happy with the overall sound. You could even try adding a little echo or reverb to parts of the bed to enhance the echoes of the space your guests are walking through.

You know you’re getting it right when you close your eyes, and listening through the headphones begin to picture what is going on around you from simply the sound.

Once you have your basic beds, you can begin adding the night life. Think about what happens when you walk through the swamp. Some animals are far away, the frogs calling backwards and forwards to each other. Those near to you suddenly go quiet as you approach allowing you to hear others further away. Birds scared by your presence suddenly cry out before flying away. As you visualise it grab the appropriate sample and MIX it into your basic bed. Remember sounds far way have less volume than those close by. Once you’ve completed your first pass, save the file and run through it again and again looking for low points where nothing is happening or where you feel there is need for something different.

Finally, once your happy save the file under its final name as an MP3 before burning it onto an audio CD.