Lesson 4 Sound

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Lesson 4 Sound

Sound has the power to entertain, move, persuade and inform. The computer has changed the way we interact and edit sound in a profound way. In this lesson you will explore the nature of sound and how it is captured, edited and converted by computing hardware and software.

Please read Chapter 7 Sound in the book. As you go through the chapter answer the questions on the Lesson 4 Worksheet.

Lesson 4 worksheet 64 points

When you have completed the Lesson 4 Worksheet upload it to the Lesson 4 folder on the class D2L site.

Before you begin the following projects it is a good idea to create a restore point, this will allow you to revert back to the way your operating system was working before you did the install of the applications listed below. Creating a restore point will provide a way to restore your operating system incase some problems crops up with the install of the applications.

Project 4 Media Converters (25 points)

There will come a time when you need to convert one digital media format into another. There are many reasons to convert media, you have a flash movie you want to play on your ipad or iphone, you are trying to import a media file into an editing application and the application does not work with that format or you have an audio CD you want to rip so that you can load it on your portable media device. There are may free and inexpensive media converters available. The main difference is how the interface works to do the conversions. Below I have listed two media converters;

ArchSoft Media Converter 8 found at

http://www.arcsoft.com/mediaconverter/

This is a 15 day free trial version.

Format Factory is a free program, the download is found at

http://www.pcfreetime.com/download.html

I would like you to download the two converters and convert an audio file to the MP3 format in both applications, note where the converted file is being saved (obvious the original file will be in a different format). As you do the conversions make note of how the program performs this task and in a short paper (at least two paragraphs) compare the two programs. This project is worth 25 points.

Once you have completed this project submit it to the Project 4 dropbox on the D2L class site.

Project 5 Editing Audio Files (50 points)

Basic sound editing is no harder then cutting, copying and pasting text in a word document. Obviously the difference is that you are working with sound and not text, which means instead of using your eyes to see what you are editing you will use your ears to hear what you are editing.

One of the best sound editors is a free program Audacity. You will find Audacity at

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Please download and install Audacity.

Once you have installed Audacity start the application. When Audacity starts a How to Get Help window appears, click on Quick Help. This will open a a browser window with topics that will allow you to do basic operations. I would like you to the following;

Open one of the MP3 audio files you created in project 4
Choose a small segment of that file and copy it to a new file.
Save the Project as Music Segment note the warning that appears.
Export the file as an MP3 formatted file. When you click on the Save button you will receive a warning that you need an encoder. Go back to save and click on the link that take you to the download page and follow the directions. Make sure that you download the Lame_v3.99.3_for_Windows.exe application. Once you do this you will be able to convert the file to MP3.

To complete this project, please created a PowerPoint project, a title slide and two blank slides. On the title page for the title use Project 4 Audio and for the subtitle use Editing Audio Files.

Here is a sample of what I am looking for.

Sample Audio Slide Presentation

Do the following to create this PowerPoint:

At the top of the first blank page create a Word Art title Audio Files.
At the top of the second blank page create a Word Art title Automatic Start Audio File.
Import the full MP3 audio file on to the Audio Files slide and place a title above the icon. Do not change an of the defaults for playing the audio file.
Import the edited MP3 audio file on to the Audio Files slide and place a title above it. Do not change an of the defaults for playing the audio file.
On the Automatic Start Audio File slide place the edited audio file and on the Audio Tools Playback tab on the pull-down list next to start select Audomatic
Place a title above the icon indicating that on this slide the audio states when the slide is started.

Once you have completed the PowerPoint for the project submit it to the Project 5 dropbox on the D2L class site.