Spatial Audio Design - Project 02: Auditory Imaging

24/05/2026 - 17/06/2026 | Week 05 - Week 08

Koh Sher Wei | 0353816

Spatial Audio Design | Bachelor of Design in Creative Media


List of Contents:
> MIB
        - Instruction
        - Process and Learning
        - Editing 
        - Final Audio Submission 
MIB

Project 2: Auditory Imaging

Instructions
For this project, we need to create a spatial audio image based on one of the given scenarios:

1. Wildlife + Background
2. Everyday Home Life + Background
3. Cities + Transport + Background
4. Industry and Electronic sounds + Background
5. Weather + Background
6. Market + Rural atmosphere + Background

After choosing one of the themes from the list of choices, we are expected to draft the storyline for our audio imaging. Then, gather necessary sounds to begin crafting our soundscape. 
Students are not encouraged to include dialogues nor mouthing to make sound effects. Sound effects can be found from the following resources:


Process and Learning
I decided to choose (6. Market +Rural atmosphere + Background) and wrote a short 3-part storyline. 


Based on the 3-part storyline that I wrote, I created 3 different folders (Intro, Mid and End) to arrange my downloaded sound effects. I wanted to be able to distinctly separate my sounds so that I can work on my audio imaging part-by-part. 

Aside from the given websites, I also used another website to search for suitable sound effects: Pixabay.com 


Before we started on our project, we had to download a plugin in order to hear the proper 5.1 surround sound with our headphones. We were given the Dear Reality dearVR PRO plugin to download and apply when using Reaper.

There were a few things we were told to make sure to adjust so that the surround sound works properly:
-  Click on the strike in mixer > change track channel to 6 > make sure to do this to all tracks
- dearVR PRO (Set output to 5.1 ITU & switch off effects) > only for master mixer set as binaural
- Don't touch elevation
- Virtual acoustic set to "reflection only" (otherwise can't hear the back)


Once we learned how to use Reaper with the plugin, we started working on our audio imaging. This is my full workspace with all tracks. Again, I separated my workflow into 3-parts. I started by importing and adjusting the first/intro section first. This way I can work my way to the end slowly and check on the individual tracks properly without having too much clutter. 


For most of my audio clips, I added the ReaEQ FX and dearVR PRO 2 FX so I can adjust the sound to fit my atmosphere. For some tracks, I also had to add reaverb FX and Chorus. 





I also made sure to add a hard limiter to my master track FX, so that I can be certain that the volume for all of my audio clips stay within a certain range. 


There's no clip automation, so I used track automation to set the position for the surround sound of each audio. I did the same thing with the volume track automation. All of which were enabled from the "TRIM" button next to the FX button.



Once I was done with the first section, I moved on to the second section. I imported all my sound effects from the mid folder. Once I was done adjusting each individual clip, I put them all under a new track. I used this track as a "bus" track, so that I am able to adjust the position of the surround sound and the overall volume of the whole mid-section. I applied the same thing to the end-section as well.




Final Audio Submission

Reflection

Initially, the idea of this project was actually quite fun. As someone who enjoy playing around with sound and audio, I thought this would be something enjoyable. However, as I started working on producing the audio, I realised that it is actually quite difficult. A lot of things need to be taken into consideration for creating the right atmosphere. Even downloading sound effects was quite a challenge as we have no control over the exact audio clips we want. We have to make do with what we are able to find and figure out a way to fit it into our auditory imaging. Then, when it comes to working on each track, that is another challenge, considering there are so many sound effects, and each one needs to have a different effect to make it piece well together. It is made even harder when we have to also include surround sound, something that can be quite confusing to utilise after hours of hearing the same repeating sound. Overall, I still think it's a good experience. I do think I learned a lot from this project and will continue to play around with sound but it also makes me respect sound engineers or anyone who does any type of sound production. 

----End of Blog Post----



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