Building a Scene Through Audio – ds106radio

Yesterday, I listened to the ds106radio playing an adaptation of a Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? and it was actually, really really interesting.

I found myself a lot more focused on how the sound made the scene instead of the actual scene, so I don’t think I could tell you exactly what was going on. I think it was a lot about the humanization of androids in this dystopian world and the uncertainty of knowing whether someone was or was not an android. For the bits that I did pick up, it was very interesting.

My favorite things were the little things in the background that set the scene, that allowed you to imagine what was happening: the click of a cup on a table, the rustling of furniture, as if someone was shifting their weight or taking off a coat, the click of buttons on an intercom or on a flashlight. I think my utmost favorite was when two of the characters were speaking in what I assumed to be an alleyway, both of their voices echoing, and you could tell one of them was further based on their voice having more echo. It was such a little detail, but it added distance and depth and was just so cool to me.

There was also, in more intense scenes, heavy white noise in the background that stayed and got more intense as the scene got heightened. I thought that was really cool, because it definitely made me feel tensed up. The scenes went from being calm to heavy all of a sudden, and I wish I had a better way to explain what “heavy” looks like in audio, but I don’t know how to explain it. A lot of white noise, I guess, that’s loud and constant without fluctuation. It wasn’t an environmental sound, it was almost like it was just in my head, just there to build tension. The characters didn’t see it, it was just for the audience.

There also was a sound that played between scenes, almost like a little cutscene that helped transition into the real one. I don’t really remember what it sounded like, but I thought that was helpful to understand where one scene ended and the next began without being able to actually see it.

Overall, I thought this was so cool. I wish more people were in the Discord, because I would’ve loved to also hear their thoughts and what they had picked up on, but regardless, I was amazed and impressed by this.