MUSC 156 W26 Midterm – Chilling Winter Tales

Voice EQ and SFX

Due: Folder Zip, PDF and WAV file to be submitted via OnQ (by 10:00pm, February 23, 2026)

For this assignment you will explore the creation of soundscapes recording your voice and various "found" objects (these can be misc. Household objects – appliances, toys, water, ice etc.) embracing the atmosphere of Winter and its associated terror. Forget all the lights and carols, we’re going to make a horror tale with a few of our newfound skills. The benefit of using the “scary story / horror / occult” genres is that it helps us concentrate on a single theme and make choices according to that theme in the use of FX, mic techniques, etc. These kinds of stories also offer us lots of opportunities for Sound Effects!

Summary – A mini radio play complete with:

•    Recorded Vocal

o  Recorded with peaks averaging between -12 and -18dBFS

o  Edited, cleaned up, no bumps, clicks or pops, consistent volume

o  Gate, De-Esser and Equalizer on Vocal Track

•    Effects

o One section of Recorded Vocal with Media Item FX Insert Effect applied

    Use Insert Effect to augment your vocal for a moment to augment story

    Cut out a section of Recorded Vocal into its own media item and apply an insert effect such as Distortion, Chorus, Phaser, Flanger

•    Set Wet/Dry % as you see fit

    Adjust the Media Item volume to maintain appropriate levels.

o A Send effect

    Choose Reverb or Delay

•    Set Wet 100%/Dry 0%

    Route and Automate

•    Route the Vocal track or Foley to the send effect

•    Bring up and down to augment the story

•    2 or more Foley elements (Sound Effects)

o  Recorded with peaks averaging between -12 and -18dBFS

o  Edited, cleaned up, no bumps, clicks or pops, consistent volume

o You can use Surge but at least one of your foley elements must be recorded with your microphone

o You must Render>Selected Track any use of Surge and reimport it. No Midi Items (note: the record Output trick from Assignment 4 doesn’t work for tracks that don’t use megababy. You must use the Render>Selected Track method here.

•    Track is balanced

o  No track exceeds -6dBFS

o  Master Track peaks between -6dBFS and -12dBFS, no lower

o Volume is adjusted in the correct order as in the most recent assignments

    Recording > Media Item or VST Instrument Volume > Track Volume > Bus Volume

•     Proper Track Organization

o All tracks must be routed appropriately

    Sends must be routed correctly and function

    Use appropriate Busses using Folder Tracks:

•    Eg “Bus - Vocals”, “Bus - Foley", “Bus - FX"

o Track Names, Colours

•    Wav Render that starts at -inf dBFS and ends at -inf dBFS

o  Make sure the track starts with silence (-inf dBFS)

o  Ensure that all tracks or effects tail out to silence before the end of your render area.

o Alternately set your Render Tail to an appropriate ms (1000ms = 1second) so that it ends after the track becomes silent (don’t set it too long)

o  Reopen your wav render in Reaper and check that it properly starts and ends with silence

o  No more than 5 seconds of silence at the beginning or end of the wav render.

•    Written Component

o 200-350 words describing your process and choices including:

    Choice of story

    Your use of Equalization

    How your Foley was made

    Your Effect Choices

Note: All effect plugins must be included with Reaper or Komplete Start for me to mark it. You can google the effect if you already have some installed of your own.

No AU plugins.

Process:

1)  Save your Project first, with create subdirectory.

Ensure your Project Settings have an appropriate Media folder location

2)  Create a new track, name it something related to your voice and record a 30-60 second excerpt of yourself reading a quote from a horror/scary story. Or make up your own if you want

These don’thave to be in English if there’s a particular story you like that is in a language that you speak (but please provide text with a description in a word doc/pdf, or translation, if this is the case)

If you’re having trouble finding a source you could try looking around this subreddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/

3)  Clean and Edit your Voice track. No clicks bumps or pops.

Use JS:De-Esser and ReaGate to help.

4)  Use ReaEQ and apply changes using multiple bands to improve the quality of the voice recording (according to techniques discussed in class/the vocal EQ cheat sheet that we have been using)

5)  Listen to your recording and find a moment where you would like to apply an insert effect to the vocal. Split or Razor this section into its own Media Item.

6)   Using the Media Item Properties (F2), apply a VST effect onto the Take FX of the Media Item

a)  Choose an insert effect that suits the expressive nature of the story.

This could be JS Distortion, JS Ring Modulator, JS Chorus… Up to you.

b)  Set the Wet/Dry ratio to however you want it.

Best to start with Wet -6dbFS/Dry -6dBFS (50% Wet/50% Dry) and adjust as you want.

Consult the Tuesday lecture about balancing these.

c)  Adjust the volume so it fits in with the rest of your vocal

7)  Create a second track

a)  Apply a send Reverb/Delay effect that suits the expressive nature of the story

This could be ReaVerbate, ReaVerb, JS: Delay, experiment

b)  Set the Wet/Dry ratio to  100% Wet/0%Dry.

c)   name this track “FX SEND – name of Effect”

8)   Create a 3rd and 4th track and name them “Foley 1” and “Foley 2”. At least one of them must be recordings with your microphone, the other can be another microphone recording or a presets  from Surge – create 2 moments where the sounds in the track reflect something that would be heard in the story. For example, if there’s footsteps then record some footsteps and place the

recording into this track, if there’s a growl or wind then find a Surge preset that fits that description.

If you choose to use Surge for one of the tracks, render the output of Surge and reimport into Reaper as an audio media item(not MIDI – stereo or mono audio are both fine). There should be no midi plugins in your assignment

9)   Add more foley tracks if you want, make something you can be proud of, get the practice now before the Final Project

10) Organize your project into Busses using folder tracks

a)   All vocal tracks go through a vocal bus named appropriately

b)   All Foley go through a foley bus named appropriately

c)   All send FX go through a foley bus named appropriately

d)   Right click on the Mixer Window Master Track and choose “Show Group Folders on Left”

11)  Route your Vocal track and/or Foley track send to the Send Effect you created.

a)   Click on the stripey Route button to see the track routing or click in the send area of your Effect strip in the Mixer Window (drag up the window to see it)

b)   Add new send > Select the send effect track you created in step #7

12) Click on the trim button of the track(s) you’re sending from

a)   Active/Visible/Arm the Send envelope that controls the send you just created