Hi Defacto Sound!

So glad you made it over here, and I am thrilled and honored to be considered for this position.

Here is my clip:

Sound design elements you hear:

The moment the witches make an apparition appear for Macbeth (0:24) is the center piece of this sound design. It is a combo of a stock thunderstorm clip coupled with one of my favorite sounds I have ever recorded: striking my dad’s propane tank with a hammer, then applying generous amounts of time stretch to the sound (huge fan of the Paul Stretch over here). The sounds of the witch being possessed wasn’t just your typical set of vocal effects; it was a custom piece of software I created using Max/MSP that randomly applied reverb, “reverse reverb”, and panning to the voice. The clip also opens with another piece of custom Max/MSP software to establish a bed of background sound using two basic wave generators gently fluctuating in pitch (white noise to create wind and a low sine wave to create a nauseous feeling of unease). To achieve the gurgling cauldron sounds, I recorded my trusty tea kettle from my kitchen counter in various states of boiling.

Some more background if you are curious:

This version of Macbeth was supposed to be a live stage production, but COVID-19 put the Grosse Pointe South Shakespeare Club into the predicament of creating a remotely recorded “podcast” version of the play instead. After safely dropping off recording equipment on the porches of the seven different actors involved in the production, I personally trained them in basic things like mic proximity, gain levels, and building blanket forts for their home studios. After they recorded each scene as a live group on Zoom, batches of individual audio files were sent to me to edit, scrub for background noise, EQ, mix, and pan with excruciating detail (and I mean that literally….the tendons in my right hand were not prepared…lesson learned). So in addition to my roles as sound designer and audio editor/mixer, I was also excited to take on the role of audio educator and walk the actors through basic recording techniques, the recording process, etc.