Prism Sound Orpheus - Audio Media

For The RecordSound EffectsIt’s funny, the things that occur to you while you’re lying on your back in a confinedspace, having molecules in your body pummelled by a massive magnet.I’m sure you know the feeling. I had planned to write this month’s columnabout my addiction to technology and shiny studio hardware, but thensomething came to me while I was being fed into a kind of giant photocopierat the weekend.Actually, it was an MRI scanner (though it turned out it was nothing serious).The scanning process involves being slid into a big, shiny machine through afairly small opening: I had only a few inches of space above me and had to lieperfectly still while a lot of very clever stuff went on (see how incredibly knowledgeableI am about all things medical). A computer image of the inside of myhead then appeared in front of the people in white coats, sitting the other sideof a big window.I have to be honest and say the whole experience was rather unpleasant.Think caskets and coffins and you’re on the right lines. One of the people inwhite coats gave me a button to press if I wanted to gain her attention and Ihad to fight the urge to squeeze it like buggery on several occasions.But the claustrophobia was nothing compared to the sound. For thirty fiveminutes I listened to a succession of utterly monstrous whirrs, buzzes, and groansfrom the MRI machine as it did its thing. It was like an evil robot in a B-movie.I’d been given a large pair of headphones to wear throughout the procedureand had taken along my own choice of CD: the soundtrack to Ashes to Ashes.But not even The Clash and Gene Hunt’s rantings could drown out the deafeningnoise of the scanner.As I lay there with my eyes firmly shut (I figured you can’t be claustrophobicif you can’t see anything. Hey, it’s a theory!) it really brought home how powerfulsound is. Is this pointing out the obvious? Possibly not. It’s easy to get soused to working with audio that you forget what a powerful sense hearing is.Lying inside a tiny white tube was not nice. But the sound that was comingfrom all around me was far, far worse. I’m a big grown boy, but I really wantedto be somewhere else, and that was down to the emotions stirred up by theterrible grinding coming from all around me.Sound works on the imagination. I couldn’t see what was making thosenoises but it was enough to get a whole stack of irrational thoughts runningthrough my brain. I wouldn’t even consider sharing them with you.When I finally slid back out, I said to the technician, “I make sound effects forvideo games, but I could never come up with something as scary as that.” I dolike a challenge.JERRY IBBOTSON runs Media Mill, a York-based audio production company started in2000 that specialises in sound for video games. Prior to this, Jerry was a BBC journalistfor ten years, ending his spell with the Beeb as a reporter and newsreader at Radio OneNewsbeat.SOMETHING TO SAY?If you are an audio professional and have something constructive to say about your field of expertise, or tipsfor your peers, contact us with your ideas at ftr@audiomedia.com18AUDIO MEDIA NOVEMBER 2005