I, along with three fellow students: Matt, Callum and Gareth, were tasked to produce a short podcast, to showcase our capability to produce engaging media content. We chose to discuss Artificial Intelligence, and its applications in the music industry.
We recorded the podcast using a Sennheiser MKH 416 P48 and a Rode NGT2 in the configuration shown below, connected to a laptop running Reaper through a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 audio interface. A presenter was seated either side of each boom microphone.
Our conversation covered four AI related talking points:
What is AI and its history?
Applications of AI in music mastering
Applications of AI in music composition
The future of AI in music
My topic of expertise was the history of AI, and I briefly explained the principals behind how it works. I studied Electronic Engineering for my bachelors degree, and so covered whole modules learning the principals behind neural networks and machine learning.
We recorded a 25 minute conversation, however there were sections we found to be not so relevant to the topic, and some sections which didn’t flow so fluently. We cut out these sections using moments of silence as cut points, so as to not sound abrupt. This reduced the podcast recording to just under 15 minutes.
We compressed the recording from each microphone to reduce the dynamic range and increase clarity. We also used EQ on the recordings to remove some high frequency noise present.
We added the same music to both the beginning and end to provide a sense of continuity. We then added music throughout to distract from some slight noise present in the recording which we were unable to eliminate using EQ.
Here is our podcast:
grunfeldaudio.productions 