'Seed' - Spatial Audio

This piece tells the story of a seed being planted, growing, flowering, dying and falling before re-planting itself as a new seed. Within the seed is contained all the makings of the whole beautiful flower, fizzing with life as it changes over time and experiences the external world.
Binaural panning is used along with other spatial audio techniques to bring the cycle to life in 3D.
The composition can be heard here: https://soundcloud.com/user-753440641-57303863/seed/s-3kFuCoyIOeT?si=fa3ae3d0385f49de98bb1ddab49af316&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
...while an explanation and short visual accompaniment are provided below.


The task was to create a spatialised composition encompassed by a one word title. All the audio in the piece also had to be derived from field recordings or 'plunderphonics' created for a university project the previous semester.

The first task was to leaf through them and find sounds that could be matched with different stages of the cycle or processed to create the desired sounds. By experimenting with the audio available the piece began to lean towards certain sounds more than others. To do this, various effects and techniques within logic pro were utilised including: time-stretching, slow down/speed up fades, virtual effects pedals, plugins, effect textures, repetition, slicing, EQ and binaural panning.

To work out a suitable spatialisation, and make sure the use of spatial audio was meaningful and fitting with the theme, a diagram of a plant’s lifecycle (available via the Soundcloud link) was created, using illustrations to think about the direction of the plant’s growth and interactions with external stimuli, to incorporate into the piece.

The first stage is the seed being planted; the sound starts in the daylight with bird song before sinking down into the soil. This begins with field recordings of birds and the sound of wind/air, before sinking down to a deep cinematic dampened boom created using time stretching before being put through EQ and binaural panning.

The next stage follows the seed starting to grow, pushing up through the soil before reaching the blinding outside world. A beat starts to appear, getting faster and more constant to represent the life growing within the plant. The sounds travel upwards in frequency and space before joining sounds that are at ground level – the ‘deafening’ blinding light of the surface.

As the sun is such a key element for a plant’s survival, the sample representing it is repeated at various times to make it a key motif of the piece. The sample is a plundered recording with some extra effects using textures, EQ, digital effects units to add a warmth to it. The sound seemed to be such a calming, almost blissful sound, but full of heat too and worked perfectly for the sun. The first sun sound travels downwards towards the plant while the next few travel upwards- the plants response: photosynthesis. After the sun the plant then flowers and binaural panning is used to imitate the flowers opening.

The piece follows the plants interaction with the elements and a wind sound is introduced at various points. After the rapid growth, the plant begins to slow down before slowly drying up and re-seeding. At first this process sounds calm but it soon leads into harsher, more scratchy sounds to represent the leaves losing the moisture that was present throughout.
After shrivelling up, its new seeds are heard toppling down all around, spatialised to demonstrate their direction of travel but also their shape. Although the plant is dying, the hope of new life continues with a distant motif of the sun and the airiness of an outdoor world with birds singing overhead. Finally, a new seed is chosen, fizzing with all the possibility of life, and the piece ends as it began with a seed being planted.

Once the piece had come together, each part of the cycle was scrutinised individually and compared to the diagram to ensure the spatial directions matched. The levels were then mixed, and a very light reverb was added to improve perceived audio quality and make the track sit well as a whole.