Link to my edited radio show audio!
For this assignment, I was tasked with editing an old radio clip with new sound effects in order to enhance its story. This is actually my favorite assignment to-date for a multitude of reasons, though the most important are as follows: I love older radio shows (especially Dick Tracy), and editing with Audacity was really fun, in my opinion.
The radio show I chose to edit was a snippet from “An Evening with Groucho” episode. When I was younger, I was obsessed with the Marx Brothers, so I knew I had to choose this one for my project. The story is about his uncle Herman who was a chiropodist and an arsonist. When the audio begins, I added music from the Marx Brothers’s Medley so it would provide a nice transition to Groucho’s stand-up. Then, once he tells of how Uncle Herman would clip people’s fingernails and toenails, I added a sound effect of nail clipping. After that, Groucho, ever the comedian, cracks another joke, saying that after this endeavor, he got a “real job,” where I added the “joke drum” sound effect from Dr. Johnson’s audio folder. Other effects I added include the sound of a winter storm brewing because Groucho talks about a cold winter, followed by the sound of a firetruck engine due to Uncle Herman burning down apartment complexes.
My edit isn’t perfect, though; one thing I struggled with immensely was making the transitions from sound effect to the original audio smooth. The most frustrating one for me was the sound of the snow blowing. Where it is so brash, it was challenging to make it fade in and out like I wanted it to, though I am satisfied with the end product.
My process was fairly simple and, well, fun for me. I got to listen to Groucho’s interesting story as I edited, and, although it did become annoying after a while, it was still fun. I am excited to show my papaw this because he was the one who introduced me to the Marx Brothers and am interested in seeing his reaction to my edit.
These audio clips, excluding the one from Dr. Johnson, came from Archive.org, Soundbible.com, and SoundSilk.com. These are great websites that offer their services for free! I highly recommend them. 🙂
Hope you all enjoy my final product!
