Sonification Click Track for Media Synchronization

This post outlines the creation of sonification click tracks for synchronization of additional media in sonification design. The development and use of click tracks provide accurate yet flexible mixing design, especially for related media events like axis markers, spearcons, and event-based earcons.

After creating a lot of sonifications in Kyma for this project, I started to review the efficiency of my design process. What was really important to me as a sound designer and team member was the ability to quickly respond to ideas and requests. I came to realize that I needed more mixing flexibility for audio display (sonification-related) sounds, like start and end earcons, axis markers, or other event-based (sp)earcons. I found design efficiency through track separation in the sonification recording process. In other words, placing audio display components on a separate track in my sonification mix session gave me greater flexibility.

In some of my earlier workflow, I would align everything up and record sonification and audio display components together in Kyma. The tight integration was sample accurate but any volume change or mute of audio display components, and I would have to go back to my notes, find the right Kyma Sound, re-print the entire sonification, and edit the raw recording. This took extra miscellaneous time. The process reminded me of how Rupert Neve described the process of two-track recording. If you needed to redo a part, you had to rebook the studio and musicians, reset the mics, and re-record the band to achieve the new mix — very expensive and time-consuming.

So I needed a way to merge the accuracy in (sample-based) synchronization of Kyma and the flexibility of digital mixing recall from my digital audio workstation (DAW). The value of accuracy meant I needed a sample-accurate timing from the data for triggering audio display sounds. The value of flexibility meant that as a sound designer I could quickly recall, add, remove, and mix balance audio display sounds before printing off a new mix.

Enter in the sonification click-track.

Using Kyma to create a sample-based click track running alongside the sonification, I record out the click-track separately from the sonification mapping and place this on a track within the mix to synchronize any additional media, like axis-markers, spearcons, and event-based earcons. The click track is based upon the data, user-defined, and aligned to the start of the sonification track. While the click track can serve as an axis indicator for the data, I often mute the click track in my DAW to simply and easily synchronize audio display components with the sonification track(s).