The Yuen Po Street Bird Garden, nestled within the Mong Kok Flower Market, stands as a unique cultural landmark in Hong Kong. This specialized street market, dedicated to selling birds and related supplies, represents one of the last remaining bird markets in Hong Kong, preserving the traditional bird-keeping culture. For this audio project, I chose the Zoom H3 VR handy recorder for its omnidirectional recording capabilities, allowing me to capture the immersive soundscape of this distinctive environment.
This audio work adopts a sound walk format, guiding listeners through an auditory journey of the bird garden. At the beginning of the recording, I utilized the Room Encoder to gradually increase the width and depth of the sound, transitioning the audience from the quiet flower market atmosphere into the lively bird garden. By adjusting the sound depth, the birds’ calls become progressively closer, creating a sense of spatial movement and immersion.
As the recording moves into the narrow shop-lined corridors, I implemented FDN Reverb to simulate the echo effects characteristic of confined spaces. Combined with the Stereo Encoder to adjust sound positioning, this technique effectively captures the dense arrangement of shops along both sides. The audio clearly presents a mix of shopkeepers’ voices and various bird calls, enhanced by careful sound placement to recreate the authentic market atmosphere.
In the more open gathering areas, I expanded the Room Encoder’s width and depth parameters while using the Stereo Encoder to create a surround sound effect. This section captures the vibrant interactions between bird enthusiasts, their pets, and tourists engaging with parrots. The addition of FDN Reverb and increased stereo width enhances the spaciousness of the environment, making the bird calls sound more encompassing and expansive.
Towards the end, I gradually reduced the Room Encoder parameters, allowing the energetic bird calls to fade while retaining subtle conversations among shopkeepers. This technique simulates the experience of leaving the Bird Garden, with diminishing sound depth and width recreating the transition back to the ordinary street atmosphere.
Additionally, adding the Energy Visualizer plug in during editing allows me to visualise the energy level of my audio signal, which helps me to understand the dynamic range of the audio signal, the intensity variations, and the energy distribution of the audio in different frequency ranges. Then, the Omni Compressor, on the other hand, helps me to control the dynamic range of the sound, making it smoother and more consistent.
Through careful microphone placement and post-production processing using tools like Binaural Decoder, Stereo Encoder, Room Encoder, FDN Reverb, Energy Visualiser, and Omni Compressor, it recreates the unique soundscape of Yuen Po Street Bird Garden. The work captures not just the acoustic properties of the space but also its cultural essence, allowing listeners to experience this distinctly Hong Kong cultural space through sound.
The final composition presents a dynamic audio journey that reflects the spatial characteristics, human activities, and cultural atmosphere of the Bird Garden. It demonstrates how sound design techniques can effectively convey the experience of moving through different acoustic environments while preserving the authentic character of this traditional marketplace.
Reference:
Arvid Falch. (2022, May 2). Ambisonics spatial audio with Reaper and IEM [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CejOR83X6lM