major assignments

They shall be posted shortly. You don't believe me? It's true, check back in a week, before the end of 08

Week 8 CC

This was good fun. But, I could have saved myself a lot of time if I had prepared some loops before hand. Most of my samples are from a recording I made of some harp sounds. I used 8 samples in impulse for my foundation (unfortunately paying very little attention to BPM). Impulse provided wonderful facilities for making samples unrecognisable, in particular the pitch shift and stretch functions. The rest of the samples were used in audio tracks same ala the nine inch nails samples. However, they were mostly very short making them hard to cue effectively. Also. I found the warp feature difficult to master and have yet to establish how I am supposed to tweak my audio prior to sequencing (for use in a live setting). Once again, have found the restrictions to be neither here nor there, just inconvenient when the computer crashes (once again, no screenshot). I do like the way live allows me to convert melodic sounds into percussive ones and percussive sounds into melody, very handy for meeting the demands of the avant garde. Would you believe it, that cello/bowed double bass sound is nothing more than downtuned harp sounds. Ya do harp on a bit

Week 7 CC

It’s hard to make an informed comparison on restrictions versus no restrictions without using the full-blown system, I would not say that the restrictions hampered me (except when my system crashed and I had to load all that stuff in and manipulate it again, which is why there is no picture). The main thing I found with this exercise was that my real time jam would have been closer to how I imagine it if I had spent more time organising my samples (I tended to find that samples that I would have liked to have layered over each other were on the same track and so I would have to choose). The live system seems like it holds a lot of potential for ‘playing a computer’ providing some care and thought has gone into sample collection. I guess it’s a lot like turtablism (minus the scratching) except you can get control down to a much finer level. What ever would Varese think? Bite the Remix

Week 6 CC

Lots of cool things I couldn’t try because I couldn’t divine from the tutorials (or my memory) how to operate them. The Environment is just going to have to wait for another day for me I am afraid. Things I did master…. Using the transform window to humanise things, drum beats, duplicate melodies (looking quite intrigued at that reverse option heh heh), The envelope plugin. In this instance, I really don’t thing it made a lot of a difference, come to think of it, should have tried it on some of the guitar tracks, that could have been cool, or the bass. Used quantisation to try and fix up the kick but it was too out of sync, had to go in manually. Had reverb on the snare, distortion on the guitar, felt no need for EQ, envelope on the drums and I automated fade in/outs to make the beginning and end less abrupt. Improved riffage Here's an old thought from last week making things sound real, I do think my guitar efforts effectively convey the impression of the pick on the strings. yeah, the lead guitar line needs work, more of, it sounds pretty cheesey. Although, that was kinda the sound I was trying to parody.

Week 5 CC

Authentic MIDI mission went as follows Guitar (the best achievement): Created a duplicate of my riff for muted guitar (with edited velocities and staggered chords) in accordance with a suggestion from the article. Borrowed a studio trick and replicated riff on an acoustic as well. The acoustic ended up very low as the steal string sample sounds a bit too electronic). Played Riff through an OK electric guitar sample, still needed cohesiveness. Bussed all guitar tracks to an auxillary and applied distortion, this tightened everything up and made it sound pretty nice, sounded a bit like QOTSA. I could probably do to lower the velocity on the melodic notes in the muted guitar part but other than that is good. Bass, didn’t really take any advice, it sounded good how it is, it is in the key of A though which could add to realism, and, I made the lowest notes a bit sharp using pitch bend for, to make a bass that low, you have to downtune and that makes the strings very susceptible to being played sharp (too much pressure you see). Drums: Separated Snare from rest of kit so it could be reverbed a bit and potential pitch bent on the harder hits. Should have spent more time lining up kick, hats and snare, they are still a bit out. Recording drum lines makes for the quickest route to realism, when having to rectify velocity and such, I thought back to how I would play it. riffage

Audio Arts week 9

The gruelling torture continues. FM synthesis I still don't know how to modify these patches, so, my modifications continue to consist solely of elaborate modulations, check it out: So, this, in a slightly less elaborate form, this patch yielded BUBBLES. Then I added some more obscure modulatory values, grouped it all, customised the parametres and started randoming away, came up with sounds including a mossie sounds, swarm sound, some toilet humour (cavalcade of laffs anyone?) some sort of industrial sound, a fairly convincing simulation of a highschool band practice (tuning to concert c as they say) and some cool sounding sound effect that I simply couldn't leave out. I'm starting to get frustrated, I've toyed with analogue, AM, RM and FM synthesis now and I still couldn't tell you what parametres to tweak for what sound. In short, I have achieved nothing! Oh how I dream of complex envelopes. Sonic Events don't bother trying to intellectualise it, just hit random a lot and enjoy the produce

AM and RM, they do not fill me with joy. Devoid of ideas to complicate the basic patches offered us, i simply complicated the level of modulation by adding more modulatory units. Yep, sound gets more complex, fecked if I know how you find real sounds in that mess though, I grouped the monster together, added the values and wave types to the parametres box and hit random a whole lot (occasionally deviating and altering values manually, half the faders did not seem to affect the sound at all). Some vague hints of real sounds revealed themselves, a wave that could be a blowfly buzzing if it were a little less white noise like, i tried. The airplane sound reminds me of the sound of the airplane in sonic three, run sonic run. Using the RM patch (similarly modified with a heap of extra modulator units) I stumbled across this swell which could almost be the sea, if I just could have slowed it down a smidge more and gotten rid of the thump. In the interests of creating spaces, I ran this signal through to independent delays and panned the results hard left and right, with more patience and tweaking, I probably could have made something of this. The other two sounds are nothing narural, the second to last sounds like a living machine, the last thing just sounds cool. The plogue patch Music to your ears, I promise

Audio Arts week 7

Roland synth SH-5 superior to the Juno 6 and Jupitor four in terms of sound composition yet still infuriating. This synth leant itself to the composition of sound a little more readily than its brethren by means of a built in mixer that allows users to kill of various components (allowing me to hear what individual things are doing....as to if this is really helpful, I don't know). Trial and error of knob twiddling, fader pushing and switch flicking helped me arrive at a point of malleable noise that could be construed as the sound of the ocean. But, I could not for the life of me get rid of the percussive thud at the sound of each cycle, nor could I make the sound oscillate up and down (just up, or down). One can't help but day dream of the custom built software synth and its adaptability. Some more twiddling yielded wind sounds (albeit vary imperfect) and and almost convincing bird chirp, then another, more convincing, ambient sort of wind sound. As to the great scope of other real world sounds, I do not think I even came close. But I am sure that has more to do with my inability to control the synth than the synth's short comings. I await digital simulations. My sounds Ok, these sounds are not 100%, I suppose with a little automation in the post production, maybe the odd fade in or envelope, they could suffice (imagines getting rid of the thump in the wave simulation with a fade in)

Audio Arts week 6

Not as fancy as a video game or a furby but i think this is a product that has benefited from interaction design. The singing washing machine: What - washing machine Where – the household when – when ever you want to wash your clothes who – is the man in the yellow cape? A sound map of the interactive response of the washing machine when commanded to complete a full cycle on a small load using cold water. The washing machine responds with a variety of beeps when it is being set to wash. Pressing the button to select the water level will prompt beeps pitched in correspondence with, a higher beep equals more water. A similar correspondence occurs in relation to water temperature (though there is no way really to create a response sound reflective of water temperature in the same way that one can reflect quantity). Pressing the 'go' button provokes a conclusive downward run of 5 semitones (somehow landing on a perceivable tonic tone). The process of putting on the washing has effectively yielded a short, simple ditty thanks to the innovation/sense of humour of the company's sound designer, through clever sound design, a household chore has been made slightly less mundane. Needless to say, when the machine is finished, it emits a call consisting of 2 notes a third apart (from low to high) incessantly until you relieve it of its contents.

Audio Arts week 5

Ed Osborn, of Finish origin, his childhood included activities such as smuggling art out of the soviet and participating in Quaker religious ceremonies involving prolonged silence. Having learnt to listen to tiny sounds during these, Ed studied composition, taught electronic music, played in an all ski band and raced motor cars before full time dedicating himself to audio art. More info including short movies of a whole bunch of his installations go here: Ed Osborn This installation combines two elements, audio and visual. The visual element consists of specially designed metal speakers (each shaped a little different from the last), the audio element consists of music composed using translations of the shapes from image to tone. The varied shapes and subsequent composition seeks to explore subtle variations in image and sound. This piece relates to sound design in the way that it creates an immersive space which will subject its occupants to a premeditated experience intended to explore a physical aspect of the world, (the name for this piece comes from “a biological term that refers to the graded sequence of differences within a species”1)

Team work?

Does anyone need a partner for the weekly exercises? I sure do. Maybe we could combine forces for world domination (or music concrete composition...)

Weak fore

So, according to a promotional site for some particular brand of yoga, these pure emotions mentioned in forum are as follows.... beneath the explanations are some sounds that I think could express these emotions Shringara Love Romantic love, more broadly speaking family and friends love. According to Indian mythology Male and Female energy used to be one entity then it decided to play a game of hide and seek with itself. Ergo we have 'romance', the embodiment of this game. Life exists purely for the enjoyment of this emotion You know what, I got no idea what love sounds like! Hasya Joy While this may manifest itself as humour it is at its best, joy that exists for no apparent reason. A major chord of course, preferably played on a piano Adbhuta Wonder Curiosity, mystery embracing your own ignorence The sound of a cartoon lightbulb turning on Shanta Peace Calmness, relaxation can only be achieved at the highest level of meditation/yoga induced relaxation. An ambient pad Sound of a garden on a Summer day Raudra Anger Irritation, stress through to full blown fury. A good thing to try and control, express it but do not exact the punishment. Someone bowing a violin badly Cats fighting Veera Courage having perfect control of the body and mind A note on a trumpet played well Karuna Sadness The conversion of sadness from being sad for oneself to being sad for others (compassionate). Opening chord for Rei's song (Neon Genisis) Bhayanaka Fear Product of the imagination Howling wind Vibhatsa Disgust Depression, self-pity the ego that has forsaken its kingdom. Ads for mobile phone ringtones/misc

Logical sure

This task is old news to me as I learnt all this basic logic stuff last year. Alas, I could not find any of my old programming efforts so I wasted some time knocking up some imitation Cure (boys don't cry). Mostly used step entry with the exception of the solo line which I recorded in (lost patience with step entry by then). Used the Ultrabeat VI for the kit, VI samples of bass and clean electric guitar for the other 3 parts. Needless to say, no guitar sounds available to select sound anything like a guitar so I made some lame attempts to disguise this on the solo line using EFFECTS. Ended up using compression on the drums too, worked pretty shmick. "I Can't Believe it's Not" Boys Don't Cry Oh yeah, after like an hour and a half solid of programming, Logic crashed, but not before making an emergency save of my work, what a considerate program.

AA wk 4

Of advertising trickery: this week required the investigation of two separate ads in terms of visual and audio content (and the connection between the two). Ad number one - Pro Barack Obama anti John Mccain election ad. barack obama speaking - pan over a black and white still of obama 'thoughtful' background music and narrative over shots of family house for sale, mccain on a talk show, another show with subtitle of key information then black screen with more key info followed by a shot of the white house with the final message of keeping mccain out of it coninciding with V I resolution of sound track. Seven houses This ad was quite simple in construction, minimal music and images required to back the key message that McCain is out of touch with the average American. Ad number two - condom ad father and son in super market ambient noise sound effects of sweets packet, shopping trolleys dialogue of kids temper tantrum and dad going shoosh more sound effects of kid shaking trolley, throwing things on the ground still screaming subtitle “use condoms” voice over naming condom brand and listing a couple of selling points Condom ad This ad uses standard techniques for realism in video, sound effects are logical and synced to actions. Note, the ambient noise dies down when the kid throws his temper tantrum making the screaming the centrepoint and all noise dies away for the voice over which provides some calm after being forced to listen to screaming kid (thusly subliminally reinforcing the saving graces of condoms ha ha). The sound map is coming, I need some sort of paint like software first. "Curse you mac and your lack of paint"!

Forum wk 3 1st year presentations

Well, most first years just presented their music concrete pieces. I'm baffled, there is no way every single first year is an ambitious young electronic art music composer, is this just another demonstration of the skew of favour within the EMU to this archaic monster? There are a multitude of aspects to 'music technology' most of them more profitable than the composition of (often) obscure music that (potentially) alienates the listener... Having said this, some of the compositions actually sounded cool, way to cool to be titled 'art' it's like serialist music all over again. Yay for Webern, the element of compromise! I think it is a credit to the technician when a concrete piece sounds like something you might hear and enjoy on 3D :-D. While it was a little rough still, I liked Scott H's intro for his song. There were some innovative foley sources and I liked that his composition had a purpose upon completion and was not just a composition for composition's sake. Non CC presentations included the audio track for a short animation (which seemed like a pretty seamless effort to me, well done), demonstrations of some video game music which Josh has composed (please note, in his enthusiasm to break into the industry, he is working for free. Something maybe justifiable if the video game company is not actually making any income at this time but none the less worrying. I wonder what sort of royalty scheme is in place fr the composition of video game music and sound effects) and Alex's AA. General consensus was that Alex had pulled a pretty good mix. He informed us that he had gone easy on the post production (the exact opposite of my current mind set). This has set me wondering, critique of a mix being the wholly subjective activity it is, can we even ascertain a 'good mix' without a reference. And then, are you convinced your reference is perfect, or are you just using it because you like it? Why is it I am forced to process my kick drum to fit into a certain mold? A kick drum in a room sounds nothing like a kick drum through a PA or recorded, who decided that the sound needed altering? Puzzling, maybe. Personally, I think that once I have nailed imitation, I shall try and reinvent everything :-D

CC wk 3

For some reason, I find working through these tutorials amazingly time consuming, possibly because I desperately want to understand why I am doing what I am doing before I do it... going on from my simple synth I made last week, I have worked through tutorial two in full and listened to my synth progressively sound more authentic. I added the filter and envelope functions as instructed, added the sub osc and noise osc, combined various things into groups. I found when I stopped to tidy that a lot of cables should have been disconnected during the course of construction and had to go through and intuit what they were. I was also missing the fancy oscillator so I constructed my own based on the information and diagram given. I still have sound so if nothing else, the circuit is still complete. I began tute 3 and got stuck on the first instruction about the variable, it doesn't say what it is supposed to be patched into. I wish I had a keyboard to truly appreciate the products of pressing random (for now I just have my little ditty programmed into the step sequencer demonstrating the many shades of 8 bit sound). I would like to post some audio but I have yet to figure out how to extrapolate sound from plogue and into a recording program, a mission for another day.

AA wk 3

I shall do this, tomorrow or the next day

Forum wk 2

I was sick

CC wk 2

with a virus

AA wk 2

I stayed home it was warm thank you gas heater

Forum wk 1

This week's forum raised some interesting issues, one which I have contemplated in some detail. We were looking at the nature of technology and how it affects our consumption of music. Today finds music more accessible than ever before in history courtesy of developments in recording technology and distribution through the internet. Some wonder if the ease of access to music has lessened its value. Certainly, the live performance has suffered from the recording (although more recently there has been an increase in live concert going as the record companies lose their stranglehold on music distribution to the internet). The other intrigue is the issue of fidelity. Up until about ten years ago, the quality of fidelity consistently improved. Then audio quality reached a point where the fine tuning of clarity became imperceivable to Joe Average, since then, the masses have in sacrificed quality in favour of ease of access and reduced cost (in the form of MP3 files shared over the internet). I have also seen people sacrifice fidelity through their play back devices. The MP3, headphone combo that has infiltrated the mainstream in the form of the ipod, listening to songs played back through mobile phone speakers and, my own personal dilemma, play back through crappy laptop speakers. In my own case, I often lament the reduced quality of playback but, without an easily accessible speaker system, make compromise in order to still be able to listen to music in some form. I have also had it suggested to me that the fact that people are happy to sacrifice fidelity is a compliment to the quality of the music that has been captured. That they are able from an incomplete image to still get full enjoyment from a song is testimony to the value that music has in our lives.

CC wk 1

wedges wedges icecream

AA wk 1

Wedges

forum week 12

Something

audio week 12

forum week 11

audio week 11

four rum week ten

creative computational creations

ordeeoe

acoustic guitar experiments coming

fourim 9

Seb - boundaries/milkcrates Works on the basis of two principles - contextualisation (taking things out of one context and using them in another). - limitations (maximum output, minimum input). The first composition Seb played us consisted of an 11 millisecond sample of sound. Using samples and a Max patch he turned this into 20 minutes worth of music. As incredible as this is, I can't seem to find any value for this style of composition beyond the gimmicky, it always has a similar sound - spacious, too alien to be pleasurable. Then Seb spoke at length about his milkcrate project. Sound hackers gather in a specified location for a 24 hour music making stint using only materials they can fit inside a milkcrate. (This fitting nicely with his ethos of context and limits). I find it interesting that, given the capacity to make sound with no limitations, people create limitations for themselves... Darren Curtis - IS MAKING MONEY FROM SOUND/COMPOSITION GOOD GRIEF we should bring him back for the career management class! This guy is the mastermind behind the 'Music of the Spheres' Fringe event. He actually created this experience to investigate the effect of sound on the brain/people in environments. So, very intriguing, cymatics - wave phenomena (galaxy patterns). Sound has an effect on sand, stuff, surely water, and so probably us. The question is how? Well, Darren doesn't quite have the conclusion to that yet but he outlined how he made his composition based on scientific findings (space makes music, F#, A and C# in fact). These frequencies can be found as standing waves in pyramids too (and there is a pyramid in Mexico where, if you stand at the base in a certain spot and clap, the echo returns as a bird call. REALLY COOL STUFF).

creative compy

audio arts wk 9

Once again failing to get in specifically to record drums and post production them, I have for you instead some drums I recorded and worked earlier.... Standard micing used: Kick - beta 52 Snare - SM57 closed miced top and bottom Toms - beta56s closed miced overheads - KM87s a, b formation post production process went something like.... pan overheads left and right (60%), pan snare to the left (36%), tom1 (20%) to the left, floor tom to the right (40%). apply smiley EQ to kick trying to boost thump and click sounds. Apply lots of compression. EQ snare to reduce ring and magnify typical snare sound, use a noise gate (trying to remove ring still). EQ toms extensively in search of typical tom sound send all drum tracks down a bus and into an auxiliary channel where the whole lot get even more compression applied. The result, a drum track that has a bit of drive to it (finally). Photos of some of the plug in settings coming as soon as I'm at uni next as is a mix down

britney comes to forum

Well, this forum was absolutely jam packed with information. Our guest speaker, Peter, had two, entirely different topics to speak about and we got to hear of both. Topic one: Doing a live recording of a 20 piece big band ensemble, how the heck to approach it... PRE PRODUCTION!!!!! Peter couldn't stress enough the value of solid pre production when you have 20 odd people hanging around expecting everything to go smoothly. Handy/obvious advice included confirming with the band and booking your recording space well in advance of the recording day, inspecting the studio resources so to know what you have to play with. Coming in personally to assess the space and equipment/checking everything listed in the resources is physically present. Establishing how you want the band located in the room and making a diagram (which stays in the room). It seems that protoolsing things up is inevitable. Peter found that the trumpets and piano player might nail their parts straight up but the trombonists sound better on the fifth take, he spent a bit of time afterwards mixing and matching takes until he had the best of everything. He also extensively cleaned up spill on the various tracks. The second hour was spent talking about sound production in the advertising industry (where the money is). So the secrets to these super smooth, highly produced sounds....compression, LOTS of it, auto tune/rhythm (Peter says no advances have been made in audio fidelity over the last 10 years, just corrective plugins - how sad). Engineers cut away the gaps in between vocals to make the singer seem even bigger than life. Engineers working on big advertising projects get to use huge protools sessions capable of supporting 190 tracks. There can be potentially 5 or 6 different mixes of the same song stacked on top of each other. The reason for this is because Advertising executives and the so forth are probably in the control room with the engineering and wanting to listen to all available options so as to be able to choose their preferred mix. It seemed to me that this would prove to be an organisational NIGHTMARE. Peter stays on top of things by using markers

creating

nothing

Audio Drums

Well, I didn't get a chance to come in and experiment with recording drums for this week's task which is annoying. I was keen to try some different mics on the toms and play with the placement of overheads and after reading everyone else's blogs, I am definitely going to have to start using a room mic as well. So, I have for you a drum recording I prepared earlier.... kick - beta 52 as inside the drum as I could get it and pointing at the beaters snare - SM 57s top and bottom Toms 1, 2 - Sm 57 close miced Tom3, floor - Beta 56s close miced overheads - NT5s left and right using rule of thirds The Kick drum has been EQed using the smiley curve to try and make it as clicky as possible. Drum track

Forum out at sea

In brief, today's forum was a tribute to the recently deceased Tristram Cary who, among many other illustrious things, finished building the Adelaide uni EMU and then taught here for many a year. It seems this non household namer in parallel with other modernist composers, carved himself out a niche as a pioneer of electronically generated music. In fact, teamed up with another fellow, creating one of the first synths was an exercise in raising capital (cash). When he wasn't making his knowledge of electronics and music work for him he was creating avant garde compositions. In fact, his composition provides the music for the early episodes of Dr Who. Eventually he ended up teaching Music tech at Adelaide uni. It's a nice city, the living is cheap, certainly, he would have had no competition here. Anyway, the idea that most interested me was in post presentation discussion time. Something about music in context, the masses might not put on an album of Tristram Cary compositions on but they will enjoy his music in the context of Dr Who. Likewise, a Raver probably won't sit still and listen to Drum and Bass, the will consume this product in the context of the Rave. I haven't any opinion on this phenomenon yet, it's just interesting to note.

Creative

Sigh

Wk 7 oddio B b b b bass

Before I brought an amp into the equation, I recorded something straight into tools using the avalon. This sound is has the most definition. Unfortunately, this definition comes with an excess of finger and fret sound which ultimately makes it undesirable choice (with a good bass/player/the intermediary of an effects pedal, this would probably cease to be an issue). Avalon Next I miced up an amp in the live space with the 52, 414, an SM 57, Neumann and the random pick of a Senheiser MD421. Beta 52, 414: comparatively bassy/booming sounds SM 57, MD421: less low-end boom, more defined image Neumann: room sound (still maybe a good choice in a dead room…though there would still be fret sound). All mics bar the 414 pick up amp hum making none of them the preferable choice. The hum on the Neumann is the least offensive but who has one of those just lying around! The option of blending sounds remains. With my objective being a sound that seems powerful but retains definition, i would probably blend the 414 with the 57 or the MD 421 (blending with the neuman sounds fine too but I'm thinking realistically here). 414 with Neumann I have 3 other audio samples but box net refuses to load them. I give up. Bye Bye

Week Fix a forum and mash it up some

This week’s forum saw us spend a large chunk of time listening to mashups in conjunction with completely unrelated visual material (which of course, our minds spent the entire time trying to relate to the audio). The end of forum featured the obligatory debate between 2nd/3rd years and lecturers again with the theme of value. So, our bringer of mashupdom, a woman called Vicki Bennet says herself that she takes music of little note and mixes it with more music of little note. (of course, this is assuming that everyone hates a catchy tune just because it is simple). It was suggested that because the end product possibly required little energy to create, it has little value.. Well, to me, it seems like Vicki is using the songs like Pierre uses sampled sound, like a DJ uses vinyl, like a pianist uses the piano or dare I say, like a composer uses an orchestra. Does the end result have worth? It is certainly listenable. How much energy goes into making it? Does it matter? The composer is still striving for a preconceived musical aesthetic. Does that not put the mash up artist in the same category as a traditional composer? Could it be that the concept of instrumentation is evolving, ever more things coming under this scope (I mean, if John Cage can stand there is all seriousness and play a bowl of water…). Whatever conclusions people draw, I think Vicki could conceivably be put in the same box as our friend Pierre.

Week Fix Creative Curmudgeoning

Well, didn’t feel like I needed to do too much more to my sequenced composition
as I had already effectively mixed it (I felt) and incorporated such tools as
volume automation and effects to make it feel more natural. I did however
attempt to pan one of my more melodic sounds for the sake of interest and I
panned the ‘snare’ and ‘hihats’ a little to the left as they would be if they
were in a rock recording. The end result being a somewhat empty right-hand
speaker for most of the 45 seconds but oh well, in the name of realism ha ha.

MP3 here

Patchwork take 2

week fix audioadvancementation

Guitar micing and results…

For an immensely distorted (and LOUD) signal coming off the amp…

57 - very trebly

neumann – bassy/muddy

414 – like a mix between the neumann and the 57

57 behind amp – very bassy


Potentially the 57 in front and the 57 behind compliment each other (phase
issues pending), the 57 and 414 sound pretty nice, 57 and neumann not quite so
nice. Various other combinations yield different balances of trebly and bassy
sounds. Really, save yourself some hassle, work with your mic/mics and your amp
to have a sound you like coming through the monitors, straight off the bat.

Double tracking is obligatory in rock music, you are a fool if you do not
practice it.

I would have been curious to achieve good results with a lesser volume of sound
coming from the amplifier (I have heard tell that this achieves good results and
from my own experiences can say that if a guitar track is recorded with nasty
distortion…all 2.5kHz static...it is very hard to redeem it.)

For my example, I have blended all four mics sounds and double tracked the
riffage with respective tracks being panned left/right by 50%. You will hear
noise at the beginning and end. I have left this in because if I was taking a
recording to be mastered, the engineer could use that noise sample to get rid of
all the noise in the track.

Tada, Scott ripping it up on the guitar check it out!

For Rum...where is the rum?

Truly, hit and miss/random chance composition is the composition of our era. It is rife through commercial music (the stuff of bands, not the stuff of pop singers who could not be more removed from hit and miss composition if they jumped on a boat to the Antarctic), it certainly appears to be the main mode of music creation amongst the electronic noise artists, even the Classicists sometimes abandon themselves to formulas (take Serialism for example). So, today in forum we found out about a French, Music Concrete fellow named Pierre. I wouldn't say so much that this guy is a composer of one kind or the other, more a fanatic of sound. Sound is his instrument, he has a library of samples as long as my arm and the means to summon them at will (almost, and with the aid of his wife Bernadette). His compositions consist of to my interpretation, simple improvisation with his samples as the notes on his instrument. Of the works that we heard, I much preferred his collaboration with standard rock music than his pure noise works (with Pierre referring to his best known Rock music collaboration as being to him as The Bolero was to Ravel...to both these composers I say - lighten up, perhaps the people like these because they sound good, perhaps a good composition is not necessarily a technical one!). Amazingly enough, his remixed Classical music features standard mainstream techno beats, these works have aged quite well...

"Creative" computing oh yeah now we getting somewhere

thus far i have created drum sounds from samples of strummage

kick - comparatively low chord, pitch shift down considerably, compressed lots, mass EQ boost at approx 250 as advised

snare - pitch shift up somewhat, reverb, vague EQing

hats - pitch shifted, reversed, squashed

these i sequenced into a basic drum beat that repeats and provides a frame work to explore other sound potential in sampled audio

more...

NB I used beat detective/my eyes to suss the tempo of the original segment of riffage. In theory, I could have layered it over my drum beat and it would have been in sync (I didn't want to use it though)

with a rhythmic frame work established, I sought to add depth and colour using melody....the guitar sample provided certainly did not lend itself to any melodic contours that I would put my name to...I experimented with stretching/condensing the samples, reversing them, pitch shifting them. A reversal of a strummed chord took my fancy and became part of the drum beat. I experimented with trying delay on chord samples/pitch shifted chord samples, nothing sounded good because none of the delays I tried sounded the note as it happened (only after the delay time had elapsed). A plugin called Resonator provided what sounded like a harmonic breakdown of the sound. This fitted in nicely with my reverse chord and became the final addition to the instrumentation.

I used trial and error to try and break the drum beat a bit and keep it interesting with some degree of success.



The long anticipated link to an MP3 of.....Patchwork all 43 seconds of sequenced glory

Audioooooooooooooo of voice and such

Well, revisiting old ground once again, experimenting with vocal recordings. I was really keen to try using the hardware compression now that I know how to patch it in but I could only get studio one and it doesn't seem to have a compressor. I also wanted to prove, once and for all that the 414 is a mic of considerable versatility (I had seen an engineer use it for female vocals one time and thought it sounded good). Of course, the 414 was being used by someone else. So, I got my vocalist to speak into a neumann (minus the pop filter as that was being used too) and a 58. I personally can't see any value in the tone of the 58 (unless you are going for something budget sounding). The audio example online is a monologue comprised of six different recordings: The Neumann in cardiod, the Neumann in cardiod with digital compression, Neumann in omni, Neumann in omni with compression, the 58, the 58 with compression. Black Cat Phenomenom NB My vocalist was a bit further away from the Neumann than he probably should have been, that combined with the incessant hum of the air con lends a slightly reverberant fell to the first half. Compressed to MP3 and heard through cheap headphones, the second half through the 58 actually seems to benefit from it's reduced sensitivity and direct feel. Disappointed with the apparent irrelevance of compression on the spoken word (compression didn't really make the voice sound any warmer through either of these mics, it just facilitated an increase in volume) I spent some time recording vocals through the Neumann and, before the night was out, a 414 (the other person finished using it). I think it is safe to say that the difference in sound between the Neumann and the 414 for female vocals anyway is non existent. I have yet to compare male vocals (but in a budget studio the 414 would certainly do the trick). Certainly beefing up the voice with compression through the head phones is potentially a good way to improve the confidence of your singer...I am still loathe to affect the signal being recorded, better to make the digital compression work I think. I wish the effects units in the studios actually effected the voice, if anyone wants to show me how to make them work, please do.

Wk 4 forum

Continuing on with the presentations of work done by second and third years, the idea that the composer is obsolete is now firmly established in my mind. The music that students create using technology rarely has any premeditated design...but it sounds fine, and is applicable to the real world..chances are people would pay for a CD of it (gullible fools). So, who needs a composer nowadays when you can grab and sound tech student from uni and tell them to go through a, b and c arbitrary sound manipulating processes to produce an end product. (Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, it could be the natural evolution of music, I mean, I use this same trial and error, do it if it sounds good technique when I am coming up with riffs..). So, what proof do I have of this phenomenon this week....our friend Freddy was told to make 'sounds' using a guitar (strictly not allowed to 'play' said guitar though). He sequenced and recorded these sounds using software sequencing programs where in real time he was then able to add effects and processing to these 'sounds' (like mass pitch shift, reverb and the such). He made recordings of his output and chose his favourite out of several. This end composition surely is nothing more than the nicest/most interesting sounding out of a collection of potential compositions generated out of the experimental process. But it sounds absolutely awesome, I would not be surprised if I heard it on a TV show, or in a video game, somehow, it has value.

Wk 4 Creative

I'm so behind in this class, it is absolutely brutal!

Wk 4 Audio

I could resubmit my experiments with recording acoustic sound from last year but I am boycotting the process on grounds of wanting to learn something new!

Wk 3 Forum looking at other students wonderful creations

Today in forum, we first years got to experience some of the work that the second and third years have done in their time at Adelaide. By the end of the lecture I found myself wondering about composition, their compositions and the value of a composition…and the composer…. Take John for example… I can only really describe his software as a composition generator. He has programmed software to trigger random samples (the random samples mostly consisted of sample tank strings) and made a whole bunch of recordings. Stating that he programmed this software because he likes large tone clusters, I can only assume that his favourite recording out of 20 featured a lot of these along with the standard build and decay present in most music. Two students on and another piece of software that does similar things…in this instance it was Dave with his ‘self contained sampling unit with on board effects processing unit’. With the samples that Dave loaded in, I can see no value in this thing at all. Potentially, with different samples, the resulting ‘music’ might be more, uh, musical, at any rate, the end result is a product of chance and whimsy. So, what value can a piece composed in this manner could possibly have? If the end result hasn’t been premeditated in some way, if you just land on it by chance, can it still claim legitimacy as a composition and value as a piece of music?

Wk 3 Paper projectiles

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Wk 3 Audio studio 2

Still behind, haven't actually done anything. This lecture did provide one invaluable piece of info....the engineer that can be bothered to listen to what's coming through the cans is the engineer who is a step above the rest. An artist's performance can be made and broken depending on the vibe they are getting from their situation, a good headphone mix is a crucial part of the puzzle. At this point in my recording career, I have only ever listened to the head phone mix through the monitors, always adjusting the levels of the incoming instrument to be balanced or slightly louder and asking the musician for feed back. So, it's really time I learnt to have two or more mixes going, mission for my next recording session.

Blogs - Black Holes of Time just like this one

It seems that by missing forum, I missed nothing of consequence as it consisted of two hours conversing on the subject of ....BLOGS So my thoughts on the things? Maybe they are a useful tool for spreading your message, promoting yourself or others, finding like minded people...the online blog provides a free, easy access platform to speak your mind, essentially becoming a virtual soapbox. I am sure there are a slim number of instances where this freedom to speak and distribute your thoughts amongst the growing number of people suffering blogitis (an overwhelming compulsion to vent your woes/joys or blabber your message freely). however, the most widespread use of the blog is meer self glorification. Most people use them as a kind of online, immensely public journal. Maybe, in a way, this appeals to people because it provides a easy, hit and miss platform to vent and seek counsel with your peers...maybe the perpetrators of these irrelevant online journals are meerly somewhat self obsessive (see the entire emo culture). Whatever, this overl;oad of personal information leads to a generation of people who know their friends better through reading their blogs and personal info than through conversation with them. It also lends itself the the growing practice of voyeurism in our society (ie the slew of reality tv shows bombarding our primetime telly). In a nutshell, I think that a 2 hour forum on blogs would probably have been a black hole of time just like the blog phenomenon it seeks to discuss.

Wk 2: In studio 2

NB, even with the alterations to the signal flow in Studio 2, this lecture overall, was not one to be sad about missing seeing as I used this studio last year in the diploma course (infernal crossover and repetition of information). They’ve gone and changed the whole way the signal moves through the studio two system. From what I can intuit the procedure for set up now goes something like…… Check the speakers are off → Mains Power on → Desk On → Sound card on → Speakers on → Patch Protools 1 and 2 out to Mixer 15 and 16 in (thusly finely rendering us some sort of dummy control on the mixing desk yee hah). I haven’t done the exersise, in fact, I don't even know what it was but, if I had done it, the procedure would have probably gone something like… Open Protools → create new session saved to temp hardrive with L R stereo set up for the I/O → create a mono track with recordable input coming from A1 → mic up a noise source to be put through the first patchbay input → record arm my track → press the record button → press play → presto noise replication

Wk 1: Some lecture about MIDI networking that I also missed

Based on the information available to me through the reading of my classmate’s blogs, I proceeded to attempt the tranmittal of MIDI data between two Mac lab Macs by doing the following…. Open MIDI keys Open Audio MIDI setup Click on MIDI devices, Network Ensure anyone can connect to you In the ‘directory box you should see some names (humemu003, humemu015, that sort of thing). Select one and press the ‘connect’ button I get a bit hazy at this point but, you tell it where the info is coming from and where it is going to and then, n theory, you should have a connection demonstratable in MIDI keys. Having missed the lecture itself I’m guessing I am meant to comment my thoughts on the virtues/drawbacks of this function…Sending MIDI data in general from point A to point B is the whole reason for MIDI existing. In terms of controlling miscellaneous pcs in the Mac lap it seems pretty superfluous save fro playing pranks. Or, if the latency was good then you could theoretically bring in your far superior Mactop with wireless and somehow use one of the Novations as a controller for you far superior software without having to unplug anything. Whoo

Wk 1: Audio something or what I wasn't here here it is

Demo production plan Band: The Ocean Uprising Type of recording: demo Time: endless Cost: Nothing Instruments: mics Drumkit: kick – b52 Snare – 2 * SM 57 above and below Toms – 3 * b56 Cymbals and hats – pencil mics Guitar: SM57 Bass: 414 and DI Vocals: Nuemann Session 1 – standard kit micing in live space, drum tracks laid down (guitarist playing scratch track in control room) Session 2 – bass, guitar respectively played in live space and picked up with a 414.SM57 Session 3 – guitar solos (SM 57), vocals, backing vocals in live space using Neumann and pop filter Session 4 – EQ kits with band, get a rough mix Session 5 – assess rough mix, refine, mix down Session 6 - master

On the surface, this appeared to be a forum about collaboration. Out of 6 speakers only 1 managed to tie in her shameless product plugging with any real advice…and anyway, I don’t think we were there to learn about collaboration at all, I think we just wanted to hear Mr Audiomulch speak his bit (and to witness awesome robot origami flowers).

Our Audio Mulch man was attempting to collaborate music and technology (not really such a radical idea really as instrument makers have been doing this since the first musical bows *footnote 1*). He wanted to create software that could augment sound in real time (IE a live performance orientated synthesizor)…the result…Audiomulch (a project which, incidentally, required collaborative efforts with 30 software engineers to get off the ground).

After the AudioMulch project, he became a collaborator in a much more ambitious music tech instrument design project….The ReacTable (apparently these won’t be
released for the mainstream any time soon because there is no market for them. PFFFFFFT!)

This instrument is a collaborative effort realised by people with a diverse range of skills. It is essentially a synthesizor but, every parametre is controlled by placing/removing and manipulating specialized objects on a big, flat, blue, round thing (I later found out that the ReacTable (probably) “sees” the objects courtesy of a scanner *footnote 2*). Even in it’s finalised form, used as a live performance instrument, the music produced by ReacTable benefits from team work.


1) David Moss – 2001 Victor Folk Festival
2) My mate Luc about 2 weeks ago

lisa wants a reactable (or, the blog we didn't need)

On the surface, this appeared to be a forum about collaboration. Out of 6 speakers only 1 managed to tie in her shameless product plugging with any real advice…and anyway, I don’t think we were there to learn about collaboration at all, I think we just wanted to hear Mr Audiomulch speak his bit (and to witness awesome robot origami flowers). Our Audio Mulch man was attempting to collaborate music and technology (not really such a radical idea really as instrument makers have been doing this since the first musical bows). He wanted to create software that could augment sound in real time (IE a live performance orientated synthesizor)…the result…Audiomulch (a project which, incidentally, required collaborative efforts with 30 software engineers to get off the ground). After the AudioMulch project, he became a collaborator in a much more ambitious music tech instrument design project….The ReacTable (apparently these won’t be released for the mainstream any time soon because there is no market for them. PFFFFFFT!) This instrument is a collaborative effort realised by people with a diverse range of skills. It is essentially a synthesizor but, every parametre is controlled by placing/removing and manipulating specialized objects on a big, flat, blue, round thing (I later found out that the ReacTable (probably) “sees” the objects courtesy of a scanner ). Even in it’s finalised form, used as a live performance instrument, the music produced by ReacTable benefits from team work.