Yesterday’s Creative Computing was my first comprehensive examination of DigiDesign’s Protools. It’s designed for sequencing audio files, doing fade ins/outs and other editing. These files can be collaborated from all the other sound editing softwares I’ve been using. We discussed interface design and its direct relation to creative output. As such, the future of software design will certainly allow for increasing customisation of software interface, allowing the user to appropriate interface to his/her creative goals. To my amusement, the ProTools session we are using for playing around with is Nine Inch Nails, “Only”, from their latest With Teeth. Pictured here is their mainstay and musical genius, Trent Reznor (looking very emo):

With ProTools there’s a lot to get your head around, hell, it took me half an hour to figure out that I need to plug in my headphones into the M-box, not the G5, if I want to hear anything. Most of that time I spent reading the ProTool’s Reference Guide; my time wasn’t totally wasted. Other things I figured out in ProTool’s include using manual tempo, the function of the ‘slip’ and other modes (toggled with keys F1 - 4) and showing/hiding the various rulers above tracks. I’m sure I learnt plenty more too, but alas, it’s all a bit subliminal within the 21^st Century brain.

I’ve been toying around with Spear lately, seeing what happens when you do which; basically, I’m finding it often leaves you in an underwater sound world. Take the following two examples:

The truly digitalised glissando:

So basically I have used the lasso tool to slice the audio diagonally downward. The possible sonic results of such an edit on audio really excited me when I first delved into Spear. I mean, think about where each of these overtones begins playing, in time, and how rhythmically complicated that would look in notation. In the last small section, I used the ‘time region selection’ tool to select and transpose the last part down a considerable amount. Click on this image, to hear the way the sound ‘splashes’ down (gliss.) then is dunked underwater (transposed). Next:

Transposes up and up, then time stretches:

Slightly more complicated, using different techniques, alas, again this achieves watery sounds. The audio highlighted in red, is repeated (twice before and after the highlighted section) each time receiving a frequency transposition of around double what it was previous. The final section of audio is time stretched, with a little artfully chopped of the bottom. Click, listen to bubbles. Basically, it’s slightly disappointing that the sonic output stays in the watery ‘sound world’ even once you run entirely different processes on the audio.

Workshop presentation was again filled with delightful music, particularly impressive were pieces by Iannis Xanarkis and Phillip Glass. After reading and having heard much of Xanarkis, I was thrilled with his “Voyage absolu des Vnari vers Andromedc.” (1989) I’m so glad the speakers were pumped for this, at plenty of points the piece aroused the emotion of fear in me. I don’t know why. Apparently, he composed it entirely using graphs, well - nothing scares me more than mathematics. No, no, that can’t be it. Phillip Glass’s “Rubrick” (1982) was equally impressive, with mainly arpeggios, in a juxtaposition of sextuplets and quintuplets, all shaping for me the ‘rubrick’. Such rhythms look like:

Bibliography

Haines, Christian . "Creative Computing- DigiDesign's ProTools" Practical Class presented in the Audio Lab (Schulz 4.07), University of Adelaide, 27 April (2006).

Harris, David . "Music Technology Workshop - Xanarkis, Glass and Morris." Workshop presented in the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 27 April (2006).

This final week’s episode of audio arts was spent discussing procedures for sending signal around each of the spaces available on level 5. In this first term we’ve wholeheartedly developed an understanding of signal flow/routing in the EMU. I’m hoping that soon we will be collaborating this with a greater study of microphone recording (with sound sources other than a radio). Currently, I’ve just been referring to the microphone webpage on the EMU site; however, I’m sure there’s plenty more to it. Acoustics is considered ‘the science of sound’ by Martin Russ in his book Sound Synthesis and Sampling. As such, this phenomenon of physics is commonly associated with a lot of complex formula. In such books I’m often finding myself knee deep in perplexing theory regarding acoustics; all of which are ideas to be considered when using microphones. Personally, I’m a little more au fait with the science of computers, rather than say physics, but this is the nature of studying, I guess.

In Creative Computing we continued powering through audio software, the latest edition being Tom Erbe’s ‘SoundHack’. Once again I was impressed with the application, which alas for my PC is another OSX patron. All the more reason to get a PowerBook. And just while I’m plugging Macintosh, the pace and power that the G5’s in Schulz 4.07 offer you, in terms of computing extremely complex processes on audio in a matter of moments, is truly inspirational. I never thought I’d say it, but now I know what U2's ‘beautiful day’ Bono was onto when he made those apple commercials.

It’s my feeling that Varèse has Hitler and then the seismic ideological shift of humanity in the post war years to thank for the fact his name appears on much more than his gravestone. Despite this, the man is undoubtedly a dedicated pioneer of music and his ‘audio palette’ is actually quite thoughtful, even if it’s a little of the wall (certainly not a negative): “I can’t give you any structural insights or acedemic suppositions about how his music works…His music is completely unique.” (Frank Zappa, 1967). Varèse’s ability to more seamlessly integrate the typical ‘sound world’ of an orchestral ensemble with other sounds world is quite astounding for its time. The use of the Ondes Martenot in his Ecuatorial (1934) is one example of this.

Later in the workshop, Harris yet again made me feel archetypical of a newer generation when he played an audibly more modern piece, Wings of Nike (Barry Truax, 1987). I know the main reason as to why I got into the peice more than others Harris has shown us was because it benefitted from more advanced 'music technology' (recording, electronic instuments etc) than any of the other, older pieces we've analysed in workshop. Made a year prior to my birth, Wings of Nike had an intense atmospheric environment, created by what sound like a plane engine idling. This basis for the work was met with really only one other sound source, high frequency ‘speckly’ resonances which in my mind sounded like a swarm of cyborg mosquitoes. I’m hoping that this was Truax’s metaphor for Nike.

Bibliography

Frank Zappa quote taken from:
Fei, James. Stereo Review (page 62). G. Ricordi, 1971.

Russ, Martin. Sound Sampling and Synthesis. Focal Press, 1996.

Apple (2006) ‘Apple - PowerBook - G4’, at: http://www.apple.com/powerbook/ (accessed: 7 April, 2006)

Electronic Music Unit (Adelaide University) (2006) ‘Electronic Music Unit - Microphones’, at: http://www.emu.adelaide.edu.au/resources/guides/hardware/microphones.html (accessed: 7 April, 2006)

Haines, Christian . "Audio Arts - Routing the EMU." Practical Class presented in the EMU (5th floor of the Schulz Building), University of Adelaide, 04 April (2006).

Haines, Christian . "Creative Computing." Practical Class presented in the Audio Lab (Schulz 4.07), University of Adelaide, 06 April (2006).