weimerhead

We’ve starting examining microphones and there application, in this week’s in Audio Arts class, so I finally don’t have to feel like I’m completely guessing when it comes to recording. In this class we considered the difference in the way higher and lower frequency sounds propagate and how this effects microphone positioning. This idea I considered last Friday when I recorded my group for the class - studies in composition. During this recording I picked up on a fair bit of new stuff about recording in general, like for instance, dynamic microphones tend to pick up all sounds in the room. Particularly the Shure SM 58’s. Also, it wears you out. I was fortunate enough in that Tyrell happened to be traversing the EMU during this recording session and he stopped to have a chat. He explained in some detail the Mid-Side technique, which uses a pair of Neumann U87 mics to record a grand piano. This is something I’m eager to try tomorrow afternoon, when I continue recording this group. Heres a ‘work in progress’ recording of composition student, Chris Bitoun’s Rainforest and my composition Outback (which is a recording ruined by stomping Aboriginals tribal dancers in Schulz level 6):

*note: the levels are really low in this rainforest take, so you might wanna turn your speakers up.

On Creative Computing’s side of the coin, we continued our look at ProTools. I learnt plenty of new things in this class, all are fundamentals of the software, like:

• Auto ‘movements’ (write, latch etc) for panning, volume, muting, effects and whatever other plug-ins.
• Use of the ‘option’ key to audition an audio file, to drag + duplicate an audio region and effects all tracks when you edit a track (ie: track size or waveform/volume view)
• Create a new 'playlist' over a track. Basically it creates a new track on top of an old one, switching the old one off. Then you can toggle between them (even on other tracks).

In the brief chance I got to test out all of these ideas, I created this mix of the Nine Inch Nails track (click on the logo). I used SoundHack, Peak and Protools for this, but I would like add that I was really only focusing on testing out what I’ve learnt in class, rather than this sonic result:

In the latest forum the music technology students were given a very interesting insight into the work of two honours students; Darin Curtis and Jasmine Ward. I find the work of both these students very fascinating and somewhat baffling. My criticism of their work however, is in its worldly application. I really fail to understand how the work of a music technology student is meant to have an effect on pollution problems, nor do I understand how it relates to complicated biological modules. I know I don’t know anywhere near enough about ‘what these people do’ to make any of these judgements. But, I wouldn’t have minded to see at least one honours student mention that, in fact, they also would like to ‘make great music.’

Bibliography

Bitoun, Christian. "Rainforest." Composed in 2006.

Morris, Jake. "Outback." Composed/Arranged in 2006.

Haines, Christian . "Audio Arts - Acoustic Guitar Recording." Practical Class presented in the EMU (5th floor of the Schulz Building), University of Adelaide, 02 May (2006).

Haines, Christian . "Creative Computing - Digidesign's ProTools." Practical Class presented in the Audio Lab (Schulz 4.07), University of Adelaide, 04 April (2006).

Curtis, Darrin . "Biological applications in Music Technology." Presentation presented in the Audio Lab (Schulz 4.07), University of Adelaide, 04 April (2006).

Ward, Jasmine. "Music Technology Vs. Pollution." Presentation presented in the Audio Lab (Schulz 4.07), University of Adelaide, 04 April (2006).