keyboard instruments

.aa – week seven.

This weeks task was to record the piano. Since starting at the EMU it is something I have done regularly, but it was defiantly worth hearing the things that you pick up covered in class.

A good set of microphones to use for recording the piano are the Neumann KM-84s. Perhaps the KM-84s only drawback in this respect is that they lack a little in the lower end. Also where you place these microphones can have a huge impact on the sound. Having tried several position one that I liked was just behind (and above) the performer, in a spaced pair. I have provided below an example how the height of these microphones can change the sound:

KM-84 pair parallel to performers head | KM-84 pair raised 1.5 metres

The microphone stands were not moved between these recordings; only the height of the microphone was adjusted. I think you will agree that the second (raised) recording is preferable – something that seems to ring true most times I have used the KM-84s (that they like sit up and over the performer). The sound of these KM-84s can be added along with other microphones inside the piano, adding a nice clear attack, gorgeous top-end, and a dash of room ambience.

.mid-side.
The best piano recordings I have ever made employ the Mid-Side technique. This technique involves:
- place a pair of microphones parallel
- set one to figure 8 and the other to cardioid.
- once you have made the recording, duplicate the figure 8 track and invert it. Pan the two figure 8 tracks fully opposite.

The Mid-Side gives you a very warm rich sound, with a good sound for the full spectrum of the piano. It is also a very characteristic sound; I would be a little wary of when to use it, depending on genre and so on. If you are just after a realistic sound of the piano then it is defiantly the way to go, but I would not necessarily say that that’s what you want with most modern popular styles.

.recordings.
For these recordings we used the Neumann U87’s in the Mid Side configuration, and also added a room microphone - Rode NTV. As usual we just experimented, trailing different positions for the NTV. The place we ended up using was over in front of a window, quite a way from the piano. The cardioid microphone was faced to the widow, so was concentrated primarily on the reflections – this added a nice level of natural reverb. Anyway this collaboration of the spaced pair (KM84s), Mid Side (U87s) and room mic (NTV) could probably have used some mixing, but more on that next week.

Gymnopedia no .1 | X-Files Theme

.sources.

Grice, David 24.04.07, “Keyboard Instruments,” Tutorial presented in the Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.

Robjohns, Hugh 1999, Piano principles, Sound on Sound, viewed 27.04.07,
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may99/articles/recpiano.html

you tell the difference

.forum – week seven.

This week Ben Probert, Douglas Loudon, Amy Sincock and myself presented under the topic of “Can you tell the difference? - Gender in Music Technology.”

Ben Probert raised some very interesting points about archetypes in the fields of technology and music respectively, and then related his discoveries to his area of interest – Music Education. Clearly he had researched thoroughly, and followed through with a composed and articulate presentation. Ben truly is a fine academic, the only way his presentation could have been improved is if he perhaps spoke a little more slowly, I feel that he raised some points that were swept over before I had really considered them properly.

I have hand it to Douglass, I really could not see myself doing a presentation such as this, without a script. But he did, and he generated plenty of discussion around the forum, which is always good to hear, and something that I really enjoy.

Amy seemed quite nervous, I would hate to think this topic has made her study of Music Technology awkward in any way. She raised some very rational points; that anyone with the determined inclination to study in a particular field should do exactly that. I agree.

Finally my presentation looked at some of the work of Björk, and I considered whether art itself has gender/sexuality, what role gender/sexuality plays in the creation of and reaction from art. In this I highlighted the song “And I love her” by the Beatles, among others, and tried to suggest this point – Why should you tell a difference?

Stephen finished the forum by giving us a ditty from John Cage’s comprehensively study of mushrooms - that mushrooms have not two, but hundreds of different genders. Nature really is amazing.

.sources.

Loudon, Douglas 26.04.07, “Gender in Music Technology,” Presentation of the EMU, University of Adelaide.

Morris, Jacob 26.04.07, “Gender in Music Technology,” Presentation of the EMU, University of Adelaide.

Probert, Ben 26.04.07, “Gender in Music Technology - And the lack of female interest,” Presentation of the EMU, University of Adelaide.

Sincock, Amy 26.04.07, “Gender in Music Technology.” Presentation of the EMU, University of Adelaide.

Whittington, Stephen 26.04.07, “Gender in Music Technology - Can you tell the difference?” Forum of the EMU, University of Adelaide.

nin keys final

.cc - week six.

NINKEYS archive

The patch file that you want to start by opening (in the downloadable archive) is called "ninboardfinal."

The Keyboard shortcuts are the same as last time:
arrow up/down : Toggle Octave
Z - , : white keys
s - j : black keys
space bar : MIDI initialise

.reflection.

The only thing I struggled with this week was creating help files for (sub-)patcher objects. I recalled from class that you simply needed to append ".help" to the end of the a subpatcher's filename to create a helpfile for that subpatch. Anyway, someone can show me what I am doing wrong once Uni goes back I am sure...

Having gained heaps of knowledge with using Max, I am looking forward to leaving the MIDI keyboard patch behind... it's a mess that's I don't thinks worth repairing; I'd sooner start again. I get the feeling that the MSP side of the coin is going to be more enjoyable, raw MIDI info really does not get me going. So looking forward to that in this half of the semester.

.sources.

Haines, Christian 02.04.07, Creative Computing - Week 6, "Messaging and Routing”. Lecture presented at Tutorial Room 4.07, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide.

forget my name, forget my face

.forum - week six.

In the final week of the “collaboration” themed forum class, we heard the thoughts of a few of our seniors around the Electronic Music Unit:

.the 9:13.
Luke Harrold presented a short film called “the 9:13,” which he composed the music for. Directed by Matthew Phipps, the project did not sound like ideal environment for collaborative work – Luke mentioning that he never met with the sound designer – however, I guess it’s not an ideal world. I thoroughly enjoyed what we did see of the film, Luke’s music was eerie and well suited to the train station set. Being an Adelaide based film, it straight away reminded of the (also Adelaide made) film “2: 37” (similar title no?) which I recently watched, and too recommend.

.compossible.
David Harris presented yet another of his ‘out there’ works’ – Compossible for twelve musicians (with artist Pamela Rataj). What can one say about this one? Trippy!

.behind the door.
Honours postgrad Poppi Doser then treated us to her collaborative piece “behind the door,” which she created with the animator Betty Qian. I thoroughly enjoyed it, the simple, plain and yet still weird and alien aesthetic of the work connected across the mediums. The piece in fact reminded me a lot of such Tool video clips as ‘Parabola’ and ‘Schism.’


.forget my name, forget my face - björk.
Finally jedi-master Whittington, as he does so well, got a little deep. A little spaced out. He played the beautiful Pathetique Sonata by Beethoven, then pondered the idea of collaborating with deceased composers – the dead. This interested me greatly – one thing I have always admired about great musicians is the timelessness of their achievements. I think it’s the dream of any musician to become a household name like Mozart or Lennon. Stephen is quite right in his point: the further you dig into the music of an adept composer such as Beethoven, more of their personality comes out of the music – the more of a collaborative venture the music becomes between the composer and yourself.

One other idea that surfaced during the forum, which I would like to consider was that of leaving you ego at the door. To be honest, I tend to disagree with Luke and David, who think you need to bring your ego to the party. Ofcourse your ego never leaves you fully, but this was advice that just did not seem correct. In collaborative ventures I have been involved with, the people who do, in fact, leave their ego at the door tend to be more open to new ideas. The beauty of collaboration is that you can combine the best of several people, into something unique. I find when someone brings an ego into the group, they become overbearing and spoil the collaboration by not adapting to their associates. This all depends on the situation of course, but might I add that in the realm of studio recording, everyone needs leave their ego at home and be willing to work with the producer, to really take them in as their own.

.sources.

Doser, Poppi 5.03.07, "Behing the Door," Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide.

Harrold, Luke 5.03.07, "9.13," Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide.

Harris, David 5.03.07, "Compossible," Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide.

Whittington, Stephen 5.03.07, "Collaboration with the Dead." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide.

recording strings

.aa – week six.

In this weeks ‘audio arts’ session we recorded stringed instruments, in particular the cello. Being able to capture and understand the sound of these old instruments is an important studio skill to have, with strings featuring in a huge range of styles of music, from video hits latest to classical masterpieces.

There are several perspectives you can take on the sound of a stringed instrument. We discussed how the sound of a cello would differ from the perspective of the performer compared to the audience (with the strings sitting next to the performer, their ear away from the f-hole chamber). Another sound to consider is the bowing against the strings.

We decided to explore each of these perspectives; using several microphones to create of mix of each of these characteristics of the instrument. The obvious next step was to pick a microphone for each of these roles.

Chamber/Sound Board – AKG C414 BULS
Fingerboard – Neumann KM84i
Room – Neumann U87

These are the microphones that I think suit the task for recording strings, obviously each instrument and performer is going to offer different sounds, and have different requirements, but this is a good start point.

In coming to these conclusions I have tested also the Shure SM57 and Rode NT4. Also, in terms of a room mic, we faced the Neumann U87 and U89 models off, with the U87 coming out on top. These mics were placed on the other side of the room from Anna (cello player), placed around 2 metres in front of the far windows (which did not have the curtains drawn). See what you think:

room U87 | room U89

As mentioned, we tested the Rode NT4. It was placed around the head of the cellist. I do not think it provided outstanding results, perhaps there is more to using an x/y microphone than I know of. As a result I decided for each take I would include a recording using the NT4 and without:

Take 1 (NT4) | Take 1 (no NT4)

-AKG C414 at f-hole
-NT4 bit higher than anna’s head.
-KM84i over fingerboard, to anna’s right, over the instrument
-Room mic U87 next to glass windows

Take 2 (NT4) | Take 2 (no NT4)

- KM84i moved to behind anna’s head (behind cello)
- Room mic moved closer, to anna’s side of the room

.sources.

Grice, David 2.4.07, AA – week six, “String Instruments,” Tutorial presented in the EMU, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide.

Robjohns, Hugh 1999, Strings Attached, Sound on Sound, viewed 12.2.07, http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr99/articles/recstrigs.htm

the max patch from hell

.cc - week five.

Still going with the MIDI keys ripoff: the ninboard. This week we have a black/white keys selector added, as well as crude delay effect. It may be crude but it's got twice the parameters of the echo effect in Garageband! That's something right?

Max Patch | Text Format

This version has keyboard shortcuts:
arrow up/down : Toggle Octave
Z - , : white keys
s - j : black keys
space bar : MIDI initialise

.reflection.

This Max patch (from hell) is so full of objects and signal flows I barely know what happens with it even now when I look at it. Time to starting using the "sub-patcher" object, I am not exactly sure why, but I avoided it like the plague this week. This ugly patch ending up being a complete overkill of the "send" & "receive" objects which are useful at times, but if overused can create just as much confusion as they resolve. At the end of the day they're (at least) two additional objects to add to your patch, so, best to use them tastefully. The patch could be improved (what patch couldn't?) but I think I have wasted enough of my life on it... for this week anyway.


.sources.

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 27.03.07, http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

Haines, Christian 22.03.07, CC - week five, "UI Controls and Application," Tutorial presented 4th Floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide.

wind instruments

.aa – week five.

Wind instruments are something that I have recorded fairly little of, and have never really had much of an idea about how to go about recording (until now). If you think it’s as easy as pointed the microphone at the ‘blow-hole,’ you are sorely mistaken.

A big thankyou goes out to Martin Cheney and Lydia Sharrad, who came along to help Dave, Will, Luke and I get some practise with the art of recording wind instruments. To begin with I asked Martin to walk around the room playing his Alto Saxophone, while we all walked around searching for the “mojo.” During this session with the two wind players, I was able to genuinely appreciate the difference that instrument positioning can have on the sound. I found that the popular area directly in front of the studio one was not as pleasant for these instruments (most likely caused by reflections from the glass). I should mention that I got quite the feeling of achievement when I was able to hear to differing ‘mojo’s’ that the EMU space has to offer!

We found a very nice spot in front of the studio one window, but back about half way across the room. In this spot we decided to mark down some tape on the floor for our wind instrumentalists, who tend to move around a lot while they are playing (causing microphone positioning issues). As usual we played around being engineers, producers and discussing ideas to trial. One idea was to try out a SM58, but that just did not work and the mic was quickly abandoned. Here’s the first recording:

Alto Saxophone (1)

This recording is made of an:
- on axis Shure SM-57 (slightly above the bell)
- off axis AKG C414 BULS (height is parallel with the keys)
- overhead Neumann KM-84 (above, much like in class (work Ben!))
- room microphone Neumann U87 (just outside the EMU “bass trap”)

I would like to also point out that for the most part the U87 was pretty lame as a room microphone for the sax. I feel that this has something to do with it being such a sensitive mic; in the flatter dynamic of a room mic recording, the pressing of the keys, breaths, as well as the sax sound all got blended into one wash of unproductive sound. Not to sday too many bad words against the U87 (Im sorry baby), because later, however, Dave found that putting the U87 just outside the “bass trap” added a bit of useful low-end warmth when mix-in faintly.

Also Saxophone (2)

This mic positioning behind this one is similar to first recording, except that:
- SM57 and AKG position have been switch around (AKG – on axis; SM57 – off axis)
- the KM-84 was swung about 40 degrees away for Martin, where we found a nice sound.
- the room mic (U87) has been removed.



For Lydia Sharrad (awesome flutist) we used similar microphones, the main difference is that the room mic was swapped to an additional AKG C414. I think this next recording is one of the most accurate (to real world) recordings that I have been a part of:

Flute (1)

In this take we used a C414 up around Lydia’s mouth, and the SM57 down near her keyboard. In the next recording (Flute (2)) we switched the position of the SM57 and the C414 microphones around. We also swung the overhead KM-84 to a pleasant off-axis position in Flute (2).

Flute (2)

.sources.

Gemme, Keith 2003, "Tips from the Pros: Recording brass and woodwind, MusicTech Magazine, viewed 29.3.07,
http://www.musictechmag.co.uk/mtm/download/tips-from-the-pros-recording-brass-and-woodwind

Grice, David 24.3.07, Audio Arts: Week 5, "Wind Intruments," Tutorial presented in the EMU space, Schutlz Building, University of Adelaide.