conjacking and deconjacking

.forum – week eleven.

Commencing forum this week was Simon Whitelock who used his experience in DJing / club music, to talk about remixing, sourcing and plain out stealing, or ‘jacking,’ music from different places. His manner of speech was very funny, likable enough because he actually raised a very good point – he demonstrated at least dance three songs which are extremely well known, and that are very much ‘jacked’ from other artists. The fact that only one or two people in the room knew how unoriginal the tracks were, was disturbing I thought. This is not a room full of classical student, not even jazz, but music technology students, who in my experience have a great knowledge of modern popular music, and who had no idea that this music was utterly ‘jacked’.

When the forum opened up into general discussion, many points were raised about this ‘jacking’ issue; the post-modern climate, the over abundance of ideas already around, but for me one that I think these artists should think about: who is going to look back in twenty years or more and care about a composer who just slightly sped up someone else’s music? Further, are you as the composer going to be happy your life and work when the music you composed was simply music borrowed from someone else? Having said all this, I have nothing intrinsically against DJs, club music; just if I were ever to create music in such styles I would be a little apprehensive toward putting my name to something that I feel does not really have a stamp of ‘me’ in the music somewhere.

Next up Nathan Shea gave us a bit of an insight into the realm of ‘black metal’. He talked about the advancement of technology, and the way that some artists reject “new wave” technology. Case in point – some Norweigan artist who apparently basically uses 4 track tape desk, as well as a Discman to make his records. This guy sounds like the penultimate goth, he hates everyone so much he can not even face going into a studio. This particular goth must be metals equilivent to ‘lo-fi’ electronica. I have to say that all this lo-fi, lo-tech stuff is an intriguing field of interest, I am reminded of Seb Tomscek’s work with Game Boys.

Final presenter was John Delaney, who talked about visual sound. He discussed both the role of sound design in film, as well as the visual effects of ambient music. He referred to artists like Aphex Twin and Lustmord (who I will be investigating in the near future). I know some people think it is a toss, but I really like listening ambient music - letting it ignite your imagination in a way that no other music can. Delaney revealed a piece which made him feel he like he was ‘alone in a forest’; I certainly agree that it can be a very environmental experience. Ambient music does seem to evoke visual imagery, in the same that dance music evokes, say, dancing. Someone mentioned that ambient music is monotonously dark and dreary. While there is some truth to this statement, I would point them to the work of Sigur Rós, on their albums ( ) and Agætis Byrjun. Although for the most part they explore a similar dark low-level tension, over large lengths these constructs are subsequently shattered, releasing from tension with some the most beautiful, uplifting resolutions that I have heard in today’s music.

.sources.

Delaney, John 25.05.07 “Construction / Deconstruction,” Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.

Shea, Nathan 25.05.07 “Construction / Deconstruction,” Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.

Simon, Whitelock 25.05.07 “Construction / Deconstruction,” Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.

laptop duet

.cc – week eleven.

On Monday night Craaaazy Matt and I teamed up for a jam. We both were on our mac laptops, and as such found it incredibly easy to network. See here:


The main idea for our collaboration was to create some drum beats. Having done some work with this idea in Max/MSP already, I decided create the drum beats then send this to Matt over our network, and for him to map it into a program such as Reason. So while I was in charge of creating the initial MIDI data, Matt would fine tune the resulting audio data.

Distributed Performance

weimer vs crazy matt

We jammed away using this model several times, and we certainly enjoyed it. We did notice that there was lag using the wireless network, however I was creating the drum beats in advance so it did not matter. Above is an audio sample that I liked, there was plenty more - for another check on Matt’s blog.

.sources.

Haines, Christian 24.05.07 "Distributed Performance." Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide.

mastering

.aa - week eleven.

This week we explored the process of mastering, taking a look at Edensound Mastering. This is a Melbourne based company. Using a few software plug-ins I had a chance to pretend to master the 'drama queen' remix I made a couple of weeks ago.


Drama Queen (Corgan Mix)

...the old (un-mastered) mix can be found here.

.sources.

Grice, David 22.05.07, "Mastering (1)," Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide.

interface design

.cc - week ten.

This week I started by upgrading my Max patch from last week, but ended up tearing my hair out trying to debug 'delta time,' so I decided to cut my losses and use this patch from week eight. This is used with Reason (ReDrum).

Random Drum Sequencer

.sources.

Haines, Christian 18.05.07 "Interface Design" Lecture presented in the EMU, University of Adelaide.

the great deconstructor

.forum – week ten.

Frederick May kicked forum off this week by letting us all know that there is one secret elusive formula behind every number one song, making it number one, and which lacks in songs that do not. It is an interesting idea, but I tend to think is a very western view of music – one that tends to build pop stars up to be ‘larger than life’ all to often. This is something that has happened for centuries in western culture, for example the famous writings of Ernst Hoffman in ‘Beethoven’s Instrumental Music’:

“Mozart is concerned with the superhuman, the miraculous element that inhabits the inmost spirit.”

To be honest, I actually much prefer the pre-Romantic view of the musician as the ‘craftsman.’ I really do not think the musicians who are rich/famous sit on some other plain to... anyone else. Musicians are musicians, lots of historically famous musicians only reached acclaim after their death, so what does that say about their formula? There is no (one) single secret formula to musical success. Unlike when creating KFC.

Dragos Nastasie spoke next. Well actually he mainly played music, with the
Prodigy, the Chemical Brothers, as well as Nine Inch Nails making a welcome
Appearance into the forum. He talked mainly about the construction and deconstruction that can occur within a single song. This is approach to composition can be quite effective, especially in tandem the mechanistic aesthetic of ‘Techno’ and ‘Industrial’ music.

Craaaaazy Matt Reverie presented a television commercial he created for the Media Resource Centre. Alas, his presentation went quite amiss with the technology crumbling around him! He talked about how he came to create the music, using major and minor tonalities to construct matching moods to the visual sources. It was interesting really, I appreciated his honesty about his whole project, specifically, how he came to land the project and then how he went about doing it.

.sources.

May, Frederick 17.05.07, “Construction/Deconstruction,” Forum of the Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.

Nastasie, Dragos 17.05.07, “Construction/Deconstruction,” Forum of the Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.

Reverie, Matt 17.05.07, “Construction/Deconstruction,” Forum of the Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.

avalon preamp

.aa - week ten.

William Revill and I missed this weeks audio arts class because we went to Melbourne to see Nine Inch Nails. Anyway, today we had a chance to play around with the Avalon preamp (covered in class), which has Dave has dutifully been explaining to us nin fans.



Will and I used a semi-acoustic guitar with a direct line in. We also used the Amplitude plug-in to give a bit of colour. The track is Radiohead's "I Might Be Wrong:"

AVALON DIRECT INPUT TEST
DI (guitar's mic/preamp) | DI (avalon preamp)

The Avalon preamp gives the guitar a much warmer sound in my opinion, here's another recording I made while I was just messing around. Jammin with avalon preamp

MIDI sequencer

.cc - week nine

A little bit shabby this week. Delta time goes into the Coll Jake object, as a note with a velocity of 0 for the duration of the rest. Im not sure that this works though, or how MIDI deals with rests.

MIDI Sequencer
archive | midi seq test.mp3

.sources.

Haines, Christian 05.05.07 Creative Computing "Data Management and Application Control" Lecture presented in the EMU, University of Adelaide.

resonances/frequencies from mr louth-robins

.forum - week nine.

This week Tristan Louth-Robins presented an overview of his master project still and moving lines which focuses on the work of Alvin Lucier while also looking Tristan’s own creative work. Before I go on, does that not sound like an awesome format in which to do project?

The basic premise of Alvin Luciers work which Tristan looked at, is to present the wonders of acoustic phenomena in a creative way. Examples of this are his “I Am Sitting In A Room,” as well as “Music for Solo Performer” which blasts amplified subsonic brain waves onto percussion.

As such the project will need to look at the science of sound (Science? Who the hell said science?) in considerable depth, I would assume. This is something I know I would probably struggle with, because science ‘aint my bag baby.’ Hearing Tristan talk about standing waves and resonant frequencies did not really clear the water for me at all. Ok, these things do make some sense, just not a lot of sense, make sense?

Tristan talked about his intriguing work teapot, or perhaps tpot_(x). This follows the vain of “I Am Sitting In A Room,” using the resonant frequencies of a teapot to gradually filter subsequent playbacks and recordings, cycling on and on. It is always refreshing to hear someone experimenting with instrumentation, so I think the teapot here is an excellent choice. Teapots of coarse come in different sizes, colours and materials, these are all things Tristan is mewing over.

Finally, I had my own idea for a Lucier-vained piece. What if you amplified your subsonic brain waves so loud that they melted everyone nearby’s insides, by around 140 dB I suppose. You could walk the streets are literally melt minds not with your guitar, but with your mind!

.sources.

Louth-Robins, Tristan 10.05.07 "Still and Moving Lines (Project Outline)," Presented in the Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.
(http://tristanlouthrobins.blogspot.com)

drama queen mix

.aa - week nine.

drama queen (corgan mix)

This is the second mix of 'drama queen,' around 40 seconds worth. I went for a sort of 'Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness' era Smashing Pumpkins sound. The basic elements here are some slightly dirty guitar sounds, juxtaposed with some fairly clean polite high guitar lines, as well as a healthy dash of electronica in the drums & percussion. Listen for where I use a signal generator to make a short sine wave pitch of 48 Hz, generously coaxed with reverb. I only used it the signal generator twice, when the band first comes in, and at the start of the chorus. If you guys do look at this mix first thing in class (as was mentioned last audio arts) the signal generator is in the track called "floor buzz" or something. Although this is only 40 seconds, most of the work toward making the full song in this style mix is done really.

.sources.

Grice, David 08.05.07, “Mixing (2),” Tutorial presented in the Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.

random ReDrum controller

.cc - week eight.

This is a Max/MSP patch that controls Reason (Adapted for DigiDesign version). The main patch to look for in the .zip archive is named CiCE8 (mother patch). Hopefully the redrum.rsb file loads the samples straight into the virtual ReDrum, if not they are located in folder "CiCE8." What is CiCE8? C(reative) C(omputing) (week)8 with an 'i' and an 'E' added.

Probability ReDrum Controller
archive | random drums.mp3

Unfortunately I spent more time making the software than playing with it, as you might hear. There are bugs with the program, but hey nothings perfect; as if the 10 MIDI controllers Reason sets for "Drum Length" refer to the two-way decay switch, not the big knob next to it!

.sources.

Haines, Christian 26.04.07 Creative Computing "MIDI Information and Virtual Instrumentation" Lecture presented in the EMU, University of Adelaide.

mixing

.aa - week eight.

In the first take I went for a bit of a light distortion sound, trying to emulate the Alanis Morrisette early 90s simple grunge/lead sound.
drama queen with lead

In this version I tried to give the Reason drums a slightly more modern electronic sound, while maintaining some of the grunge dirt. To get some extra control over the overall drum sound, I routed the each of the drum tracks to an Aux track, and used effects on it.
drama queen with boxy drums

.sources.

Grice, David 01.05.07, “Mixing (1),” Tutorial presented in the Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.

arrogance from the status quo

.forum - week eight.

In the exciting to conclusion to ‘gender in music technology,’ everyone again got to have his or her say on the topic. I entered with a open mind; I hear new things. Stephen introduced the topic once again, with the interesting idea of modern technology being a somewhat of a “boys toys” competition, using an amusing penis extension metaphor. While this has some truth to it, I find that socially women are more concerned with owning an up-to-date mobile phone, so once again, the line begins to blur…

Stephen Whittington presented topics like ‘technology fetishism’, cyber identity and the sexuality of cyborgs. To hear these modern subjects addressed by someone of Stephens generation is really rare, and it is refreshing to hear his learned outlook. Generally as far as I get with technology and baby-boomers, is teaching them to lock/unlock their new phones that they’ll probably never use. It is a pity there is no forum on this topic!

Bradley Leffler started things off this week, with a look at Kraftwerk. As with many of the presenters, he began by stepping back and exploring the fundamental, historical differences between a man and a women. Though all these presenters are obviously correct in that, I feel that since we were in the caves, even since 50 years ago, humans have changed (evolved?) a great deal (psychologically at the least). My point here is that though I myself believe in evolution, comparing the man-ape to the modern computer user is somewhat absurd. In fact what we today are doing with the computer, is difficult to compare to... anything.

Laura Gadd presented the lyrics of such artists as Pink, Eminem and Kylie Minogue. She tried to represent these as ‘typical’ emotions for each gender type however (as I am sure subsequent speaker Peter Kelly would attest to) these were pop-culture saturated lyrics. So even if these singers did happen to feel that way, I doubt they even wrote those lyrics themselves. So really, who cares what some male record company executive says about female emotions through some young singer? Sure, I made that scenario up, but who knows if it is true or not? Who knows anything more about these musicians than you can buy there new hit as a crap sounding ringtone for $3.95?

After Ben Cakebread broke the ice very nicely by performing one of the all time great “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the piano, I was a little disappointed that his presentation was really just a Queen worship session. Nevertheless, I dig Queen; all is forgiven.

It’s been an interesting topic where much light has been shed, however I still feel that ‘gender in music technology’ is something that will not be understood for some years to come.

.sources.

Whittington, Stephen 03.05.07, “Gender in Music Technology,” Forum of the EMU, University of Adelaide.

Leffler, Bradley 03.05.07, “Gender in Music Technology,” Presentation of the EMU, University of Adelaide.

Gadd, Laura 03.05.07, “Gender in Music Technology,” Presentation of the EMU, University of Adelaide.

Cakebread, Ben 03.05.07, “Gender in Music Technology,” Presentation of the EMU, University of Adelaide.

Kelly, Peter 03.05.07, “Gender in Music Technology,” Presentation of the EMU, University of Adelaide.

probability note generator

.cc - week seven.

Probability Note Generator Max Patch
max patch | text format

.sources.

Haines, Christian 26.04.07 Creative Computing "Messaging & Analysis." Lecture presented in the EMU, University of Adelaide.