final fantasy VII

.aa - week two.

Final Fantasy VII came out in 1997 for the PlayStation X and I was stoked.


There are absolutely no VO (voice-over) recordings in the game whatsoever. Basically the story is so long and convoluted, and contains so many characters, that audio director Nobuo Uematsu decided that the limitations of using recorded audio were too great. Interestingly this was not the only limitation he was faced with, he decided to only use the PlayStations internal chip and created a huge score of MIDI tracks for the game. He did this not only to free up the disc to utilise the power of the PlayStations visual hardware, but also so that the music would never stop to load – much unlike the visual element. In this way, FF7 is certainly an example of a game in which the audio was a primary factor to its success. Given that the game comprises three discs, it was a truly colossal game, with hours of typically frustrating game-play, movies and (best of all) music.

Aesthetically the game opens in the industrious world of Midgar (shown below), with the sounds of steam blow-offs and chrome metal smashes. Most of the sounds tend to conform into this feeling that a dark, cold metal city sits in the night sky. This kind of image is often painted too by industrial music, making use of sharp ‘nasty’ MIDI sounds; this is what probably draws me to FF7 the most.


The interface is navigated with two sounds – as you move the cursor over different buttons and when you select one of these buttons. Environmental sounds normally come intertwined with the music – for the most part the game is set in industrial cities, and the music matches this. Also I recall a part of the game when the characters walk through a windy desert, for which the music contains a swishy white noise sound. As well as the environment, the music often incorporates the mood of the story. A simple example of such mood-music would be the characters enter battle or face a boss, and also when the player wins a battle. In this last case, a triumphant marching band sort of theme is played, and a ‘chimey’ sound effect represents the money being collected from the bad guy.

.sans analysis.

These recordings are pretty average quality, but hopefully you get the idea.

UI SFX
In this example you here me move the cursor three times then make a selection. These are the interface sounds used throughout the game (main menu, ingame and so on).

FMV music
This is the audio that accompanies the opening cut-scene, in which I think you get a good idea of the industrial feel to the music. After around 5 seconds you here the ‘verby’ footsteps of the Aeris Gainsborough walking down a chrome metal street in Midgar. Towards the end, after 31 seconds, you hear the huge chords which accompanies the main FF7 logo (see above) coming onscreen.

Battle music
This sample begins with a swishy blow-off sound, which any FF7 player will know, occurs when a player goes into battle. The feel of increased tension in the music suits the in-game action. You can hear the same UI sounds as before after about 11 seconds (selecting to attack) then at the 12 second mark you hear the main character Cloud Strife jump over the enemy, attack him with his sword, and finally you hear the enemy die. This is last sound effect makes the sorts of ‘a-o-waaa’ noise. Love it. At around the 25th second, you hear the music change, playing big strong chords, signifying the battle has been won. After this music changes again to a more mellow feel, as the player chooses what loot to collect from the defeated enemies.

Critical Strike
Many games make use of ‘critical strikes’, whereby the attacker has a chance to do around double the damage they would normally do on a melee attack. After this sound effect this sample also contains the enemy dying (a-o-waaa).

.sources.

Brandon, Alexander 2005, "Audio for Games: planning, process and production," New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

Haines, Christian 31.07.07, "Game Audio Analysis," EMU, Adelaide University.

2 + 2 = 5

.cc - week one.

This semester we are creating our own MSP (Max Signal Processing) libraries, with the aim of pooling them altogether for the final project later on. To begin with we were asked to make the following two objects:

i. Pop-less DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter)

jam.dac.zip

ii. Volume fader

jam.fadeamp.zip

.thoughts.
For the most part the original dac~ object is better than the jam.dac~ object. While my object may not pop to begin with, it instead has a small volume ramp. Having said that, I have not really encountered a problem with the original dac~ popping. On top of this dac~ has other features like the 'stopwindow' message, as well as an endless addition of channels and messages which arrange those channels. If you double click on the dac~ object it opens the Max "DSP Status" window which has heaps of options/preferences for Digital Signal Processing in Max. So while I learned some stuff about MSP making jam.dac~, it's not going take over dsp~ just yet.

.issues.
The only way I know incorporating these objects into other patches is by using the 'bpatcher' object or by creating a 'patcher' and copying the whole objects patch into that window. Having said that, clicking on 'help' for each of my custom objects will only open the 'thispatcher.help' window. And also, I was unable to set the 'Ramp Time' for the jam.fadeamp~ object as a argument (it's only inputted through an inlet).

It is going to be a semester of number crunching. I can smell the blood, sweat and tears already.

.sources.

Haines, Christian 26.07.2007 "Music & Sound Processing." EMU, Adelaide University.

victorian synth

.forum - week one.

victorian synth on youtube

Making a ‘Victorian Synth’ in Music Tech forum was a fun and simple introduction to the realm of instrument construction. As far as I could tell, the two main ways to alter the sound of the speaker being connected to a 9V battery was to, firstly, alter the signal flow between the battery and speaker (like running the connection point over a metal file) or to, secondly, alter the output capability of the speaker itself (like burying the speaker in a bowl of rocks). Using the second of these possibilities, Seb used a paper clip to generate a pitch sweeping pseudo-oscillator tone. For me this was the most impressive used of the victorian synth.

Mitchell Whitelaw’s keynote presentation at ACMC last year featured a video in which a small green dot wobbled around and expanded into different shapes. I was really impressed with by this video. He went on to explain how it was created; by connecting a weird mishmash of electronics into a video input. I am hoping that this ‘Electronics, Instruments and Improvisation’ course touches on other media (particularly visual) at some point.

This kind of experimentation with electronic componentry can obviously have breathtaking results, having said that, I do not think I will ever need to play a victorian synth again. Just on that, if we were to compare what we were doing with the vicorian synth to the tele-visual media, that is, if we were outputting through a screen rather than a speaker, we would then have been perhaps drawing on a screen and putting objects on it, like we were doing to the speaker. However in the visual medium one would tend not to do this, it seems a little stupid, and having said that I am happy working from the behind the output device. The possibilities of what one can create and send to a speaker, rather than what one can create by altering the vibration of that speaker, are greater and preferable.

This course intends for each student to create an instrument, which to then use for improvisation. I have idea for my own interface/intrument, which springs from this dilemma: Oftentimes I am sitting at my computer tapping a beat on the desk then trying to write this into a program like Sibelius or Reason. While both extensive experience with this, and years of aural classes have diminished this problem for me, I still feel that an interface which cuts out the middle man between my desk, my brain and the computer should exist (perhaps one does?). So basically what I am envisaging is an electronic drum kit that is played with your fingers and is primarily (but not exclusively) a tool for composition. As I have said already, the avenues toward visual output are also attractive. Just an idea.

.sources.

Haines, Christian. Tomczak, Seb. Whittington, Stephen. 26.07.07 "Introduction to Electronics, Instruments and Improvisation," EMU, Adelaide University.

game audio

.aa - week one.

Bubble Bobble was released in 1986, before I was born, but was popular enough to make it onto plenty of subsequent game systems. Beginning as an arcade game, its now avaliable for PS2 and xbox 360.

It incorporates two-player cooperative really well (second player can join whenever). It was one of the first games to have multiple endings; finishing the 100 levels in single player mode will only warp the player back to a previous level. Finishing the game with two-players will successfully rescue bub and bobs' girlfriends. Giggity. However, this is not the "true" ending, for that, one must enter the code obtained from rescuing the girlfriends and enter that on the starting screen to unlock 'super' bubble bobble. In this mode the enemies are randomised, making it very difficult for the two-players to complete the game (again) and clock the true ending! Some of the baddies...

Stoner


Baron von Blubba


In the game there is this repetitive song that loops over and over, until the single melody of the song is so ingrained in your head all you can think about is shooting bubbles out of little dragons mouths and bopping along to that silly tune. Apart from that the only sound effects are the sound of the dragons jump and the sound of a bubble popping. Aesthetically, the music blends in nicely with the sound effects and the feel of the whole game generally - bubbly and silly.

There is a remake of the game available for OSX here

.sources.

Haines, Christian 24.07.07, "Introduction to Game Audio," EMU, Adelaide University.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_bobble
accessed 27.07.07

saxophone quartet

In the previous week I recorded a saxophone quartet. The quartet includes:

Bianca Pittman - Baritone Saxophone
Hamish Buckley - Tenor Saxophone
Martin Cheney - Alto Saxophone
Kristy Williamson - Soprano Saxophone

a ragtime nightmare | a study in contrasts

extravehicular

9 ‘ 19

score | extravehicular.mp3

This piece is built over a thick ambience drone, which is composed from a drum sample being played extremely slowing – at a speed that oscillates back and forth, playing it in reverse too. The main instrumental accompaniment to this is a “probability” drum machine. This specifically written program uses programmed percentages to determine the likelihood of playing each drum. The resulting drum score is hazardous, lending itself to the industrial samples used. Together the drone and drum parts offer a very ‘digitally’ imbued version of electronica. Against this an acoustic piano is juxtaposed, to provide a small and distorted element of human melody – distorted in the way the piano is produced and cut up to add unnatural elements to the instruments distinctive sound. Aesthetically, the piece sits somewhere around the Industrial sound of Nine Inch Nails and the minimal glitch sound of the Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto collaboration. The piece is also greatly inspired by the “Odyssey” series by Arthur C. Clarke; this piece is too a snapshot of a human operating in space. The droning ambience part would here be emblematic of the machinery in such a scene, while the piano would be representative of the human.

snerf snerf

.cc - week twelve.

"I want this to go from this beat to that beat over this amount of time, with this curve, which is shaped according to this equation." (Booth, 2004)

This quote from Autechre was my primary inspiration for this semesters Max Patch. I have called it a 'probability drum machine', which basically uses user-defined percentages to determine whether a drum should be played on a certain beat. For example, a user can specify 100% chance of a kick on beat one, and 56% chance of a kick on beat 'two-and'. This creates an exciting deference to what is commonly found in dance music- instead of the common 'hit the crash every four bars', there could be a 25% chance of hitting the crash every bar. Another nice thing that the prototype produced was the ability control the bar between randomisation and specified input- it was easy set up a train of kick on one and snare on three, but over the top have somewhat more random, and realistically intuitive hi-hat hits. I also want to be able to morph from one beat to another over time (ala Autechre), create simple panning and volume automations and simply turn the thing on 'auto'.



The program itself will work best in collaboration with "real" instruments. So for the piece I make I intend to accompany the laptop with the piano. In the piece I am drawing inspiration from Autechre, some Nine Inch Nails industrialisation, as well as the electonica minimalism produced from the collaberation of Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

.sources.

Haines, Christian 31.05.07, “Miscellaneuos Topic,” Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide.

sit on the spiral

.forum – week twelve.

It is an interesting polarity between improvised and composed music. Like all good polarities, I am interested in (for some strange reason) comparing it foremost to left and right wing politics. As such, improvised music I would compare straight away to communism, while composed music would be more indicative of dictatorial Fascism. Now, what the hell does that have to do with anything? Well…

Polarity. It is a scheme which seems to control everything; darkness versus light, good versus evil, classical versus jazz. No matter what your philosophical viewpoint is, surely it sits somewhere on a scale, a polarity which caters for all. Perhaps the most intriguing polarity to which I have thus far been introduced is the one that Professor Mark Carroll is oftentimes found spouting. That is, the polarity between Apollo and Dionysus, the head and the heart and between intellect and the senses.

So how does this sit in the war between improvisation and composition? Composed music requires a certain degree of intellectualism, while improvised music could be considered more impulsive and sensual. Stephen Whittington seemed to make mention of composition appearing to ‘win out’ in western culture. I feel that this is just one battle of polarities that continues to define the life of music, to this day. While certain entities can sit entirely on one side of the spectrum, the spectrum continues to exist with many wonderful exponents.

In the current day, post-modern as I later found out, I find it quite amazing that people can still cling so stringently to their particular position on the spectrum. It is obviously still accepted, I mean there are still people making money with dance music and even ‘old-school’ metal is making a return. But to be honest, at the moment I am listening to Gui Boratto’s new techno wonder “Chromophobia,” I have Stravinsky’s “PȨtrouchka” in my car’s CD player, am learning “Laid to Rest” by Lamb of God on guitar and one of Clementi’s Rondos’ on piano. I like dipping my toes into all aspects of argument, and am just genuinely interested in doing way too much. In other words, right now I am sitting a bit like white noise on the spectrum.

Although, it’s entirely possible that I am just a dirty commi.

.sources.

Whittington, Stephen and Harris, David 01.06.07, “Composition versus Improvisation,” Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University.

mastering superman

.aa – week twelve.

This week we continued the mastering exercises, taking original (un-mastered) recordings to make our own using digital plug-ins. We also had the Edensound Mastered versions to compare our own efforts to. I used the filterbank EQ, Aphex Aural Exciter, MC2000M4 compression, Maxim Limiter and the power dither.


superman (un-mastered) | superman (my version) | superman (Edensound)

The main difference between my mastering and the Edensound, is the bass is stronger in my version and the Edensound sounds a little more ‘chimey’ and ‘verby’ around the vocals and acoustic. They are both loud, the Edensound is both a little louder and a little warmer (less crunchy) in pushing the gain. This is the difference between digital and analogue equipment. I noticed also that while I grew to prefer my EQ and compression settings, the only worked particularly well with the speakers I was monitoring with, but when I played the recordings through my laptop speakers the Edensound version was again better.

.sources.

Grice, David 29.05.07 "Mastering (2)." Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide.

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.

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.

on collaborations

.forum – week four.

Collaboration is the way people connect for common goals. Without the collaboration of minds and ideas, we would not benefit from the great(er) understanding of the universe we have today. All areas of modern science – physics, geography, chemistry – have progressed through the collaboration of thousands of exceptional ideas. Names like Newton, Halley and Einstein spring to mind, but ultimately it took the support of thousands to investigate and propagate the theories that have brought us to where we are today.

Music, like science, has grown in a similar fashion of evolution. Again the names like Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven may quickly spring to mind. However, their composition methods were inspired by the work of other people. Hundreds of them. Like Einstein’s celebrated Theory of Relativity, compositions like Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata stand as beacons, inspiring eras of inquiry for their respective fields.

It is of little surprise that in the modern day, a liberal age of innumerable musical 'approaches,' collaborations are more and more common. Not to argue that these are all 'successful' (or perhaps 'artistic'), as I am sure forum presenter Sanad would agree. Sanad made mention of Britney Spear’s tracks that include “Arabian melodies”. I personally do not blame Britney, I am sure she has little to do with the creation of her music. Moving on…

Much of the exceptional and significant art of the twentieth century is a blend. For Dave, one such blend was the Symphony & Metallica collaboration of 1999. Trilok Gurtu, presented by Vinny, was shown to comprise most of his artistic output in one form of collaboration or another. Will appropriately pointed out that to make a modern video game, cooperation’s require extremely extensive, organised and collaborative working models.

Over the coming weeks we will continue to look at collaboration. Hopefully it's something that we can do together and get some practice with, rather than simply theorise about.

This next one may come a little from left-field. Needless to say, globalisation- it's happening:

"Look at a globe and what you are seeing really is a snapshot of the continents as they have been for just one-tenth of 1 per cent of the Earth's history." (Bryson 2004, pg. 231)

.sources.

Byson, Bill 2004, "A Short History of Nearly Everything", Great Britain, Black Swan.

Whittington, Stephen 22.03.07, “Collaborations,” Forum presented at EMU space, 5th floor, Schultz building, University of Adelaide.

ninboard v2

.cc - week four.

Max Patch | Text Format

If you do not own the application Max/MSP please download the runtime software or "player" which is linked in the downloads menu. Then right-click and 'save target as' the "Max Patch" link above. Sounds like a rigmarole, I know, but you get a free keyboard for your computer, it even has a NIN logo on it. Sweet!

This next song Max/MSP patch is dedicated to Mr John Delany who went to the extent of writing out all 128 MIDI instuments, and whose keyboard contains a full list of the such instruments in its 'program changer.' Cheers for that John!

I am actually quite enjoying Max/MSP and am going to be rather bummed when my demo mode runs out!

.sources.

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

Haines, Christian 22.03.07, "MIDI Information and Control," Tutorial presented 4th Floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide.

drum recording

.aa – week four.

This week we had the pleasure of recording the drums, a task not as easy as it sounds. Especially if you happen to be listening to “Lateralus” by Tool, like me.

Unlike the amplifier which usually contains one (sometimes four) separate sound sources, the drum kit can have anywhere upward of eight. Usually these require at least one dedicated microphone each, which for an instrument you play sitting down means a lot of equipment (mics, drums, cymbals, stands) concentrated in a smallish area. The pitfalls are numerous.

With the help of my able comrades Dave & Luke, we attempted to cater for these perils by starting simply with playing a single drum and finding a place in the room where the sound was good. This is a task I like to call ‘finding the mojo,’ as it is way too difficult to explain what you are listening for, you really just have to go with your ears and your heart.

Once we’d found a place with suitable mojo, we:
-built the drum kit up on carpet.
-put the drum and cymbals into a nice symmetrical sort of playing/sounding position
-put microphones into an approximate position
-used a spaced pair of overhead microphones (Neumann KM-84i)
-surrounded the area with absorbing boards
-put in a room microphone (Neumann U-87)
-took turns in playing the kit / adjusting microphones position / listening to the result in the control room (dishing out orders to the drummer/engineer)
-panned the drums in the stereo image, as per the overheads
-some minor mixing (kick / snare boosted, toms reduced slightly)
-switched from spaced overheads, to an X/Y configuration (still Neumann KM-84i)

.drum recording.

pap-happy beat | swing beat (spaced overheads) | swing beat (X/Y overheads)

Tool's Danny Carey doesn't mess around: try out his kit...

.sources.

Grice, David 20.03.07. “Percussion.” Tutorial presented in the EMU space, 5th floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide.

Robjohns, Hugh 1999, “Rhythm Method – Recording Real Drums,” Sound on Sound, viewed 24.3.07, http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul99/articles/recordingdrums.htm

and it continues again and again and again...

.forum - week three.
I can see where David Harris was going with his piece “compossible,” which was performed by all students of last week’s music tech forum, just, I do not think he wrote it very well. For example, his piece was a self-proclaimed means to exploring new sounds, but the spoken word sections were repeated throughout. I hardly see how you can have a new and repeated sound, no, I am pretty sure that’s an illogical paradox. More to the point, if you are going to write a piece of music in the style of John Cage, write a piece of music in the style of John Cage!

Around this point people start shaking their heads, the vocal types might exclaim, “But this is not music!” Ahhh, but here is the clever part about writing a piece “in the style of John Cage”: Has this changed your idea about what music might be? After forum class were you walking to the bus stop, looking at people riding bicycles, thinking: in a way that bike might be his instrument.

I did, but I got bored of the idea in about the time it takes to eat a tic-tac. If you attended that forum, I am pretty sure you were just waiting for the 46th minute of “compossible” so that you could leave. Music may be many things yes, a valid point you make Harris, Cage, but one thing that I am sure it is not meant to be, is boring. My opinion of the topic is forming thus:

Create the art to say something.
Do not,
Say something to create the art.

Well one thing is for certain. Somewhere John Cage is hiding a smirk, watching the academically and the commercially driven people still doing battle, over a decade after his death.
And it continues...

.sources.

Harris, David. 15.03.07. "There is no sound or noise that isn't music." Nothing of interest presented in Schultz Building, Level 5, University of Adelaide.

MIDIKeys _/NIN/_

.cc - week 3.

Max Patch | Text Format

This emulates the OSX application MIDI Keys, except it's made for anyone who likes nine inch nails. Also, white notes are black – black notes are white. Adjust the amp (volume), time (note length) and MIDI out.

MIDI output:
1 - Piano
10 - Drums

Wouldn't it be great if you could play .mxf applications in web-browsers?

.sources.

Brouhaha Music Marketing, Music Merchandise, 20.03.07. http://www.brouhahacd.com/Products.asp?Action=View&ID=19165&Path=T7,0011

Haines, Christian. 15.03.07. "Program Structuring." Tutorial presented in the EMU, 4th floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide.

electric strings

.aa – week three.

With my recording project in mind, I aimed to assimilate a modern metal sound in my electric strings recording for the week. The guitar I recorded from EMU space, I would also like to record guitar from the dead room, but it was being used at the time. Manning the axe is Dave, who began playing with his very nice Ibanez, with distortion. To begin with I placed a Beta 52 on axis of the speaker, as well as a Beta 57 off axis, all around the same height (horizontal to the middle of the speaker). Also I walked around the EMU space as Dave played, and much as we had done in class, I found an area of the room where I liked the sound. There I put a Neumann U87. However this setup did not work at all:


bad guitar sound

Realising the need to completely change the sound I was getting, I started by getting Dave to use my Epiphone Les-Paul. I have heavier gauged strings, so straight away that gave me a thicker tone. Next I reviewed EQ settings on the cabinet, setting it to: Bass -2, Mid -2 and Treble +2. The Gain was set to +8 and the volume to around 4.

To actually capture this sound, I also needed to make some changes to the microphone positioning. After fiddling around a bit, I eventually came to the conclusion that the Beta 52 (a kick drum / bass guitar mic) found the best low end grunt from being placed closer to the ground. The final positioning:



modern metal sound

After this I experimented with moving around the room mic (U87), finding out which places around EMU gave the distortion guitar a nice natural reverb sound. In this recording you can hear Dave playing more of a lead guitar / solo part, I think the recorded audio quality matches it nicely.


solo lead

Next I recorded the bass guitar from the dead room, with the help of Nathan. Eventually we worked out how to route the bass so that he could sit next to me in studio one but play to the amp placed in the dead room. For this recording I again used the SM57 and beta 52. This first recording was made with the cabinet set up in a corner of the dead room.


bass guitar

Because the dead room was so far away from studio one (and after already running around, figuring out how to record the bass from the control room) I did not get much of a chance to play engineer, and run back and forth fiddling with the microphone positions. However to change the sound, I moved the bass cabinet into the middle of the room. Due to our routing, I figured we would turn up Nathan’s amplifier to as loud as it would go prior to losing some sound quality, which unfortunately was not all that loud. In this next recording you can feel the bass sound as being much ‘boomier’ and fuller, as the amplifier is much louder, however I think you loose some of the sharpness of the attack of the bass sound (as compared to the previous recording).


loud bass

I only had a brief opportunity to experiment with a DI recording from the bass cabinet. Admittedly, I know very little about DI, but the sound of the next recording does not seem to have the low-end balls that the microphone recordings offer. The obvious benefits of a DI recording are in a group situation, as nothing will bleed from other instruments into the DI recording. Doing audio processing onto that DI recording would be ideal, as it will not effect the sound of any other instrument. So perhaps this DI recording is in need of some compression, EQing and other effects, even if it is only done digitally?


DI bass

.sources.

Grice, David 13.03.07. “Electric Strings.” Tutorial presented in the EMU space, 5th floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide.

Crisp, Pete 2004. “Recording nu-metal guitar tracks.” Music Tech Magazine, viewed 12.01.07.
http://www.musictechmag.co.uk/mtm/download/recording-nu-metal-tracks

chromatic note Max patch

.cc - week two.

Max Patch | Text Format

This is a patch that triggers the notes of a chromatic octave selected by the user. The tempo can also be specified by the user.

.sources.

Haines, Christian. 08.03.07. "Max Quickstart." Tutorial presented in Schulz Building, 4th floor, University of Adelaide.

what is creativity?

.forum - week two.

Anyone studying the creative arts finds themselves looking inward. We look into ourselves, perhaps into the subconscious as Jungian philosophy would suggest, to merge what we know and then, to create. Ultimately the burning, philosophical question of this field stands: What is creativity?

Enter Stephen Whittington (director of the Electronic Music Unit) and his forum discussion topic. Just as I am sure that around the campus scientists struggle to define exactly what is the atom, in our humble Music Technology forum Stephen mused the similarly mystifying stump of our study. As one would expect there was no simple answer, no real answer at all. I did overhear masters student Tristan Louth-Robins offer one interesting answer; creativity likened to ‘happy accidents.’

When one asks such a question as what is creativity, perhaps we consider too deeply the process of our actions in the world around us. Ethnomusicologists certainly, carefully consider our actions, how we have made use of the instruments around us. It is here I think, that we come abruptly against the wall of our understanding of art. Surely we can study the body, its relationship with a musical instrument, a paintbrush, or perhaps just a pen on paper. ‘Mastery’ of a musical instrument is certainly an attainable goal for an aspiring musician, particularly one who studies at a conservatorium. When we look into the mind, however, we start to loose a grip on the understanding our actions. Where we can now say, in this day and age, how a young musician may learn to play the instrument well, we do not or cannot say how he should look into himself and utilise his or her imagination. Such is our society; obsessively focused on the outer self rather than the inner self.

Mentioned above was the aspiring musician who can endeavour to master an instrument through a higher education. A musician / composer who could not be further from this hackneyed stereotype is Erik Satie. Stephen’s interest in the late 1800s, early 1900s musician has got me interested to. I read about piece he composed, “Vexations” (1893), titled his “most enigmatic and abstract work.” It’s a one page score (180 notes) and only score note is:


‘To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.’

Its premiere performance was done over half a century later, by who else, but John Cage (and a team of 10 pianists). It took them over 18 hours. After the mammoth event apparently Cage woke up feeling different about himself and the world. Later the 10 pianists reported that they had undergone a similar experience.

Well, if you have made it this far, thanks for reading my rather self-indulged update.

.sources.

Holmes, Thom, 2002. "Electronic and Experimental Music." New York: Routledge. 34 - 35.

Whittington, Stephen. 08.03.07. "What is Creativity?" Seminar Presented in the Schulz Building, 5th floor, EMU space, University of Adelaide.

aa - week two - voice recording

.mic vs mic.
With the vocal recording exercise my main goal was to test out a few different microphones. The three mic's I decided to try out were a Shure SM58, Rhode NTV and the Neumann U-87. Follow each link below to hear a recording using each microphone. These recordings demonstrate the naked sound of the microphone. Speaking is Ben Probert, who willingly agreed to help me with the recording by assuming the voice of a pirate (cheers!). Ben had each mic placed around him 10cm from his mouth. Also he was surrounded by sound boards in a pseudo-dead room setup. Each of these recordings were made with the same take, but from the perspective of each different mic:

SM58
U-87
NTV
(naked microphones)



.narrowing mic selection & adding dynamic compression.
From this recording, I gathered a bit of information about how each of the microphones were performing on the day. The SM58 had a slightly rougher sound, with more low end, as compared with the sound of the U-87m which was my favourite vocal sound. The NTV was perhaps a bit too gentle for this role, so later I decided to try it out 4 metres away when I recorded a more 'room' sound (less direct). With the SM58 and U-87 left as my preferred sounds, I decided make another recording with them, this time using the popper stopper, dynamic multi-band digital compression as well as getting Ben to speak more directly into each mic.

SM58 vs. U-87
(compressed)

.spoken word.
Once again I personally prefer the sound of the Neumann microphone, even with all the parameters (compression, mic placement and so on) changed, so I decide to use the U-87 to record a spoken word recording. In this take, instead of prattling on with as much enthusiasm as the idiot in the Mr. Bankrupt commercials, Ben just reads the text in his usual voice. Again this is with compression.

U-87
(spoken word)

.room sound.
For something a little different, and to try to get the expensive Rhode NTV to do something useful, I removed the sound boards and recorded Ben about 4 to 5 meters from the NTV mic. This recording is might sound a little bit dull, but if combined with another close-miced recording (with the U-87 for example) and with appropriate mixing, one might achieve an interesting and physical reverb sound.

NTV
(room recording)

.whisper.
Finally, I decided to use the NTV microphone, which I have already dubbed "gentle," to make a recording of Ben whispering the script. We used the popper-stopper for this take, and got Ben standing pretty close to the mic. Once again this is with digital compression.

NTV
(close mic, whisper)

and remember weimerhead readers:



.sources.
Grice, David. 06.03.07. "Voice Recording," Tutorial presented in EMU space, 5th floor Schulz Building, University of Adelaide.

forum - week one

There was not a whole lot to the first Music Technology forum, it finished half an hour early, giving me time to eat a turkey, cheese and barbeque sauce sandwich before I went to work. I would post a picture of my favourite homemade sanger for you all but, alas, I ate it many days ago.

Without digressing too much more, forum class was spent in a getting-to-know-you format. Everyone, aside from the new first-years, all already knew each other though. Hence, getting-to-know-you was simple. There are a new slew of first-year degree students, one of whom (Nathan Shea) went to Immanuel like me. We had a chat about the old school days and the degree for a while and I had the chance to catch up for a beer with him Friday night, at Flashpoint’s gig.

First semester forum will mainly contain student-run discussions on such topics as collaboration, gender in music technology and also construction / deconstruction of music. Should be quite interesting, I have had a couple of preliminary inspirations about my area (gender in music technology) thinking of Marilyn Manson’s Omega (genderless) character used in his “mechanical animals” era, see below.



YES! He’s a Looney. Nonetheless, his lyrics from this period talk about technologies impact on things like religion, spirituality and sexuality, as well as all the usual subjects like love and drugs. If you’re at all interested, have a read of “New Model No. 15,” a song which primarily focuses on a robot capable of giving sexual pleasure. Why not?!

Another brainwave I had for ‘gender in music technology’ relates to the violent, male-targeted nature of video games. If the music technology staff are wondering why they have over 90% boys in their classes, well I would hazard a guess that we are all geeks; grown up slaying bowser, pin-pointing head-shots on Halo, doing 900 degree spins with Tony Hawk and using the force to destroy the death star. Do these not sound like a bunch of jobs for da boys? Interestingly, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata intends for his new Wii console change all this by incorporating new people into his video game market, (like housewives and older people, who haven’t played a lot of games before). The wiinds of change?

.sources.

Whittington, Stephen, 1.3.07. "Introduction to Music Technology." In EMU space, 5th Floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide.

cc - week one - pseudocode

The following pseudocode converts notes of the major scale to the equivalent relative minor scale note. These notes are then played on a musical device, until twenty notes are heard.

playnotes = 20

REPEAT
CASE 1: scale degree 1
lower a minor third
output to device
playnotes = -1
CASE 2: scale degree 2
lower a minor third
output to device
playnotes = -1
CASE 3: scale degree 3
lower a major third
output to device
playnotes = -1
CASE 4: scale degree 4
lower a minor third
output to device
playnotes = -1
CASE 5: scale degree 5
lower a minor third
output to device
playnotes = -1
CASE 6: scale degree 6
lower a major third
output to device
playnotes = -1
CASE 7: scale degree 7
lower a major third
output to device
playnotes = -1
CASE 8: scale degree 8
lower a minor third
output to device
playnotes = -1
ENDCASE
UNTIL playnotes = 0

note: blogger does not let me put in tab or spaces to align this code correctly.