Week 11 - Creative Computing

This weeks task was to use Metasynth's other rooms that we didn't use last week. The Image Synth, Spectral Synth and Montage Room. As usual, it was interesting to see the different effects you can make with something as common as the human voice.

For my soundscape, I basically just took snippets, almost randomly warped them until I found something I liked. Because this is so late, and because I doubt I'll be able to be marked on this anyway, I'll jsut post the pictures of what I did without to much written explanation. They show what I did better than any misguided words anyway.













And here is the sound itself. I like to think of it as Montage Of Doom. It sounds a lot better if you turn it up loud. I think I should have fixed that in the program actually. Anyway, here it is:

MONTAGE OF DOOM

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Lecture presented by Christian Haines, 31st May, 2007, Adelaide University

week 12 - CC

This weeks task was simply to complete the preproduction form for the major project. It was a bit confusing knowing what to write but I tried to address what it said on the sheet. I originally wanted to make recordings of lots of different water noises, like the rain, drains, and things like that, but it would've been too hard to make the recordings in the set time. So I settled on what is on the form. Any thoughts on the idea greatly appreciated!

Pre production form

Week 11 - AA

This week was learning about mixing. This week was an awesomely fun week! Ok, not very professional there, but I really enjoyed the mixing side of things.

The lecture showed us how to basically go about it *(1), and then we just had to do three different mixes of an Eskimo Joe song, "New York".*(2) The first mix was to be a basic mix, with the only thing done is using the faders in the mix window. For this I decided to make the bass guitar and piano extra loud, and the vocal that sung the bridge loud. Some of the parts I didn't include because it was simply too much and I felt it was a little cluttered. I prefered it with less instruments, but those instruments being fully appreciated.



The second mix I put panning in. I tried to do what Steve said in the lecture and make it so the instruments aren't all cluttered in the middle. I put the drums to the left and the guitars to the right. The three verse vocals I split up, with the lowest to the right, the highest to the left and the mid-range, more important voice centred. I thought it gave it a more open sound, which I liked.





The final mix was putting in the EQ. This was the best par, because I haven't actually used the EQ before, and I found it really interesting to try and do different things. I made the bass mroe bass-y, and the piano more bright. I thought the drums were a little dull, but couldn't work out how to fix it. Changing things ere just knocking other important parts of the drums. Also, I made the bridge vocals really bright so it really stood out. It's meant to sound really obviously tampered with, so that's why it does. Personally, I like in songs when the vocals are warped to the point it sounds like they're coming through the radio or some such. So that's what I attempted to do, by raising the higher frequencies and lowering the lower ones.

MY FINAL MIXES:

MIX 1: ONLY FADERS

MIX 2: FADERS AND PANNING

MIX 3: FINAL PRODUCT - FADERS, PANNING AND EQ


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*(1) Steve Fieldhouse, Audio Arts Lecture, EMU, Tuesday 22nd May, 2007

*(2) Eskimo Joe. 2006. “New York” Black Fingernails, Red Wine (album). Mushroom Records

Week 10 - CC

This weeks Creative Computing class was all about the wonderful program known as Metasynth. *(1) It's a program (only for Macs annoyingly) that allows the user to easily manipulate sounds using general effects. It's easier than ProTools and other programs I thought, because the effects are right there, and are easy to use and understand. It's all fairly self-explanatory which is always a good thing.

This week we used two of the possible effect rooms, 'effects room' and 'image synth'. I didn't spend as much time in Image synth as Effects Room, but both have a lot of awesome things to do with changing the sounds.

The basic idea was to change around the vocal sample from last week in the program to make a minute long soundscape. The way I did mine, was to copy and paste various sections almost randomly and see what it gave me. However, one problem with this is it can be difficult to change something back. But that was overcomeable. One of the main things I did to make my soundscape was repeat sequences backwards. It gives a different sound, but feels familiar to the audience. I also used a lot of harmonics, mostly because they were just great fun! Volume helped to correct a few sound issues, and pitch and time made a lot of the sounds that little bit weirder.

In the end, I think my soundscape is a little creepy... but I like it. So here I present: Chape No More!

And of course, a picture of the Metadynth window...


>>>CHAPE NO MORE<<<

Week 10 - Forum

This weeks forum was based on constructing and deconstructing music. It's a pretty general topic to have and so the presentations were all quite different. I'll focus this on one of them.

Freddie presented his on how to write a hit record. He gave us lots of different ways and formulas to write this record. His point that was by deconstructing other hit songs, you could find the golden way to write your own. I don't think that could work. If there are specific elements that are apparent in every hit song, then it would have to be hugely generic and so not very useful. Otherwise how could we explain how such different songs like Me and You by Cassie and Another Brick In The Wall by Pink Floyd could both be hits. Then you have to define a hit. Is it something that gets number 1 for a week and then disappears, or the song that never quite hits mainstream but has cult-like following below the media line? Both are considered hits. For example, a hit on triple J might have no such title on Nova, because the audience is so different.

Overall, I thought the presentations were interesting this week. Always good.

Week 10 -- AA

This weeks class was drum recording. *(1) The class was long, but really interesting as always, and I learnt lots about the drums I didn't know. Not just in a recording sense, but the tuning and placement and things.

I'm very proud of myself this week actually, because I did everything myself. No-one was there to help me at all, which is a first. So everything, from the set up (although my drummer helped with that) to the recording to the pack up I did. I wasn't sure I could actually do it all, but I worked it out fairly easily and quickly. Always good.

And the sounds are :

FIRST RECORDING

For this one I used 2 KM 84's (Possibly not the right mic, definitely KM something, but I didn't write it down, and now I've forgotten... sorry) as overheads, and a Shure 56 (?) Beta just outside the hole of the bass drum. I quite like the sound, but some sounds are being drowned out, and the toms aren't as prominent as some drummers would probably like. Also, this technique has the problem of being un changeable as we discussed in class. If the drummer wants more toms, then it's too bad. It's set as it is.

SECOND RECORDING

The second recording is a lot the same as the first, except I used U 87's (?) as room mics instead of the overheads, and the bass mic was inside the kick. It's not too bad, same problems as the other one. Except I clearly needed to turn it up more, because it's really quiet, and there are hardly any cymbals. Not a choice I'd use often, I prefer the other to be honest.

I also forgot to take photos, so here is a picture of the ProTools window, as helpful as that may or may not be.







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*(1) Steve Fieldhouse, Audio Arts Lecture, Monday 14th May, 2007

Week 9 - CC

Well, after last weeks success I semto have fallen massively downhill. Due to a culmination of events, this week has been really hard. The lecture *(1) was about doing the same sorts of things we did in the previous weeks, except using the effects in ProTools.

I recorded my human voice, and was all set to go. But first I couldn't hear the sounds in Peak. I assumed that someone had played around with the settings, and as I had no hope of fixing that myself had to leave it there for the time being. I then tried it in the mac lab and hey presto it worked, but the computer didn't have enugh disk space. So I changed computer, and then couldn't get my sounds to play from Peak to ProTools.

I think that my main problem with all this, is that I don't understand ProTools at all. I've tried to sort it out by myself, but I think I may need some background help before I can really come to grips. A lot fo the things we're learning I can do, it's the simple things that I need to have pointed out to me. So this week there is no sound, or pictures, because I wasn't able to complete the exercise. But I hope that the blog has at least shown that I attempted it. I did actually understand a lot of the lecture, it's just putting it into play from scratch is proving difficult.






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*(1) Christian Haines, Creative Computing Lecture, Thursday 10th of May, 2007