AA Week 12

Hey sorry about the late Submission of Week 12 AA. I was double checking my Blogs and i realized that i hadnt blog my results for this weeks task. So here it is in video format.

AA Week 12

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I simply set up 2 delay lines for each panned channel and played with them creating false stereo spacialisation. What i did like about the end result was the wide sound produced. Especially with reverb, it really does sound like you are playing the sound in a room, even with headphones on.

Then i changed the volume of panned channel so skew the perception of sound. I did this with both channels.

There is another Mp3 file of the second task i undertook in the Box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture "Spacialisation." 23/10/07. Adelaide University.


pp 159 - 164. Sonnenschein, David. 2001, Sound design : the expressive power of
music, voice, and sound effects in cinema, Michael Wiese Productions, Seattle, Wash.

White, Paul. 1994, 3D Mixing: Giving your mixes more space, SOS Publishing, 2004,
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/nov94/3dmixing.html?print=yes.

White, Paul . Robjohns, Hugh. Bell , Matt. 2002, You are Surrounded: Surround Sound
Explained - Part 7, SOS Publishing, 2006,
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Feb02/articles/surround7.asp?print=yes.

AA1 Major Assignment

Mixing in 5.1 is great. it opens up the world of 3D positioning and this further enhances creative possibility. It is a look into the world of film and game sound design and this i find very interesting.

It was my objective to create a sound scape that would put u into where I was sitting when I recorded the original ‘real’ sound scape and I believe I’ve done that quite successfully. With the exception of one sound, this being the creaking fence, they all quite closely resemble the sound of the original source, be they hyper real or not. I approached this from a highly atmospheric point of view. My sound scape choice is not very busy and doesn’t contain many sounds. So each sound had to be significantly different and most importantly individual.

The first step was analysing the sounds and breaking them down into simple elements that are easy to synthesise, then tweak from there. Wind sounds like a slow AM noise generator. Birds sound like random high frequencies played in short bursts. A door creak and metal creak sound like a high frequency quickly turning on and off. A car sounds like a low hum gradually increasing frequency over time. And finally a plane sounds very similar. The only two sounds I left out from my original analysis were people talking and the music I heard. I left the talking out because the human voice is almost impossible to synthesise and the music because any synthesis I created would actually be music and this wasn’t the objective of the assignment.

In the original recording you heard microphone rumble of the wind and also the recorder running. These sounds I left out because they were sounds created by the limitations of the recording equipment and do not represent any sounds of the environment that I was trying to recreate.

After finally figuring out the temperamental 5.1 system and got it working relatively consistently I set to work with my sounds. With the sound list in one hand and the panner in the other I placed all the sounds in their positions and began tweaking the sounds. For example, using different and sometimes multiple bird call samples, creating an individual sound for each car driving past, volume and distance control, moving automation for the aeroplane and finally adding EQ and effects such as reverb to a few tracks that needed more atmosphere and reality.

Overall I am totally happy with my final result. It fits the criteria and ultimately puts you in the landscape. I am also proud of the fact that I created the majority of these sounds using Plogue synthesis, very little sampling was done to achieve my sound scape.

Listen to my soundscape by navigating the BOX widget.

CC1 Major Assignment

CC performance

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This assignment has opened my eyes to the world of electronic performance. Seeing and listening to people perform electronic pieces in one thing, but actually doing it yourself is another. There are things that are easier than you thought and others that are much harder and even more that you didnt even know existed.

Programs Used: Recorder - Adobe Audition, Sampler - VST VELOCITY through Cakewalk Project 5, Routing/Mixing/ReWire Master – Plogue Bidule, Looper/Sound Modification – Live 6.0.10

My project is an electronic exploration of the sound of an electric guitar. It was my aim, and I believe that I have done this quite successfully, to create a groove from only the sounds of a guitar. This includes drums, bass/riff and chords. This I have done. I created my work by first exploring the sounds of an electric guitar. The initial sound, the kick drum, I sampled from heavily palm muted low tones, and I wanted to try to get the performer to create a timbre that would produce little or no audible frequency, this is very difficult to do, however my final performance produced a result suitable for the task.

I would like to mention at this point that the idea behind my project is that my handed up result will be almost identical to the real time performance, little post production has been done on my final work. And any post production can be reproduced in the performance. In the case of this assignment the only post production I undertook was putting an EQ on the sampled chords and a little gain reduction to reduce some clipping. Nothing apart from this was done as to accurately represent a performance of the piece. The Video that I’ve included in the package is an accurate representation of the true performance. The high quality sample is there to present these results in a higher quality and hence is much shorter than the video.

This kick drum I then transposed down to make the tone even bassier. I originally added a reverb to widen this sound, however, I found that this only made it muddier and would only work on rare occasions due to lucky recordings.

The next step in the performance was to create the snare sound. Once again heavily palm muted strings, this time, however, on the high strings. I then transposed this sound up and added a very wide and open reverb to give it that snare snapping sound and make it more realistic.

The final step in creating a drum groove was the Hi Hat. This took a bit of time to figure out. Eventually I settled on using the scratching of the pick against the woven strings. This I then transposed up an extreme amount, added a slight EQ to make it sound more natural and give it a bit of ‘snap.’

The last easy step was simple adding the riff recorded earlier. Now the groove is complete.

To add my own flavour I put the 4 chords recorded earlier into a sampler and played them on my keyboard. In addition to this I asked the performer to improvise over this.

Both Project 5 and Live’s main outputs have been routed to the rear left and right of my PC. This is where my headphones will be plugged in. The aux busses of these programs have been routed to the front left and right. This is where the house speakers will be plugged in.
My project sets up a ground work to begin with then opens up the piece up to improvisation.

Watch the performance at the top of the page, or listen to it with the BOX widget.

CC1 Week 11

i essentially made some guitar samples, cut out sounds i thought usefull, these sounds were only 3 secs long at the most. Imported them into Live, transposed and "warped" them, added effects to make them more interesting and then recorded it. Very easy and ive come to realise that its just way to easy to do this. In the past you would have had to record this to tape and slice and duplicate, it would've taken days to do wat i did in less than an hour. TOTALLY REDICULOUS!!!

The mp3 is in the BOX widget at the top of the page.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture 18/10/07 "Intergrated Setup." Adelaide University.


Beaulieu, Sebastien; Trussart, Vincent; Viens, David 2007, Bidule v0.92 user manual,
Plogue, viewed 11/1 2007, http://www.plogue.com/.

Ableton 2006, Live Digidesign Edition Owner's Manual, Ableton, viewed 11/1 2007,
http://www.ableton.com/

Forum

Ardino exercises.

Forum

AA1 Week 11

Playing with the FFTs was quite a bit of fun, and i can see how they would be able to create some cool sounds, however i would only use to for this, not for real pitch shifting applications, especially with plogue, its real time nature is fantastic for the "cool sounds" domain, but not for natural pitch modification applications. I am prepared to wait a few seconds for extra processing.

The Bidule aspect of FFTs is much easier to play with, treating each process like a guitar effect chain is much more hands on, easier to navigate and to play with and fine tune. However this still feeds into the immediate (real time) "cool sounds" domain, not a naturalistic precision domain.

My mp3 is me just playing around with the different parameters, each mixer channel has a different parameter and one has all mixed together, you can easily guess which one has them all mixed together. A few "cool sounds" were made, but nothing to interesting.

http://h1.ripway.com/loudman/AA%20week%2011/FFTcraziness.bidule

http://h1.ripway.com/loudman/AA%20week%2011/Spectralthingo.mp3

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture 16/10/07 "FFTs and Plogue." Adelaide University.

CC1 Week 10

Again with ReWiring live with plogue. This time however i actually did use live instead of Project 5. I set up a loop that i created in live. A guitar riff with accompanieing chords.

I mixed both Audio Arts and Creative Computing lectures together. I used ReWire with spectral analysis to create this sound. I may use this in my final performance to create new timbres and to change the key without rerecording the samples again. This is lots of fun and i am totally loving the abilty to control program through Bidule. It makes it so much easier. It is possible that i could use mulitple programs runing through bidule. I could use sample loops in Live, Midi loops in Project 5 and use a sampler instrument in Reason. The Posibilities!!!!!

I was just playing around with the mixer and 1 spectral parameter to create the sounds heard on the mp3.

Here is the mp3
http://h1.ripway.com/loudman/CC1Week10.mp3

References

Haines, Christian. Lecture 10/10/07 "Integrated Setup." Adelaide University.

Beaulieu, Sebastien; Trussart, Vincent; Viens, David 2007, Bidule v0.92 user manual,
Plogue, viewed 11/1 2007, .

Ableton 2006, Live Digidesign Edition Owner's Manual, Ableton, viewed 11/1 2007,
.

AA1 Week 10

I first made a bidule with 5 oscillators in it, and played around with harmonics and other related tones. I played around with the phase offest aswell to create different timbres. Setting up the parameters to play with took the longest. The best thing for this sort of task is to have a MIDI controler for the different parameters, this would be easier and you could explore much more timbres with a physical interface.

From these first 5 oscillators i copied this bidule twice and played with more frequencies and harmonics to create a final hard organ like timbre.

Here is the bidule file
http://h1.ripway.com/loudman/Synthesis.bidule

Here is the mp3
http://h1.ripway.com/loudman/Synthesis.mp3

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture 9/10/07 "Sound Design." Adelaide University.

p124 - 126. "Spectral Modeling Techniques". Miranda, Eduardo. 1998, Computer Sound
Synthesis for the Electronic Musician, Focal Press.

Reid, Gordon 2000, Synth Secrets - Part 14: An Introduction to Additive Synthesis,
Sound on Sound, viewed 11/2 2006,

CC1 Week 9

This patch was slightly more difficult to understand, it took me a good hour and a half to figure out what was going on with the preferences settings. And it took me a lot of tweaking, it wasn't as easy to set up as originally thought. But once again bidule has surprised me and shown how powerful this piece of software really is.

Instead of using Live i used Cakewalk Project 5, which is a similar sequencing, sampling program that uses ReWire. I had problems using Live with ReWire, plogue wouldn't recognise it as a ReWire application.

In Project 5 I used a bunch of VST instruments with my MIDI keyboard and played some little contrapuntal like melodies with a few different instruments ReWired through a bunch of delays and flange to create the final, psychedelic, trippy sounds.

View the bidule and hear my samples with the Box widget in the top right corner of the screen.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture 4/10/07 "Creative Computing." Adelaide University.

Beaulieu, Sebastien; Trussart, Vincent; Viens, David 2007, Bidule v0.92 user manual,
Plogue, viewed 11/1 2007, http://www.plogue.com/.

Ableton 2006, Live Digidesign Edition Owner's Manual, Ableton, viewed 11/1 2007,
http://www.ableton.com/.

AA1 Week 9

I never realized how such a simple concept (used in complex proportions) is used to create all the sounds we hear on synthesisers. This is the bread and butter concepts that I'm very excited about learning. This is certainly something that i will looking into for future projects.

Go to my box widget at the top right of the page to hear the mp3 samples and download the Bidule.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture 2/10/07 "FM Synthesis." Adelaide University.

Truax, Barry. 2006, Tutorial for Frequency Modulation Synthesis, viewed 7/7 2006,
http://www.sfu.ca/~truax/fmtut.html.

Miranda, Eduardo. 1998, '3.2 Frequency Modulation', in Computer Sound Synthesis for
the Electronic Musician, Focal Press.

MTF Instrument

This is a demonstration of my instrument.
NOTE: this was recorded before lables were attached.

CC1 Week 8

Live is fantastic, it really makes "live" production accessible to everybody, navigation and basic interaction design is very easy and intuitive. I wouldn't use it to actually finally produce music (not that it was designed for this), however it will definitely be used in the compositional process. Previewing samples and just playing around with ideas.

For this exercise i used samples that i created about a year ago when i started playing around with break beats. I then cut them up and transposed them into Live and played around. I created variations of the original ideas i had at the beginning. However since i only had 5 samples (that worked with the others), my choices and variations were limited.

Go to the Mybox widget and dl the respective file.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture "Live (2)." 12/9/07 Adelaide University.

"Arrangment View, "Clip View", "Tempo Control and Warping". Ableton 2006, Live
Digidesign Edition Owner's Manual, Ableton, viewed 11/1 2007,
.

AA1 Week 8

Playing with the amplitude input of an oscillator was an interesting study of the physics of sound. Hearing the harmonic relationships between the fluctuating amplitude and the carrier frequency is an interesting exercise. After applying a filter it still didn't create much of a difference in timbre. I haven't been very successfull in creating many interesting sounds. However is has been an interesting exercise in the physics of sound.

The files for this exercise can be found in MyBox Widget at the top right of the page. Go to the respective Folder and Week number.

Here is the Mp3
http://www.box.net/shared/vmlpysyigh

Here is the bidule file
http://www.box.net/shared/zp5tc6rz0f

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture 11/9/07 "AM and RM Synthesis." Adelaide University.

"Chapter 3 - Loose Modeling Techniques". Miranda, Eduardo. 1998, Computer Sound
Synthesis for the Electronic Musician, Focal Press.

Reid, Gordon 2000, Synth Secrets - Part 11: Amplitude Modulation, Sound on Sound,
viewed 11/2 2006,
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar00/articles/synthsecrets.htm.

CC1 Week 7

This weeks task was lots of fun, i found it particularly difficult getting the timing correct, i.e. when to initialize the next loop section, however with time this will become much easier to with practice.

Although not as fun, but much easier, than mixing with decks and mixers, it still represents a way of creating music with the sampling medium.

Here is the recording.
http://www.box.net/shared/3hx8t0q1aj

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture "Live" 6/9/07. Adelaide University.

AA1 Week 7

For this task i used the Roland SH 5. I chose this because it has the most freedom, the mixer being one of the best functions on this analog synth. Although, in my opinion, most of the sounds created little resembled anything that might be found in real life, there is certainly many timbrel options to synthesise sounds natural and unnatural. I could see 60s and 70s sci-fi and horror movies flashing by while playing the instrument.

Ive posted a 1 minute mp3 of the best samples among the original 9 minutes recorded. In this mp3 you can hear wind (noise generator) planes, ambulances, alien spaceships (this one is defiantly more creative, but i think that it is reminiscent of classic sci fi movies).

Very fun task, and look forward to playing around with the analogue synths in the future.

Here is the mp3 of the samples
http://h1.ripway.com/loudman/GatheredSamples.mp3

References:

Haines, Chrisitan. Lecture "Basic Synthesis" 4/9/07. Adelaide University.


White, Paul. 1994, Sound Foundation - A Synthesis Primer Part 1,
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/feb94/soundsynthesis.html

White, Paul. 1994, Sound Foundation - A Synthesis Primer Part 2,
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/mar94/analoguesynthesis.html

CC1 Week 6

For this task i added a few effects to the original MIDI instruments. I used the MIDI effects and a bus to Plogue to make the original recording sound much more natural.

The first effect i added was to the drums, i used a delay. This effect was actually a fluke, it made the drum beat much more dense and interesting.
I played around with the effects on the guitar (Saw wave), but it really didn't do much at all. So I bussed the MIDI signal to Plogue and added a reverb and an EQ to the sound and it created a much more natural, resonant sound.

Here is a photo of the Plogue effects chain.

Here is the original file.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/BackInBlacKORIG.mp3
Here is the naturalised file.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Backinblacknatural.mp3

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture 30/8/07 Adelaide University.

"MIDI realtime parameters and effects", "Rewire", "Audio Effects". Carlson, L. et al. 2003.
"Cubase SX/ SL: Music Creation and Production System - Operation Manual". Steinberg
Media Technologies GmbH, Germany.

AA Week 6

For this task i have chosen to look at DVD menus as an example of interaction design. They are have now become a very important artistic and fictional part of the movie/DVD experience. In early times of Digital Video Disk productions they were merely used as a quick way to get to certain parts of the movie, and the most obvious, higher video and audio quality.

What defines a good DVD menu is whether or not is follows the accepted menu structures, and whether these structures are appealing to the eye, easy to follow to follow and present something different from every other DVD available.

These different things may be "Easter eggs" or offering whole new sections not seen before. The example I'm using is from "The Girl Next Door" DVD.

It has a fairly simple structure, easy to see the words, simple sections and easy up down selection. The indicator is a simple red dot that is easy to see yet unobtrusive on the background image which captures a great scene in the movie.

The music is unobtrusive. Although when selecting a section no sound is played (very difficult in DVD authoring), the button flashes and indicates the DVD is loading the new section. Ultimately this is a very successful DVD menu, however very unoriginal.

The form of the DVD is everything except the indicator and the sections text. Everything else is aesthetic and is unnecessary.

The function of the Menu is in the indicator and the selector. There are very few mixed, or none in face, form/function mixtures in DVD menus. Most of DVD menus are atheistic.

Here is the sound map. ( I was unsure as to what to do for the DVD Menu sounds, as many sounds are not present, so i did a diagram of a general DVD and indicated when sounds are present and the functionality of the DVD sections)
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/e/SoundMap.jpg

Materials:
http://www.tappin.me.uk/Linux/dvd.html

References:
Haines, Christian. Lecture "Interaction Design." 28/8/07

"Chapter 1 - What Is Interaction Design?". Saffer, Dan. 2006, Designing for Interaction:
Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices, Peachpit Press.

Lord, Max. 2004, Why Is That Thing Beeping? A Sound Design Primer,
.

Tannen, Rob. 2006, Acoustics and Product Design: An Introduction, 2007,
.

CC1 Week 5

Normalisation, something so simple yet very affective. To test how affective it was i used a saw wave not a GM distorted guitar to simulate the guitar. Although still very "MIDI," it does now resemble something similar to a guitar, and if it were integrated in a heavy mix, it could work.

I downloaded a horrible version of Back in Black by ACDC. What Ive done to the original MIDI is add strumming simulation to the block chords that were originally there, i.e. delay notes and decrease velocity over the chord. With the delay i have included simulated up and down strokes on the guitar.

To the drums i have added a fill to create a bit of diversity, but as the song has a fairly set drum beat, i didn't want to fiddle with this much more.

The bass already sounded fairly normal, any effect wouldn't have made any difference to the sound and there was no slides in the song, so pitch bends were not needed. The only thing that i could have done for both the guitar and bass is include a screeching sound simulating fingers sliding up and down the neck, however i couldn't find a sound similar to this in Cubase.

Here is the Original mp3
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/BackInBlacKORIG.mp3
Here is the Normalised mp3
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/BackInBlack.mp3
Here are the Before and After Photos of Cubase.
Before
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Picture2.png
After
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Picture1.png

References

Haines, Christian. Lecture 23/8/07 "MIDI Naturalisation." Adelaide University.

www.computermusic.co.uk Normalisation Tutorials.

AA1 Week 5

I'm still very confused by this week's task, however i have attempted to do a sound analysis of Amon Tobin's song Foley Room.

Amon Tobin is a Brazilian DnB artist however for his latest album, Foley Room, he sampled naturally occurring sounds found in his neighbourhood and at home to create his album, in particular the song "Foley Room."

More about Amon Tobin can be found at these addresses
http://www.amontobin.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_tobin%22%3Ehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_tobin

This piece defiantly remains in the Time Domain, in Hess's terms. It is highly rhythmic and is in context is a song on an album. It is not strictly Sound Art however contains so many elements that would classify it loosely as sound art. Its meaning i am unsure about, it wouldn't surprise me if Tobin was just trying to be clever by using commonly found samples to create a complex rhythmic song to impress its listeners, which it has done so brilliantly.

I must admit, i am completely a loss as to what to do with the sound map, and of what to do with the analysis. I hav read the readings, but reading is another thing from understanding what to extract from them. Somebody please explain this task to me!!

Forum

This is a bulk of all the recordings and assignments that Ive completed at home during the last month for forum. The first task for the semester, the Victorian Synth, i found a bit childish. If it weren't for the breadboarding then i would defiantly be unenthusiastic about forum.

Weeks 1&2

Following on from that with the Peizo, this was a little more interesting, a small hardy microphone has a great potential for creativity, Terminator 2 as an example of this. Upon being given the kits my eyes widened with the possibility of future tasks. This is when Forum became interesting.

This is the Peizo recording that i have done at home.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/computerrecording.mp3

It is simply placing the Peizo against my computer casing. Although easy to be heard just by putting your ear against your PC, but still a sound that could be useful. The clicks of the hard drive could be used.

Week 3

The oscillator tasks were the best, this is defiantly where my instrument is heading. Here are my recordings.
This first one is with just 1 oscillator.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Oneosscilatorwithpot.mp3

This second one is with two oscillators.
I didn't have a lot of success with this one, however there is a slight change in out put, you can slightly hear a second oscillator changing intonation.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/2oscillatorspotandlight.mp3

This next task was great, including a mixer with an oscillator to create a tone and intermittent signal from the output source, in this case it was from the gun given to us in forum class. This task will most defiantly be included in my final instrument.

Here is a sample of what i have done with this task.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Oscillatorwithmixer.mp3

Weeks 4&5

Circuit bending wasn't as much fun as i originally thought. I found it quite frustrating at times, the "finicky" work and the inconsistency is not only the most surprising, but also the most frustrating. What i have done for homework was buy a tamogotchi and try to find a loop or sound to bend, however after playing around for a couple of minutes with no results, it finally just stopped working. Frustrating!!! So i just used the mobile phone given to us in class and found the pitch bending connection and soldered a pot in between this points. Unfortunately the circuit stopped working soon after, with no good luck trying to repair this.

Here is a diagram of what i have connected to achieve a pitch bend.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/MobileCircuit.pdf

CC1 Week 4

This is a photo of the sequence.


This is the issue that i had with exporting audio.

I have had a few problems with this exercese. All is fine until i want to export the mp3 mixdown. There is an unknown error with the mixdown. I have used the VST instruments and am getting sound out of Cubase, i am also able to export as a .mid file, but the audio processing doesnt work, and i have tried this on a few different computers. If i were doing this at home, exporting the mp3 would have been easier as i can simply record any sound coming from the computer with the creative's sound recorder. I personally dont like Cubase, however im sure with more exposure to the program, i may grow to like it better. I find that it is not as intuitive as some other programs. I can see that it has potential to do a lot of things, however without actually seeing this i am not overly inspired at the moment. Overall......FRUSTRATING!!!

Here is the cubase file
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Unforgiven.cpr

Here is the original .mid file
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Unforgiven.mid

References

Haines, Christian. Lecture 16/08/07. Adelaide University.

AA1 Week 4

The Pennzoil ad is full of Folley, every sound has been super-imposed over the video. The background noise sets the context of the ad, this being a suburban neighbourhood on the weekend (the mover sound really sets this mood). My favourite sound is the engine throwing up. This sound has been created by mixing liquid spurting through pipes and a human throwing up sound combined with a splashing sound. The other interesting sound was the engine walking and crashing and the ground. It is a mixture of heavy things crashing on the concrete and mechanical 'clunks.' The music and the voice over at the end are fairly standard, but on the auditory whole, this ad contains many interesting textures.

The Pepsi ad is fairly standard, however it uses old footage and sound to compliment their joke. The old music is in the background, giving the ad a 'movie' feel. There are a few bits of Folley, such as the horses feet, moving and shouting crowd and the rustling bag. Anything else has most likely been recorded. This ad would have been fairly simple to put together because half of the running time is simply from the original movie. Fairly simple, however most of the information is contained in the speech.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture 14/8/07 "Sound Design" Adelaide University.

pp10-11.Alkin, Glyn. 1994, Sound Techniques for Video and TV, Second edn, University
Press, Cambridge.

"Chapter 8 - Television, Video Art, Music Video". Chion, Michel, Murch, Walter &
Gorbman, Claudia. 1994, [Audio-vision. English] Audio-vision : sound on screen,
Columbia University Press, New York.

Here's the Pdf file with he sound log and sound maps.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/SoundMapsandSoundLogWeek4.pdf

CC1 Week 3

These tutorials were much, much harder than the first. With the first tute i could slightly understand some of the concepts that were presented and follow with a little intuition, however with these tutes i could only follow blindly. My instrument does not present many individual ideas simply because i do not fully understand what i am doing with the patching and the different bidules associated. Each bidule's concepts and functionality need to be explained to me as to understand what it is i am doing to shape the sound. I understand on a simple level, but once complicated i get totally thrown and dont understand what is going on.

This is my instrument

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/CrazySynthTute3finalsubtractivesynth.bidule

This is my mp3

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Instrument2.mp3

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture "Desktop Music Environment" 9/8/07. Adelaide University.

Bidule Tutorial 2 : Improving the synthesizer, 2006, 10/7/2006,
http://relivethefuture.com/choronzon/bidule-tutorial-2-improving-the-synthesizer/.

Bidule Tutorial 3 : Filter Modifications, 2006, 10/7/2006,
http://relivethefuture.com/choronzon/bidule-tutorial-3-filter-modifications/.

Beaulieu, Sebastien; Trussart, Vincent; Viens, David 2007, Bidule v0.92 user manual,
Plogue, viewed 11/1 2007, http://www.plogue.com/.

AA1 Week 3

This task has ruined Movies for me!!!!

I have chosen the second scene from the movie Dawn of the Dead (2003).
This takes place between 4:19 and 8:19



The video goes for longer than i have analysed, but begins at the same time.

The scene begins with a couple sleeping in bed presumably just before waking up to go to work. The atmosphere is tense, the music playing is suspended and dissonant, however quiet waiting for something to happen. The picture moves to a clock where the numbers flip over, the time changes and the sound of the flipping number is exaggerated (hyper real) and the music is used to exaggerate this, a large drum is hit at the same time. When the camera changes a smash or something in the music is used to highlight this. All together building the suspense.

When their daughter shows that her face has been deformed the music become much more intense. When the father approaches her, she makes an unnatural scream (probably sampled from animals). She then rips into her fathers throat with again sampled ripping and blood spurting noises. When he falls to the floor the noise is exaggerated, most probably Foley. Another example of Foley in this scene would definitely be the daughter banging on the closed door.

When the woman makes it outside her house, there are sounds of ambulances (although not seen until later), in addition to this are sounds of helicopters and forms of Walla (screams instead).

There are numerous examples of Foley used to exaggerate the sounds, keys chinking, footsteps, crashes and smashing.

A very valuable study of film and is a fantastic learning tool. Learn from the best.

References:
Christian Haines 'Audio Arts 1.2' Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 06/08/2007

Knowles Marshall, Jane . 1988, An Introduction to Film Sound 2006,
http://www.filmsound.org/marshall/index.htm. (Online)

pp xv - 12. Sonnenschein, David. 2001, Sound design : the expressive power of music,
voice, and sound effects in cinema, Michael Wiese Productions, Seattle, Wash.

CC1 Week 2

Plogue's Bidule has astounded me once again, this program is absolutely amazing. Not only is it an effects processor, but also a modular synth. YOU CAN CREATE A DIGITAL VERSION OF THE MOOG!!!! This modular process has been seen a few a programs before bidule, however these were very restrained, and usually to just effects. This freedom is great. Building the synth give you and insight into how other synthesiers work and their processes. My instrument was very simmilar to the original poly synth that we created, however i added extra oscillators to the phase offset input and additional envelopes. In addition to this i added an elaorate delay process. this delay creates fantastic atmospheric results, however is hard to control. In my mp3 i have played the instrument on its own first, and played with the parameters (especially the phase), then i added the delays.

Enjoy!!

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Instrument.mp3

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/DelayCrazyCAREFULL.bidule

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture, Desktop Music Environment, 2/8/07.

Bidule Tutorial 1 : A Simple Synthesizer, 2006, 10/7/2006,
http://relivethefuture.com/choronzon/bidule-tutorial-1-a-simple-synthesizer/.

Beaulieu, Sebastien; Trussart, Vincent; Viens, David 2007, Bidule v0.92 user manual,
Plogue, viewed 11/1 2007, http://www.plogue.com/.

AA1 Week 2

Here is a PDF of my Picture, the descrition is in the PDF.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Atmosphere.pdf

Here is the Audio File.
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Atmosphere.mp3

References:

Haines, Chrisitan. Lecture, Week 2 31/7/07 , "Sound Design."

A range of sound event maps from - Schafer, R. Murray 1977, The tuning of the world,
1st edn, Knopf, New York.

Forum Week1

The Victorian synth i found rather childish and simple, i can see how basic thoerys of sound can be discovered, and is a beginning to creating electronic instruments, but still, i found it uninspiring. I have created an mp3 file of some of my sounds.

My ideas for my electronic instrument are still in their early stages, but i am thinking of using a calculator, or somthing with buttons to activate souds and timbres. But still in their early stages.

My favourite sound is the high pitched screeching this is a fantastic demonstration of frequency and how speakers create sounds.

Here is the mp3 file
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Audio1_01.mp3

Once again, like my CC blog, my photos have corrupted, i will update this ASAP

CC1 Week 1

Plogue's Bidule is a great inteface for using effects and audio processing. Although the effects and processing are nothing special, and can be found in many audio programs, its the visual modular representation that makes the sequence of audio process that makes it so easy to use and understand. In addition to this, the open ended progaming format that allows you to break the rules and simply, 'do what you want.' What surprised me was its recognition of Cakewalk Project 5's Rewire devices. I was able to use Project 5 and the audio output from the program was redirected through Bidule.

The sound i created is a distorted organ, with many stereo delays. It creates a great atmosphere of sound, however is very hard to control, the distortion can be difficult to get a hold of, and any slightly dissonant harmonies clash.

Here is the mp3 file
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/WickedOrgan_0002.mp3

Here is the Bidule file
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/HardOrgan.bidule

MY image file of the bidule setup has been corrupted and i will update this ASAP.

AA1 Week 1

Sound design has much more classification than originally thought. The piece that i have chosen is non-diegetic, and would be classified as mood music. This music comes from the game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and is composed by Harry Gregson Williams, who i believe has mastered the ability to marry film and game music to create a fantastic gaming environment. The title of the piece is 'Escape through the Woods' and is played while moving through the forest, as the name suggests. It contains elements of purely musical elements and non musical non-diegtic elements to create the atmosphere of the woods, the high flute trills and runs are more so there to represent the native instruments of primitive people who might live in the forests. There are also other miscellaneous sounds to represent this too. In addition to this the initial rhythm is very relaxing and unobtrusive, much like movie music. Later on the music increases tempo, this was composed so the music programmer could join the creeping music to the alarmed music seamlessly.

Also the use of the electric guitar riff, which in isolation seems out of place, reminds us of the time period, this being the late 60s.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/29_EscapethroughtheWoods.mp3

References:

Diegetic Sound; Non-Diegetic Sound, 2006,
http://www.filmsound.org/terminology/diegetic.htm#diegetic.

Thom, Randy. 1999, Designing A Movie For Sound, 2006,
http://www.filmsound.org/articles/designing_for_sound.htm.


Sound Design, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_design.

CC Major Assignment 'Music Concrete for the Common Man'

I made lost of changes from my initial compositional plan to the final result. Initially i was only going to use the vocal samples that we created over the previous weeks, however i only used the paper sounds because i believe that offered better rhythmic sounds.

I am very proud of my concept. Relating Music Concrete to pop/rock. It is something that hasn't been done before and yet still keeps within the bounds of Music Concrete.

Another plan change was the use of instruments. Initially i was going to use very short samples to create an instrument and a melody, however after playing with this for a while i realized that it didn't represent Music Concrete and wasn't staying true to the proper form.

I made my score applicable to anybody that wishes to make a Music Concrete piece in the form of a pop song. Its not the sounds that are important to the concept, its the form and the idea that it is based on repeating riffs and another continually changing sound to counteract this which represents vocals.

Overall lost of fun to play with, and i learnt a lot about the nature of Music Concrete just by playing around with the sounds.

Here is the Mixdown
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/MusicConcrete.mp3

Here is the analysis document
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Analysis.doc

Pre production
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/PreProductionComp.doc

Program note
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/ProgramNote.doc

Score
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/MusicConcretefortheCommonManScore.pdf

AA Major Assignment 'Way to Fall' by Star Sailor

The whole recording and production process was very enjoyable. Luckily for me my song didn't require many effects and therefore many laborious hours weren't spent perfecting a delay for example. The one thing that i wish i had experienced was recording a whole band at the same time, rather than piece mealing each part when i could find the time. I'm still undecided which part of the whole process that i enjoyed the most. The recording process is definitely lots of fun, but can be very frustrating when something isn't right, for example the vocals have a natural compressed sound and the snare doesn't sound as good as it should. Although i had these problems, they didn't affect the final sound. I found it amazing that you don't need a perfect recording to get a perfect result. For example, when Amy was singing, she was very tired and there were a few timing and emphasis issues. To get over these i simply moved the word to get into time, and/or i replaced the word with the same one of another take or even from earlier on in the song.

I also found out about the regular occurrence of flukes while recording. When recording the Piano tracks there was a mistake, a very low cluster of notes was hit on accident. However when listening to it, it came at the perfect place and works great with the vocals. It also adds a personal touch to the song. Another fluke was with the overdrive guitar, it didnt require any additional production.

Overall lots of fun and have learnt many valuable lessons for when i do another recording of this sort.

Here is the Mixdown Mp3 http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/WayToFallDougFinal.mp3

Here is the PreProduction Document
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/PreProduction.doc

Here is the Recording Document
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Recording.doc

Here is the Production Document
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Production.doc

CC1 Week 12

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/PreProductionComp.doc

AA1 Week 12

Mixing again. this time was a little more enjoyable because u could be more creative with the sounds. I haven't overdone the effects because the song doesn't allow for it, the song has a more natural feel.

The vocals really needed compression, there were times where it got out of control, for example when he said 'in bed.' The bass guitar also needed compression. With the vocal track i made a stereo auxiliary with all three vocal tracks and just compressed that track.

This is a photo of the stereo auxiliary setup.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Picture147.png
Note, the compression on one of the vocal tracks i bypassed when i bounced the file.

This file only contains compression
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/comp.mp3

The only effects i have added is reverb to the vocals and the piano, i was considering putting this effect on the acoustic guitars, but the reverberant nature of the instrument was enough. Once again i did this reverb using the stereo auxiliary.

This file is compression and reverb.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Revcomp.mp3

The final step was mastering the tracks, i added the bombfactory plugin on the master track and played around with the input output setting till i was satisfied with the result.

This file is Mastered, compressed and reverbed.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/CompRevMas.mp3

Here is the protools session file if you have the audio files at home.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/EJNewYork_Doug.ptf

Forum Week 11

Construction and deconstruction of music.

This week presented a few more interesting points to consider.

Nathan's talk on Black Metal gave us an insight into the lengths of how musical culture will reject technology, or emulate this, to create a certain sound. The LP played to us represented a poor quality recorded on poor quality. It is interesting to see that poor quality can now be seen as an effect. Even in popular music you can see this with the very popular effect of emulating the "radio" sound by dropping out low end frequencies in the EQ.

The Ambient music of Aphex Twin shows us that music doesn't need to be complicated to be interesting. It is also a demonstration of how timbre can present as much importance as harmonic qualities in music.

Simon's presentation on "jacking" music showed how dance and pop music is created through borrowed ideas and layering these ideas. He gave the impression that he is opposed to this idea, but i believe that when done well this represents a very similar skill to actually composing these ideas in the first place. Is it not true that when these composers wrote their pieces they too borrowed ideas from others. Maybe even copied. But in the case of "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk, i totally agree with Simon. That is laziness! I also agree with Simon when he says that the originals are much more engaging. In the case of dance, the originals have much more harmonic and, in many cases, rhythmic interest. But it must be agreed that the constant repetition of certain riffs can induce other sounds to be heard. i.e. hearing the musical idea differently. Very similar to Phillip Glass.

Overall interesting and intriging arugment presented, more interesting than last week i believe.

CC1 Week 11

Meta Synth again, fun fun as always. I must admit that although this program is fantastic, the GUI is a little frustrating at times, the icons can be a little hard to find and the simple ability to drag and drop not only from the finder but also within the program can be frustrating and time consuming at times.

Playing with the 4 other rooms opened up a few extra possibilities for sampling, although many of these effects, i found, could be found in the earlier rooms we investigated. Only these rooms offer much more precision. Just playing around with the samples trying to create interesting sounds can be a little annoying, but if you were going in there with a particular sound in mind you wanted to create then it would be much more engaging.

I made 4 samples, put them in the sequencer and made another sample from my instrument.

The first sample I used the vocal sample from the previous weeks and filtered the sound with the image filter, i created a sound that had random mono frequencies.

The Next sample i used the spectrum synth and analysed the audio at a low quality to create a slow "digital" sound. I then analysed this analysis to create another sample which was an extended version of this "digital" sound.

1st step2nd step

The final sample used was created with the sampler. I put all these new sounds into the sampler and created a rhythmic sample.

The final step was to put all this into the montage room and create a sequence.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Finalmontage.mp3

References:

Haines, C. Lecture 24/5/07 (Meta Synth (2))

Meta Synth Pro Tutorial

AA1 Week 11

This week's task was much harder than i first thought. I was initially excited about hearing a commercial song broken down.

I had, and the mixdown still does, many problems. There were so many things to think about, such as the overall volume, how loud the song should be during certain sections. The problem of each section getting louder and louder i have many issues with.

What i am proud of is my drum kit EQ, i believe that i obtained a good sound for the song. What i did find difficult was getting the right sound for the toms because it was recorded with only 2 overheads, i couldn't control the individual sound of the toms without affecting the sound of the hats and cymbals, which was quite annoying. Because the kick comes through the overheads as well it was quite bassy as well. But aside from this i think i came to a happy medium.

Also Kavyen Temperley's voice can get out of control sometimes, especially when he says the word 'about.' I had to quickly lower his volume when he says that word. His voice needs compression, and additional reverb, the room reverb is horrible and sometimes stands out quite substantially.

Mixdowns are hard, i admit i haven't played with the panning much, just a little with a few vocal tracks, but the recording seemed to have sufficient panning on it.

Also, when i mixed it on the speakers to a sound that i thought was good, when i put my headphones on, it was way too muddy, i could barely pick out sounds.

Overall, an eye opener to how hard mixing is!!!!

Mixdown Mono
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/EJNewYorkDougmono.mp3

Mixdown Stereo
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/EJNewYorkDougstereo.mp3

Mixdown Stereo EQ
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/EJNewYorkDougEQStereo.mp3

In case you have the audio files on your computer, here is the Protools Session.
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/EJNewYorkDoug.ptf

This is an overall image of the Session
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Picture1.png

This is an Image of the Vocal section where his voice goes out of "control." What i have done is essentially a manual compression.
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Picture327.png

This is an Image of the EQ on the Overheads.
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Picture4.png

References:
Fieldhouse, Steve. Mixing (1) lecture 22nd May 2007

"The Art of Mixing," chapter 11 AA1 Readings.

Protools LE 7.3.1

Sorry about the hyperlinks, they don't seem to be working in the mac lab, blogger doesn't want to give me them.

CC1 Week 10

Meta Synth, WHAT A PROGRAM!!!!! it does everything, and it seemed to take up less processing power than i thought. Heaps of fun, unlimited potential.

I tried to approach this weeks exercise musically, some of the sounds that i have created are quite musical, however there are some that aren't and just sound 'cool.'

This first sound i created with the Image Synth and made an ambient digital music sound. I played with a bass line and chords and rhythms. http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/NewSoundmusic.mp3

This next sample i again tried to achieve a musical sound. I played around with the pitch 'Harmonics' window and ring moduation to come up with this sound. This came from the vocal sample used before.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/RingModuatorflange.mp3

This sample i created using the vocal sample again with the ring modulator. What i did was pitch shift up and down, almost creating a car reving sound, or a siren sound.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/flangeinertia.aiff

The next sample was done with the Image Synth, the photo explains my idea. Mainly a crossover of high to low frequencies, to create a sweeping effect. I then added a colour (stereo) filter to this and played around with the pitch in the harmonics section.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/newsound2crossoverhamo.mp3

This final sample i did was using the vocal sample, i then randomised the parameters in the harmonics section (as seen in the photo) and i added a flange. This is the effect created.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Sexharmonisedandtimepitch.mp3

Overall this program is incredible and i can defiantly see myself using this in the future, i can certainly see myself using the Image Synth aspect of it and all the pitch shifting capabilities.

References:

Haines, C. Lecture 17th May 2007.

Meta Synth Pro

AA1 Week 10

Drum Recording, both the best and most fun, and the most frustrating and time consuming.

We recorded about 4 samples, and choose the best 2.

We miced up the whole drum kit, We used the 421s on the floor tom and mid tom, the Shure Beta 52A on the kick, the 2 Rhode NT5s for the overheads, the 2 Neuman U87s for the room mics in the stereo configuration shown in class, the Shure SM 57 for the snare, the Neuman KM 84i for the hi-hat and the Shure 56A on the high tom.

The first of these recordings is of a full set up.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/bouncerec2mp3.mp3

The second is of a minimal set up; kick, snare and 2 overheads.
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/bouncerec2minimalmp3.mp3

Please Forgive my Horrible Drumming!!

Heres a photo of our setup
http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/d/DSC00127.JPG

Forum Week 10

Freddy's talk on the conceived structures of a popular song made me think about whether or not human emotion (as a whole), in relation to music, work to a formula. Are we like machines to an extent. Is music a mechanical mechanism, i believe that in some ways it is, forms and structure, but it is the human element that makes it so appealing. I relate this back to one of the first Forum Classes talking about computer designed music. Because computers don't have emotion, only parameters of emotion which isn't entirely random like a human (somebody will argue this I'm sure) ((and i say this in loose terms)) the appeal to the music just isn't there.

Talking about the construction of dance music put into all styles of music into perspective, talking about climax and subsequent anti-climax. This is a fundamental of indeed most contemporary styles of music throughout all time. It is this that we look for in songs and what makes song interesting to listen to.

Watching the advertisement was interesting, in a sense, to see the construction and deconstruction. However it was actually seeing what we had learnt and the application of this in the real world and see results such as being show on television. Watching this makes studying what we are worthwhile in a "real world" sense.

Good to hear about a new topic!!!

Forum Week 9

This week's talk on the teapot studies and the notion of resonating frequencies was very interesting to me. The idea of making things move with your brain is almost futuristic. The first thing that popped into my head was the idea of making music without touching an instrument, hearing something in your head and it being played back to you without lifting a finger. The studies done really shows theories in action. To me it puts everything into perspective, that we are working with a physical medium, sound, to evoke a meta-physical result, emotion.

I will endeavour in the future to really listen to sound on its own, not in the midst of other distractions.

CC1 Week 9

This week i found quite difficult, bussing the gate system was difficult to achieve, but after looking at your example i managed to get it to work, however i still have problems with this and i will ask you about this the next time i see you. This weeks final product im not as happy with, i saw this as more of a study rather than a atmospheric piece of "music."

You'll notive that i slightly faded in the drum beat that i used in the gating system. I did this because i thought that it sounded interested. You can still hear the un faded version early on in the study.

i didnt have as much luck as you had with the reverse delay effect. Even after time stretching and manipulation i believe that my sample wasn't as good as it could have been. This is an example of how much work is in the art of sampling and that very rarely you stumble upon sounds by chance.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/CCweek9final.mp3

Finally its uploaded!!!

AA1 Week 9

Before going into this class i have never liked any other type of bass recording other than DI, because i believe that you get a better, more dynamic bass sound, a "bassier" and fuller sound. Although for my AA assignment this semester i will not record the bass through the amp, i will however not be as closed off to the idea of bass micing (correct spelling??).

The first recording we did was with a Yamaha MZ204 aimed at the centre of the speaker cone and going through the Avalon. Of the microphones, i believe that this one produced the best sound because it was the most dynamic and crisp. I know that some people like the bass "grungy" sounds, but personally i like crisp sounds with the most frequency response range.

The next recording was with the AKG. In my opinion this was the worst because it sounded very "boomy" and unclear, mostly just noise.

The following recording was with the Shure 56 Beta going to the Avalon. This made a very raw sound, most suitable to a rough rock song or a heavy "grungy" song.

This next file is of a compressed AKG panned to the right and the DI panned to the left. It created a stereo bass sound, I'm not too sure in what context i would use it, but the sound created in interesting.

The final recording is of a DI, my favourite as i explained before.

Overall i will mostly use the DI, but may record with a Yamaha mz204 and mix the sounds together.

I apologise about the missing sound files, i am currently having problems with uploading the files. I am working on the problem, and if i cannot resolve this issue, i will create an audio CD bring it on Tuesday.

Forum Week 8

Gender in music tech the hot topic that nobody wishes to present didn’t present too many new ideas this week.

Bradley's presentation on the topic of differences between the 'old days' views of men and women's positions and social commentaries put the modern view in perspective. But apart from the fact of these old views, it still concluded Amy’s answer to the question. "It doesn’t matter what gender you are, only how skilful you are."

Laura's presentation offered an insight into the differences in men and women's lyrical styles. She concluded that men's lyrics, in general and extreme terms, are much more aggressive than women's lyrics. Obviously there are many exceptions to this, but I believe her general statements.

Ben's talk on 'Queen' told us about the life of Queen and their front man Freddy Mercury. He made a point of Freddy Mercury's homosexuality in reference to gender and sexuality in music. His talk was an interesting insight into 'Queen.'

Finally Ed's talk, this talk was the most interesting for me this week. Although his arguments/stories were juxtaposed, I still understood his direction. The insight into other cultures, old and new. I found the Hindu professions and witch burning most interesting.

CC1 Week 8

I must admit that i didn't learn much more this week, just about the existence of the two programs "Sound Hack" and "FScape." I was frustrated that FScape didn't work, because i believe that my sound scape would have benefited from the frequency separation. I was very excited about the prospect of actually creating a real instrument, not just a sample activator, but didn't achieve this because of FScape.

I lengthened all my samples by various amounts, to a degree that i believed a useful sound was created. My favourite being one that i stretched to about 500%. This sound you can hear when a very low note is produced, however it is used throughout to give the sound scape a feeling of movement, not just one sound after the other.

This time i had no problems using the Keyboard because i knew what i was doing with the audio midi setup and Reason's setup. All smooth sailing this time and i cant wait till i use the sampler with the keyboard again.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/z/Soundscape3samplerSoundHack.mp3

AA1 Week 8

Electric Guitar recording was the lesson for me. Playing guitar is what gave me an interest in music, so learning about recording it was most enjoyable.

In these recordings we used the Shure SM57, Neumann U 89 and the Sennheiser 481.

The first example is of a Neumann U 89 on a slight angle to the amp, towards the edge of the speaker cone. The sound that was produced was very thick and "bassy", not very useful for my applications.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/z/NeumannU89distoffaxis.mp3

The second example is of a Shure SM57 facing directly at the centre of the speaker cone. This sound was very dynamic, however sometimes a little thin or "trebbely." But dispute this slight flaw, it produced one of the best sounds.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/z/SM57Dist.mp3

This next example was an experiment with stereo. We combined the two previous sounds and panned one hard left and the other hard right. This sound is very dynamic and produced the second best sound during the exercise.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/z/SM57LU89R.mp3

This is the same set up as the previous stereo experiment, except this time we recorded a clean guitar sample.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/z/SM57LU89Rclean.mp3

The final example was produced using a Sennheiser 481 facing directly at the speaker cone. This produced the best sound in my opinion because it was so dynamic. Because of this dynamic quality, we recorded a clean example. It seemed to have the best frequency response to the guitar's tone.

http://www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/z/Sennheiser481clean.mp3

Overall lots of fun and personally (guitar being the main instrument i play) interesting.

Please check out my AA Back Up blog.

Sorry, having issues with uploading photos. Will do this at a later date.