Tuesday, August 28, 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.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

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!!

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

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.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

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

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

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
This is my 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/.


Sunday, August 12, 2007

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.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

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!!
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/.

Monday, August 6, 2007

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.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

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