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,
.