Thursday, November 15, 2007

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.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

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.