AA Sem 2 Project

This by far has been the best project in Audio Arts to date, well at least for me it has. Although towards the end i was a bit over the Asset creation and tired of constantly coming up with new ideas, the process is still interesting. Actually playing the game with your sounds is the best part of the whole project. Testing to see if it is actually 'believable' for the game, trying to make them better than the original sounds. My favourite sound was one of the easiest ones to make. This was the weapon change sound. It was a recording of stuffing things into a bag and it sounded just like many other FPS weapon swap sounds, and i think it was better than the original 'swoosh' sound. This is certainly a field I'll think about experimenting with in the future.

Check out the documentation in the Box Widget.

CC Sem 2 Project

This project was fun to begin with, making your own synth is very interesting, but the interest was lost towards the middle where i had already make my fundamental patches and the rest of the work was just fixing bugs, making the GUI and connecting everything together. I am not entirely satisfied with my final product. I would rethink the GUI and perhaps add other form of synthesis to the patch. This all said it was a worthwhile experience and now i have first hand experience with the inner workings of synthesis.

Check out the patch and the documentation in the box widget.

Forum Week 12

In response to Dave's question of relevance in tech subjects, i have to disagree with him. Although i don't have much interest in many of the forms of electronic music that i have been exposed to in the course, it is my ability to say that i understand, at least fundamentally, the particular style(s) of music/sound art and have decided that it's not for me. But their place in history and the influence they have on today's electronic art world is undeniable and to not be at least made aware of it would be an incomplete education of the subject. But more specifically the question of composing these styles of music. For me i didn't really find the tasks very engaging, however, as Stephen said, it is in doing that you learn the most, and i certainly did. I totally agree that without doing your education is incomplete. And although integrating these techniques into something that you would enjoy and more likely do in the future of your music career is a good idea. It doesn't give you the pure fundamentals of the art. To compose a late romantic piano concerto, you need to know how to write a classical piano sonata.

It may seem that I'm brown nosing, as Sanad has mentioned to me many a time, I truly do believe this. And although a lot of this avant-garde art is too incomprehensible for my closed mind, the fact that I've been exposed to and had it explained and still walked out less than inspired by it. I can at least not make ignorant, at least i like to think so, judgement of it.

CC2 Week 10 (11)

Delay is great. This is certainly something I'm going to use in my patch. Delay effects are the ones that i use most of the time in my own compositions. Now i have complete control over this.

Ive decided to create my favourite delay effect, ping pong delay. Its loosely based on the idea presented in the tutorial, however Ive added a few controls that i would use, i.e BPM controller and i limited the feedback and delay time controllers from one for each channel to just the same for each, i simply don't need this much control and it makes things too confusing and difficult for future use.

Check it Out in the box widget

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Delay Lines." Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation.

Forum Week 11

The idea of technology taking over the world has been a great influence for many artists. The film industry has offered a great deal of material on the subject, films like the Terminator series, I Robot, The Matrix and has been a very popular topic in the anime field with films like Vexille and Ghost in the Shell. As technology is taking over more and more aspects of our lives and that these technologies are becoming more intuitive it make you wonder if they're intuitiveness becomes an Artificial Intelligence and they start ignoring our requests. When a machine can build a better version of itself is that too far? Do we need to keep them out of the loop? In all these films mentioned above it seems to be that when a machine can do this it ends or enslaves the human race, is there some truth behind this? Would a machine realise that we humans are the creator of our problems and try to fix us? I'm still very unsure, humans need to be kept in the loop, i don't know the power of AI and if it was close to simulating human consciousness it would be slightly worrying.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 11

Game Music is something that really interests me. It's such a new way of thinking about composition and good game music and engines make good games great. As an example Harry-Gregson Williams and his work on the Metal Gear series.

Because the game is a fast paced FPS i made a Drum and Bass style piece with a few sort of psy elements to it (using phasers and ping pong delays). I did this because of my own personal aesthetic. I used Reason to create this song.

Check it out in the Box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Game Music." Adelaide University.

Hannigan, James 2004, "Changing Our Tune", 2007,
http://www.jameshannigan.co.uk/changing.htm.

"Chapter 7 - Ideal Production". Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning,
process, and production, New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

Pp149 - 152. Childs, G. W. 2006, Creating Music and Sound for Games, Thomson
Course Technology.

pp246 - 252. Irish, Dan. 2005, The Game Producer's Handbook, Course Technology
PTR.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 9 (10)

I have to admit, I'm quite lost with this whole FFT thing, i think i really need to go over some of my old lecture notes. I understood it in Bidule, but MSP is a whole other level, i understand that it translates the samples over a list like output, but manipulating that is very difficult. Anyway, here's my patch. I simply multiplied two signals together using coltopol and poltocol, attenuating uncommon amplitudes and accenting common ones. Ive also included individual playback volumes to change the timbre and avoid clipping. Enjoy!

Check it out in the box widget

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "MSP FFT." Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,<http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation>.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 10

Open Arena doesn't offer the best ambient sounds, so i picked one of the most interesting ones to recreate, the second sound however isn't in the game, i made it because i believe it would suit what I'm doing or something that i could use in future, a night street ambient sound.

For the first sound i took a sample of a jet plane cabin noise, reduced the bit rate, slowed it down and put it through a dynamic shifting eq to create that creepy slightly changing ambient drone.

The second sound was created from a field recordings of a night scene with crickets and general night ambiance, like from a pond. And mixing this with a background street sound. I found for this i needed the most ambient of noises, anything too close to the mic, or individual wouldn't work for the outcome.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Ambience." Adelaide University. 14/10/08

Bernstein, Daniel. 1997, Creating an Interactive Audio Environment, Gamasutra, 2006,
. (Available Online)


pp173-174, 182-189. Sonnenschein, David. 2001, Sound design: the expressive power
of music, voice, and sound effects in cinema, Michael Wiese Productions, Seattle, Wash.

Forum Week 9

Well im blown away by ben's patch. That rhythm operator is fantastic, i wanted to do something like that in my patch, but i didnt have the time to take it on. The interface is amazing and all the bug fixes were great. Great work.

Looking at all the supercollider patches dont interest me very much, everything that im seeing is something that could be done in max, im sure the precision and quality wouldn't be the same, but the result would be something simmilar. Jake's 5.1 surround patch had an interesting sound, but again something that could be done in max and im glad im not doing this next year.

Jakes advertisement was pretty average, but the sound was done well and the rock riff at the end sounded pretty sweet.

It was a shame that Will's game was never finished, but i always like to see people working on films and games and general sound audio work in SA.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 9

Recreating these game assets was fun and it got me thinking about the sounds i need to create for the final project. Its already given me some ideas.

The rocket fly sound was created using a noise generator in Bidule and the sound of a Harley Davidson through a low pass filter.

The no ammo sound was created from me tapping on the table, clicking, rustling paper and a toy gun.

The Regeneration sound was created using the subtractor synth in Reason.

And the Reload/weapon pickup sound was created using a toy gun.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. 'Assets'. Adelaide University. 7/10/08.


"Chapter 5 - Sound Design: Basic Tools and Techniques" and "Chapter 6 - Advanced
Tools and Techniques". Childs, G. W. 2006, Creating Music and Sound for Games,
Thomson Course Technology.

Kelleghan, Fiona. 1996, Sound Effects in SF and Horror Films, 2006,
.

Forum Week 8

What a crazy movie. At first i thought it was funny, but then it just became quite disturbing. And i was struggling to sit through it by the last half. Is there hidden messages in this movie, or should you take this at face value? Or should you just take it how ever you want to? So many unanswered questions. I can see the appeal of the film purely from the fact there is nothing like it out there, but its not my taste.

The premature baby(?) was the most odd thing Ive ever seen, it wasn't the lady in the radiator, or the pencil eraser, that baby was just disturbing. And when it turned into that huge monster, WTF is going on? Was that his guilt for killing it, or is that Wat happened? haha. I can see the appeal, but it just doesn't appeal to me.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 8 (9)

I'm really happy with this week's result, I've always wanted a quick way to use my midi controllers with my patches and my midilearn object is the answer to this. I'm sure its a little in efficient, but the main concept is there. The Midi learn function in Reason is so helpful so using it in MAX is going to save so much time.

Check it out in the Box Widget

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "MIDI and MSP." Adelaide University. 9/10/08

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,<http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation>.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 8

Ive chosen Open Arena as my AA assignment this semester. I decided on this game because there is lots of support for it, and i used to play Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament lots when i was 13 and 14. So it was also a kind of nostalgic choice as well. Also i am quite familiar with FPSs. Although I'm familiar with the style of game, i am really uncertain about the process of this assignment and have many questions to ask. I am also very unsure of the preproduction form and i suspect that there may be several errors in the way Ive filled it out. But Ive given it my best shot and i hope its ok.

Check it out in the box widget.

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Asset Integration." Adelaide University. 16/9/08

Anon 2007, List of Open Source Games, Wikipedia, viewed 7/9 2007,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 7

No problems this week, Fairly straight forward. The GUI version is different from the individual patches, however the concepts are the same. Ive built the individual patches as an easy and simple way to recording and playback to use in future patches. This is why they dont use computer keys to control it.

Control Keys are Shift + P = play, Shift + R = record, Shift + S = stop record

Note the image shown of week 7 GUI patch has been modified.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. 'Music and Signal Processing.' 11/9/08. Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
.

Forum Week 7

Seeing everybodys projects being used by their creator was good to see. You get a sense of what they they actaully wanted to achieve and how to get the best out of their programs. Looking at SuperCollider didnt interest me to be honest, perhaps it wasnt the best demonstration of its ture power, but from what i saw, the outcome could be easily dupliacted with max and easier to manipulate.

Sanad's song was great, well mixed and had his own particular flavour. All of his songs have his own distinguishable sound, its hard to descibe, but its certainly there. His use of scale modes i believe contribute to his sound, that and his choice of instruments and effects add to the style aswell.

It was a shame we couldn't get to hear Ed's patch, but i could see where it was going. The images were pretty kewl, very trippy, i do like mathematical images, theres something about the symmetry thats appealing.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 7

My input for the group task was the music. When i play games the music is something that i always listen out for. Essentially games have interactive music and it amazes me how composers and music programmers make it as seemless as they do. This is my attempt at emulating what they do. I essentially brought two similar ideas together using a common harmonic theme and key, however changing the beat to suit the mood. The first half is a drum and bass like fast rhythm with a symphonic harmony backing, and the second half is a slow electronic hip hop style with a simmilar string backing. My main influence for game music is Harry-Gregson Williams, in particular his work on Metal Gear Solid 2, 3 and 4.

Check out the mp3 in the box widget

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. 'Week 7 Game Audio Aesthetics.' Adelaide University. 9/9/08.

pp 245 - 247. "Chapter 10 - Excellence in Sound Tracks and Sound Effects". Irish, Dan.2005, The Game Producer's Handbook, Course Technology PTR.

pp 112 - 117, 196 - 201. Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning, process,and production, New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

Forum Week 6

The Indian rasa is something that i don't know much about at all, but from this brief introduction to them i believe that i can draw some inspiration from them. And i can see how so many musicians have been drawn into its philosophies. The relationship with music is strong and both feed off one another.

Music exists, or rather its popularity exists in the concept of emotion, yet when studying it in the classroom, theoretically, historically, the word rarely seems to come up. What emotion is the piece of music emulating, how does it make you feel. It sounds good, why? Because of the way it makes you feel, so not only should you understand theoretically how it made you feel that way, but how to recognise similar musical 'feelings' and how to string them together. We seem, i say we loosely but certainly i feel that i am trying to make things that sound clever, or cool, not really analysing what sort of feeling the music is emulating and what i want to do with this musical feeling. I need to develop a higher sense of muso-emotion creativity that goes beyond major = happy, minor = sad because this certainly isn't the case.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 6

Now we're getting into the good stuff. Spent many hours with my midi controller playing with the sampling techniques mentioned. Most of the patch was quite easy to do, however i couldn't get the poly~ object to work. I've included the patches with the poly in this weeks pack, perhaps somebody could tell me why it isn't working. When i run the patch inside an instance it works, but not as polyphony. Do you need multiple buffers, i cant think of a way of doing this using poly, can you assign an instance number as an argument to the buffer name, thus creating multiple buffers?

Check out the files in the box widget

References:
Haines, Christian. Lecture. Music and Signal Processing. 4/9/08

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,<http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation>.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 6

This week Ive tried to recreate the audio for a computer boot up, and yes it was my idea that christian used in class. Ive used several sounds, initial boot up, start up sound, typing, denied and access sounds. I spend more time creating the operating system sounds than actually doing the task. It was an interesting experience trying to copy the aesthetics of the windows sounds. In the FMOD patch Ive included two sustain points for the typing, waiting for you to enter the data into the field. I had a look at the chapter on switching and it looked very visual, i was expecting to see lines and lines of code to do this, but no, it looks like a PowerPoint flow chart. But as the tutorials we did in class didn't cover this, i didn't look into it any further.

Check it out in the box widget. Ive included a 45 sec version and a full minute version.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Sound Asset Design." 2/9/08

"Chapter 8 - Ideal Technology". Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning,
process, and production, New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

pp 25 - 56. "Chapter 3 - Using FMOD Designer". Creative 2007, FMOD DESIGNER:
USER MANUAL, Creative Labs, 2007, .

Forum Week 5

Some of the sounds Ive used are quite generic, but others, like some of the synth sounds i think really have the associated rasa's quality. In particular the fear and wonder files. For Peace I used the sound of a water stream, to me this is very peaceful and natural. I struggled to think of something for Courage, so i made a cheesy fanfare like recording. I'd like to hear what others have used to represent courage. Fire, especially a large fire, is a sound and image that i find very aggressive so this is what i used to represent anger. This next sound, disgust, is of somebody throwing up, this sound file is quite realistic and is the most disgusting sound Ive heard and only conjours feelings of disgust. Joy is represented by a laughing crowd, again, i was at a loss for ideas with this rasa and will be interested in what others have used. Love is one of my favourite samples, it is the corniest, cheesiest synth and chord progression that can only be associated with something lovely or happy. Sadness is another realistic sample of a woman crying, for me, this particular sample can only be associated with sadness.

Check out the files in the box widget

References:

Whittington, Stephen. "Indian Classical Emotions." Lecture. 28/8/08. Adelaide University.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 5 Music and Signal Processing

Now we're getting into something sounding good. Playing with the additive synthesis was fun, but this is great, i can already hear the horror movie soundtrack. It was the perfect time to do this as i have been playing around with FM7 lately too. I didn't have too many issues making this patch, just a good look at the tutorial and patches. The waveshaping looks interesting, when i have some more time I'll have a look at that. Ive been wanting to play my guitar through max and this is a good excuse to do it.

Check out the patch in the box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. "Music and Signal Processing 2". Lecture. Adelaide University. 28/8/08

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 5 FMOD

This program is fantastic, easy enough to use and does all you need for a game. I can see why so many game developers have used it. And its free!! All the effects are fantastic and easy to use and access. The customisable parameter bar on the top is great. I cant imagine seeing myself use this is a context other than in gaming, but a very powerful tool that's relatively simple to use. I didn't have too many issues with the task, actually the only issue i had was creating a multichannel .wav, Cubase was acting up and took longer than should have, but once over this hump had fun with the multichannel panning. This may be program a could introduce students to in the future, certainly not in a lot of depth, but for exposure to the game industry.

References:

Haines, Christain. "FMOD." Lecture. Adelaide University. 19/8/08

"Chapter 3 - Technology". Modern Sound Engine in Brief. Brandon, Alexander. 2005,
Audio for games: planning, process, and production, New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

pp 25 - 56. "Chapter 3 - Using FMod Designer". Creative 2007, FMOD DESIGNER:
USER MANUAL, Creative Labs, 2007, http://www.fmod.org/index.php/download.

FMOD, 2007, 2006,

Forum Week 4

From what I've seen the meanings, at least the simplified meanings, of the rasas all seem to be fairly universal. The most diverse ive seen in my search was these meanings

Sanskrit Term	Principal Meaning	Further Meanings & related emotions
Shringara	Love	Beauty, devotion
Hasya	Joy	Humor, sarcasm
Adbhuta	Wonder	Curiosity, mystery
Shanta	Peace	Calmness, relaxation
Raudra	Anger	Irritation, stress
Veera	Courage	Pride, confidence
Karuna	Sadness	Compassion, pity, sympathy
Bhayanaka	Fear	Anxiety, worry
Vibhatsa	Disgust	Depression, self-pity

http://www.rasas.info/index.htm

These meanings are fantastic for artists to draw inspiration from, as so many have not just drawn inspiration, but rather the inspiration has drawn them into it. One of my favorite artists, John McLaughlin, became heavily involved so much so that he earned the title Mahavishnu, and gave his band the same name. I'm sure that he would have undergone a similar task, looking for sounds that represent the rasa, in his study.

As i talked about in class, this task needs to be taken in context or sounds on their own can imply any meaning. However for this task ive taken the obvious meaning.

hasya
Major Chord, laughing, children playing (laughing)
adbhuta
a crescendo symphony orchestra playing a major chord, ???
veera
a march, marching army, horns playing a fanfare, a human roar
karuna
a kiss, a harp
krodha
a raging roar, low basses driving ostinato in 5ths.
bhibasta
a spit, a sinister murmur
bhayanaka
a scream, dimished chord or odd chromatic chord, perhaps low basses driving ostinato in 5ths, gunfire, pain noises.

shoka
a minor chord, crying
shanta
a subtle major chord, a water stream

References:

Whittington, Stephen. "Week 4 Composition Workshop." Lecture. 21/8/08. Adelaide University.

http://www.rasas.info/index.htm

CC2 Sem 2 Week 4 Music and Signal Processing

I have had a few problems this week, but i managed to sort all the main ones out. Don't use sends in your poly~ it sends it to all of them!!! I really wanted to send different function graphs to each poly instance, however it affected all of them, and it just added more points to them, so in the end you would end up with a bunch of very complicated function graphs all the same. So i had to compromise and just put them in the poly itself. Which is annoying because now it isn't customizable. In future weeks Im going to try and figure out a way to send different functions to different instances, i can see this is going to play a big part in my final project.

Check it out in the Box widget!

References:

Haines, Christian. "Music and Signal Processing." Lecture. 21/8/08. Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

AA2 Sem 2 Week 4 Game Engine Analysis

Ive had to modify the task for this week, i couldn't use the game engine from last week's game as the engine predates the 2000 period. The game was released in December of 2000 however the engine was based on the Quake 2 Engine (iD Tech 2) which was released in 1997. So I've decided to look at the GTA IV engine called RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine). Heres the lowdown

GTA IV

RAGE - incorporated motion capture engine
Euphoria - procedural animation engine
Image Metrics - lip sync and facial expressions
SpeedTree - vegetation production

Support
Ps3 Harware, uncertain release on PC, if so DirectX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ps3

Audio Engine developed at Rockstar North In house Audio Engine.
96kHz/24 bit. High end sound in 7.1

Format, Ps3, XBox, yet to be released in PC. Unsure if it will be.

No Editors

I am doubtful of any major engine downfalls as reviews of the game have been almost perfect, 10/10 by most game reviews. The Graphics are amazing and from personal experience the gameplay is fantastic, the only issue is the framerate.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Game Engines." 19/8/08. Adelaide University.

"Chapter 3 - Technology". Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning,
process, and production, New Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif. pp 2, 3, 19.

pp7 - 8, 149 - 152. Childs, G. W. 2006, Creating Music and Sound for Games, Thomson
Course Technology.

Game engine, 2007, 2007, .
Directory of Game Middleware Solutions, 2007, .

Week 3 Forum

Some interesting presentations. The bar has been raised, some of the projects were fantastic, especially for first years. Game sound is something I'm quite interested in at the moment, AA2 being the stimulus, and it was awesome hearing about somebody actually involved in this. and starting so early as well. He really captured the feel for the game, although i hadn't seen it i could clearly imagine what sort of game it was. I was disappointed that we didn't get to hear all the Foley sounds he made.

The standard of the concrete projects have certainly increased since last year and i cant wait to see what else the 1st years can create. However one criticism. I believe that turning the sounds into music isn't keeping with the concrete tradition and i remember fighting the desire to do this last year. This aside the music that was created was very interesting and muti layered. Well done 1st years!

Week 3 Polyphony and Instancing

Poly~ is a great object, this is defiantly something I'm going to use extensively in my final project. I'm still unsure how the thispoly~ object operates, but I'm sure we'll go through some of its uses in class. Instead of using a thispoly~ object to turn the voices off, i created my own way using select and sends. It doesn't work perfectly, when playing chords it sometimes doesn't turn notes off, but with a lot of fiddling and playing with delays i could probably get this working. But with the thispoly~ object its not necessary.

Check it out in the MyBox wideget at the top.

References:

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation.

Grosse, Darwin. 2006, The Poly Papers (part 1), 2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/story/2005/5/3/135756/4001.

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Polyphony and Instancing." 14/08/08. Adelaide University.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 3 Planning and Process

For this task i chose the original Counter Strike game. In hindsight this game isn't the best example for demonstrating the different elements of game audio, but none the less, it still offered insight into game audio asset creation. I picked a sample of sounds that would best demonstrate the game's asset list.

Each weapon has its own fire and fire-sil sound (it could be a sound played only when the gun is shot once and not on automatic, but thats just a guess), clip in and out and other various bolt noises. Some weapons have more sounds than others, but the main sounds are outlined.

Another interesting point i noticed was that all the sounds were processed at a really low quality. mono 8 bit and 22kHz. However at the time this was probably the most economic of CPU processing and considering this game is meant for fast online game play this was a smart choice.

Other games such as Medal of Honor Allied Assult and Metal Gear Solid Series, have incredible music audio libraries and game engines that change these elements as the game play changes. I'm quite fascinated by this and will look into it further throughout the semester

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Planing and Process." 12/8/08. Adelaide University.

Lampert, Mark. 2006, IT’S QUIET … ALMOST TOO QUIET, Bethesda Softworks, 2006,
.

"Chapter 2 - Sound Database". Childs, G. W. 2006, Creating Music and Sound for
Games, Thomson Course Technology.

pp 2 – 24. "Chapter 1 - A Development Process Map of Game-Audio Implementation".
Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning, process, and production, New
Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif.

Week 2 Sem 2 Forum

Im very impressed with David's quartet piece, changing to an 11/16 meter followed by 9/16, im surprised that the performers didnt slap you in the face. I really did get the sence that the piece was floating, was no pulse to lock into, or if there was it was quickly thrown out. I wouldn't know how to approach composing a piece of music like this. I'd be interested in hearing about the processes David went through to produce this outcome.

I cant say that i was overly interested in Schubert's piece, it certainly has its moments, some good melodies and some interesting harmonies. But I do agree with David on this, its so long that it puts you in a kind of trance, however i don't normally look for this in this style of music.

References:

Harris, David. Lecture. "My Favourite Things." 7/8/08. Adelaide University.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 2

I think im getting used to MSP now.

Ive done help files for all the main patches and they explain what each patch does. Ive included more mutes that i would normally, but it demonstrates what it does. The mute is quite a handy function, i can see myself using it quite a lot in my final project. Ive used the cycle~ object with the phasor~ for the sine wave and just the phasor~ object for the sawtooth wave. I can see these objects being very usefull in the future.

Check out the files in the box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. " Week 2 Signal switching and routing." 7/8/08.

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
.

AA2 Sem 2 Week 2 Game Sound Analysis

Unreal Tournament, released in 1999, is still one of the most highly regarded multiplayer FPS' of the gaming world. It spawned a whole series of games still in production today. The sound in the original 1999 game isn't too complex, however are iconic of the series and online FPS gaming, in particular the VO 'monster kill' etc. The Audio structure is as follows.

Opening video of streets, atmosphere sound (localised to particular objects) and a VO.

The Main title screen has a few sounds. Menu bar selection noise, menu click noise and scroll over noise, they are all robotic like sounds. This could be a Family of sounds.

In game there are plenty of sounds. background music (drum and bass style) SFX - gun noises (different for each type), bullet ricochet, shell sound, footsteps (on a random selection of a few footstep noises), VO both team mate radio sounds and achievement VO. Person noises, Jumping grunt, bullet hit grunt, falling to death screams. Other in game sounds like alarm for stolen flag, victory music for achievements.

Watch 0:00 to 0:20



References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Game Sound Analysis." 5/8/08. Adelaide University.

Brandon, Alexander. 2005, Audio for games: planning, process, and production, New
Riders Games, Berkeley, Calif. pp 2, 3, 19.

Arcade Original Pong, 1972, 2007, .

Williams Defender arcade game, 1980, 2007, .

Wonder Boy, 1986, 2007, .

Mortal Kombat Gameplay, 1992, 2007,
.

CC2 Sem 2 Week 1 Intro to MSP

This patch was quite a bit harder to do than originally thought. Control and Sampling Rate control speeds are quite tricky to get around. My Patches seem to work, but they appear to be more complicated that I would think would be necessary. I’ve also included help files with the patches if you want to know how they work. One of the main issues I had was with the number~ object. Monitoring and sending data with this object is a tricky thing to do. I think with more practice I’ll get it, but still a little frustrating.

Run the 'Week 1 Intro to MSP.pat' file

Check it out in the Box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecutre. "Intro to MSP." 31/7/08. Adelaide University

Cycling'74 2006, MSP Tutorials and Topics,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

Forum Sem 2 Week 1

Upon searching for Listening i found that that a good percentage of the hits were about communication and learning to be a good social listener. Which, at first, i thought was quite abstract from what i was searching for. But in actual fact a lot of these websites' advice could be applied to Listening to music. Engaging with other people and being genuinely interested is a metaphor for paying attention to what is being played and devoting your time to the one activity of listening to the music. It also tells us to look at the music (or rather listen to the music) in context. Genuinely interested is an interesting phrase. Being genuinely interested in what somebody has to say is a lot like listening to and engaging in music. Although we may not agree with what everybody has to say, it is polite and expected to at least act interested. The same applies to listening, having an understanding of the context (i.e. time, place, social context, composer style, influences etc...) gives us a deeper understanding and hopefully an appreciation for the piece. I know this may seem obvious, but the idea of music as a language is really amplified by these concepts. Listening to music (or perhaps writing music) as a conversation between either instruments, sections or the composer with the listener gives added appreciation for the pieces listened. I know I've heard this from many a music appreciator, but I've never actually looked at it from this perspective. Music, writing, playing and listening follows (or to the appreciator should follow) polite social conventions of conversation. Actually listening to music, or devoting time to listening is the polite way of engaging with music.

References:

Whittington, Stephen. Lecture. "Listening." 13/7/08/ Adelaide University.

http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm

AA2 Sem 2 Week 1 Intro to Sound Design

Battlezone was released in 1980 as was designed by Atari. It used vector graphics. The sound board used was Atari's own POKEY Audio which was designed by Doug Neubauer. The POKEY sound board has 4 audio channels which was a revolution of the time, allowing polyphony for games. In the case of Battlezone you can clearly hear the 8 and or 16 bit sound (as the POKEY can have either 8bit or 16bit channels). The tank noises and shooting are clearly a noise generator through a high pass filter. The radar blips and victory music are realised through square tones. Other sounds that warn of approaching enemys are square tones through relatively slow frequency modulation.



References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture. "Intro into Sound Design." Adelaide University. 31/7/08

McDonald, Glenn. 2002, A brief timeline of Video Game Music, 2007,
http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/video/vg_music/.

Video game music, 2007, 2007, .

AA Week 12

I think i got a bit carried away with my assignments that i forgot to blog my week 12 mastering examples.
Here you go.

Similar results to week 11. I have to admit that i don't really know what I'm doing. Squash the sound, drop/boost the frequencies here and there. I don't really have a system. I defiantly need to do some more reading on this. I can see how important this stage is. I never did before. I thought you could do it all in the mix. But mastering brings out the whole performance, not just the individual parts.

check out the files in the box widget.

AA Assesment Sem1 2008

Two fantastic bands, who were well organized, practiced, and very easy to get along with. I couldn't have asked for easier people to work with. Overall I'm fairly happy with the end result. The idea that if you record it right you don't need much post work is very true. Because of my excessive microphone recordings for many tracks i didn't even need to process them at all. The fugue and the rhythm guitar track are examples of this. The rhythm guitar track has no plug ins or ran through any effects. My EQ was the 5 mics to choose from. With the brass fugue i miced up every instrument, some with two mics. And again this was my EQ. Only a few instruments in this needed some softening with effects. Apart from that, very little post work was needed on it.

Have a listen to the songs in the box widget, I've also put the documentation in there.
Please not a change in the Fugue documentation. In the drop box version there aren't names in some of the fields. Ive added them with this documentation.

CC Assesment Sem1 2008

Getting the patch to its first running state was quite a bit of a task and quite frustrating. But once i got it running it was great to play with because it was something that I'd wanted to do for quite a while, make an automatic chord progression machine. It has really shown me the power of max and given a taste of what programming is like. Have fun with AutaChord.

The documentation, Mp3 example and the patch are in the box widget.

Ive also updated the patch, with a new splash page image.

AA2 Week 11

I have to admit, this week i had very little idea what i was doing, but you've gotta start somewhere. Ive never done this sort of EQing or compression before, it feels totally different to just applying this to one instrument. I never realized how much a little ammount of work can change the whole song. Everything becomes so much more exaggerated, it really opens the whole thing wide open. Because i did this in Studio 5 there wasnt a very good effect pallete to play with, but the main ideas are there. i found mydelf EQing my EQ. I dont know if this is a very good idea, but it seemed to be working for me. In future i think that i will avoid this because, especially in the case of analog gear, it raises system noise. Compression was really difficult, i didnt know where to start. Or how to approach this. This is something i must bring up in calss.

Check out the files and pics in the Box Widget

References:

Grice, David. "Mastering." Lecture. Adelaide University. 27/5/08.

CC2 Week 10

Ive played around with the bpatcher object to create moving user interface. To do this I've created bpatchers within a bpatcher. This is something similar to what i'll be doing for my assignment. The splash screen is something quite simple, but its quite effective. I was reading about using .mov files. I will definitely explore this, video tutorials perhaps? I tried using the graphic object to create some visualizations that work with MIDI data, but i haven't had any luck. I'll have a closer look at this sometime over my holidays, visualizations are something im interested in. Its a great way to experience music.

Unzip the files and run Main Patch.pat to check it out.

References:

Haines, Christian. "Interface Design." Lecture 22/5/08. Adelaide University.

"Chapter 5 - Interface Design". P71-78. Winkler, Todd 2001, Composing Interactive
Music: Techniques and Ideas Using Max, The MIT Press.

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

Forum Week 10

I'm a fan of DJ Shadow because of his awesome ability to find rare and timeless beats and fuse them into something that sounds modern and sometimes quite edgy. He has an incredible ear, he know what he's looking for. His earlier work like Preemptive Strike and The Private Press is definitely his best work, "Organ Donor" is absolutely fantastic, the organ riff with that infectious beat just cant be beaten.

His later works, in particular The Outsider, just doesn't have the same appeal as his earlier stuff. In this album hes worked with a number of rappers and it just doesn't fit properly with his work. His style has been born from breaking away from the rappers and there is a reason for this. There is one gem on the album tho "This Time." Is great and it shows his awesome DJ/Mixing skills, u cant tell its been mixed.

AA2 Week 10 Mixing

This time i played around with reverb and delay and I'm fairly happy with the guitar solo sound i ended up with. I used a shortish delay so it wouldn't intrude on the rest of the solo as its quite quick. I've also put some reverb on the supporting guitar part and on the drums as a whole to give it some ambiance. Not too much tho as its a rock song, but it fills it out. It also covers up a bit of the Over Heads sound, there was a bit of room in those, but little in the rest and it sounded a bit odd, so the reverb covers this up a little. The last example is a mix of drums, bass and guitars.

Check out the files in the box widget:

References:

Grice, David. "Mixing." Lecture 20/5/08. Adelaide University.

White, Paul. "Advanced Reverberation." Sound on Sound Magazine. October 2001.

White, Paul. "3D Mixing." Sound on Sound Magazine. November 1994.

Forum Week 9

Sebs work is pretty kewl. Playing around with retro technology to bring back the old sounds in a new way. People love those sounds, they have a sort of nostalgia about them, so using them in new ways deffinatly draws attention.

I really like this Milk Crate idea, its a great way to from quick collaborations, i can see this becoming like a modern studio jam session, but in the form a game. The rules are simple yet very effective

The rules...
The objective of milkcrate is to write, record and produce as much music as possible, creating a completely finished product within twenty- four hours of beginning the session
No member of the group is to leave the environment, within reason
All materials and raw sources used to create music must be explicitly non- musical
All the materials must fit inside or on a milkcrate
There is a limit of one milkcrate per person
At least one member of the group must be productive at all times
These rules are modular in nature; milkcrate sessions may have additional constraints, so long as they do not break the existing ones.

(http://milkcrate.com.au/iswhat.html)

I can imagine people doing this a sort of musical sport. As in every friday night, so changing the rules from 24 hours to something around 3 or 4 hours and perhaps allowing a set of samples for each week, and the best team or individual able to create the best judged result wins for the night. Im not sure if this happens already, if so then im not surprised. If not then there is definately oportunity for something here.

CC2 Week 9

I can defiantly see myself using coll in my CC project and the preset object is just too easy to use. Ive used the delta time (timer object) to define the duration and the trigger times (metro) which, in a sense, keeps some some of interesting rhythm and performance. The logic components help with the very long delta times, the other logic only lets notes pass to the harmony accompaniment if over a certain pitch value, so not to create horrible low note interval beating. Ive included 2 presets with 2 different melodies and a 3rd customizable preset. Enjoy

Check out the Video and the patch in the box widget.

References:

Haines, Christan. "CC Week 9." Lecture 15/5/08. Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

AA2 Week 9 Mixing

I played around with the compressor and plugins again on that song. I added heaps of compression to the drum kit and it gave me a very controlled sound. Best for Rock. I played around with the EQs on a a few of the Drum Mics aswell, the examples ive given show the difference with the plugins. I also added a lead guitar track, the sound ive got there is pretty close what i want in the end. Notice the change from double Tracking to single channel in the solo.

Check out the sounds and photos in the Box widget.

References: Grice, David. "Mixing Week 9." Lecture 13/5/08. Adelaide University.

CC2 Week 8

In this patch i haven't used the midiparse or midiformat objects, i simply used the pitch and velocity values to control the filters in Reason's Analog Synth. One is oscillating and the other just ramping. I played around with adding the probability sequencer to the patch, but i just couldn't get it to work properly. A lot more playing around and many tedious hours may possibly solve this, but this is just something I'm not going to use, i understand the concept of mix matching MIDI input values, i.e substituting pitch for a filter value, and MIDI routing (Max to Reason).

I had a bit of a play with the seq object, lots of potential, but its the mtr object I'm more interested in. In the context of this patch i could record the control performance as well. How awesome is that!! I didn't get around to looking at how u can use this as an accompanist, but very impressed, even the ability to detect mistakes, Max you've outdone yourself.

Heres the video



References:

Haines, Christian. "CC2 Week 8." Lecture. Adelaide University. 8/5/08

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

Forum Week 8

Best Forum Ever!! It was all about the small things that you dont normally think off. How many chairs were available, only somebody who's been in the business for a while would have thought of something so simple yet important. The importance of preparedness, schedules and being prepared for everything was really driven home with the big band example. That many people and that many mics is just to big to not be prepared. I'm learning a lot of these ideas now with AA recording. I can see how small issues with a small band could be very large issues with large ensembles.

The way that the Pepsi ad has been constructed. The over compressed files without crossfading is a real eye opener into the way they now construct advertisements and pop songs. Made for radio and made for short attention spans, with little or no dynamic variation throughout the song. We really are an immediate society.

http://www.auldworks.com/bbrec1.htm

Forum Week 7

i never knew how "close to the action" Adelaide is in Electronic Music. I knew nothing of Tristram before this class and now i can see how much of an integral roll he's played in Electronic Music. Being apart of designing the VCS3 just says it all. What i find particularly amazing is how dedicated he was, nobody (very few and very far) understanding what his work was about, and being criticized from every angle, yet still managed to make amazing discoveries. Not that he was the only case of this, especially in this field, but still something to mention. The fact that we can now tinker and explore the very instruments he was designing is a fantastic way to literally keep in touch of electronic past.

Its very interesting to hear some of his later works, composed for orchestras and acoustic instruments. Although these pieces do draw from his electronic past (lines and themes), it says a lot about his musical mind, education and passion.

References:

"Songs from a Life." Tristrum Cary. 2000

http://www.tristramcary.com/

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Cary-Tristram.htm

AA2 Week 8 Mixing

YOU CAN SKIP THE FIRST PARAGRAPH IF YOU WANT, JUST BLABBERING!!

Mixing at first is very tedious, organising your files, setting up buses after buses, blah blah blah. But after all this leg work it becomes quite enjoyable, adding effects and plugins. Hearing the difference between raw and modified. After this is done it again becomes quite tedious, tweaking the plugins, outboard etc. Tweaking is so frustrating, hearing the same bit over and over again, finding the perfect levels only to find out that the volumes and effects you've added don't work with the rest of the song. But ultimately the final product is very rewarding.

The 3 examples are a clear example of why you should use reference songs, and test it on multiple speaker systems. THE BASS IS WAY TOO LOUD!!! But if you look past this you can see that Ive done a few things to the signals. Compression on the bass, EQ on all instruments, used multiple guitar recordings panning left and right and reverb on the snare and guitars. I'm fairly happy with my result, apart from the bass, but this is a simple volume issue. Ive even done some manual compression on a soft note from a guitar riff.

Check it out in the Box widget.

References:

Grice, David. "Mixing (1)." Lecture. Adelaide University. 6/5/08

White, Paul. "Mixing Essentials." Sound on Sound Magazine. October 2006

McKercher, Paul. "Mixing Psychology." ???? Mus Tech Reading IIA 2008

Starvrou, Michael. " More Salvage Mix Techniques." ???? Mus Tech Reading IIA 2008

CC2 Week 7 Probabilty Sequencer

At first I was totally lost and had no idea where to begin, but slowly after closely analysing the Tutorials i began to find my way, the big discovery for me was using the sel object to trigger the notes, i have no idea why it hadn't dawned on my before, just one of those things i guess. The Patch is fairly straight forward and the instructions are simple.

I didn't understand the importance of lists in Max/MSP until i started actually playing with it, address/value lists are going to be very helpful when doing the major CC assignment.

I know this patch is a little inefficient, but this was the best way i could think of doing it.

Check it out in the Box Widget

UPDATE, i just reviewed a problem with the patch, the velocity and duration wasn't set when you first load up, that has now been fixed. Check out the Probability Sequencer2.pat

References:

Haines, Christian. "Probabilty Sequencer." Lecture. 1/5/08. Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation.

AA2 Week 7 Piano

I really enjoy recording piano, the instrument (especially the Steinway) is such a fantastic work of craftsmanship and the resonating sound qualities of the strings and the body come together to make a wonderfully dynamic and versatile sound. It fills the room with its full sound. Trying to capture this is what i enjoy about recording piano. I used 6 mics, 3 pairs. 2 NT5s, 2 NT3s and 2 U87s. I put the NT5s in the open piano pointing towards the high and low strings and panned them left and right in the mix down. The NT3s I put in the corners of the room about 5 or 6 meters away from the piano to create a stereo room sound and panned them left and right in the Mix down. The U87s I put in a MS configuration and did the necessary post production (invert, pan) for this configuration. I know that we didn't cover MS in the lesson, but i believe i haven't had enough practice with MS in the past, in fact i have only observed this technique and not actually done it myself. So i saw this as a good opportunity to get some personal experience. I am quite happy with my final product, i think i captured the sound of the piano pretty well. A small amount of EQ i think is required (which i haven't done to preserve the microphone technique) to make it more tonally dynamic, the highs a little higher and the lows a little lower. Overall Enjoyable.

Check out the Files in the Box widget, the photos Ive taken are in there as well.

References:

Grice, David. "Piano Recording." Lecture. Adelaide University. 1/5/08

Robjohns, Hugh. "Recording Real Pianos" Piano Principles. Sound on Sound Magazine. May 1999.

Stavrou, Michael Paul. "PNO Secrets." Mixing With Your Mind.

UPDATE

Ive revised and updated all my forum blogs.

Forum Week 4

Why say something in 10 mintues when i can say it in 5? This was the question of my CC task. Because its more economic and interesting. If you can tell people as much interesting information in a short ammount of time, without totally bombarding them with information, you keep their interest and dont waste their time. This is one of my philopsophies. Things only need to be as long as they need to be. This is one quarm i have with avant-garde music. I wouldn't be so disinterested in it if it wasn't always so long. I understand that in many of these piece, time is a factor of the artistic outcome. Phillip Glass's minimal organ works is a good example of this. Playing with ostinato and the listener hearing different patterns in this over time. But i find that a lot of this music is for the artist, not the listener, which is why these pieces are so long. Maybe i just dont get it, but lengthening these peices arnt making them more appealing.

CC performance

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Forum Week 6

Mash-ups are a genre that have taken my attention in the past. I see them as a clever musical exercise, not something that produces some great artistic outcome. The mash-ups shown in class i wasn't very impressed with, and the only ones that sounded good were mash-ups done by other artists. What i did like however was the common thread that one song shared with the next, perhaps a common word in the chorus of one song would be the name the next song, but apart from this i found most of it was clumsy and unprofessional. For somebody that has access to the whole BBC library, the least she could do is mix them as seamlessly as possible. It could be argued that this wasn't her goal, not to mix them seamlessly, but i ask why? When i listen to mash-ups, i tend to listen to artists like "The Kleptones."

http://www.kleptones.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptones

CC2 Week 6 MIDI Keys Final

It all comes together, this week took the longest by far. But ultimately rewarding, a program of my own. Ive included help files and documentation inside the .rar file. so there shouldn't be too much confusion. Ive also included an easily read .pat file. It isn't an exact replica of the final product, but it 'spells' out whats happening and where objects are connected.

One issue occurs on start up, there is a rendering error with the GUI image, but this is simply overcome by just locking and unlocking the max patch.

The GUI was a bit of fun to make, it gave me an insight into how hard it is to design software GUI.

The .rar file is in the box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. Lecture "Midi Keys". Adelaide University. 10/4/08

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation

AA2 Week 6 Violin Recording

This week i managed to get my friend Myriam in to record her violin. I found this instrument quite easy to record, mainly to do with the massive mic selection that i had to choose from. These being 2 U87s, 2 NT5s, SM58, AKG, NT3, and the Sennheiser Shotgun mic. The NT3 and the U87s captured the best sounds and i heavily relied on them in the mixes, the AKG also had a lot of promise as well. I did little Eq on the mixes, only a little on the already high top end on the NT3 to add more presence to the mix. The U87 that was positioned in the room about 5 or 6 meters away gave a fantastic result, it wasn't too muddy and could be a decent amount of the mix. The files are just playing around with different mic combos. Check them out in the box Widget.

References:

Grice, David. Lecture "String Recording". Adelaide University. 8/4/08

Robjohns, Hugh. Sound on Sound magazine. "Strings Attached". April 1999

White, Paul. Creative Recording 2. "Stringed Insruments." AA2 Readings.

Forum Week 5

I can see how Pierre Henry is a very important figure in electronic music, but ultimately, i don't get it, I must really be missing something. I understand that alot of the techniques delevoped by Henry and Schaeffer pioneered many of the contemporary electronic conventions of music we use today, but their music just doesn't appeal, it has no 'rhythm' that i can fall into, possibly they wanted me to feel frustrated by this music. Don't get me wrong, they make some pretty wicked sounds, but as much as i try to see it as music, i struggle to believe this. This is Sound Art, not music, music to me has common idoms to follow and recognizeable patterns. Perhaps in the future as electronic music is more embraced by the public, perhaps these idioms and patterns will swing towards Henry and Schaeffer musical goals, but i really dont see this happening.

Their music is however being used is one of the most popular cartoon series at the moment, "Futurama." His song "Psyche' Rock" is Futurama's theme song. So perhaps their music will become part of the common music Idioms

CC2 Week 5

I initially struggled with this patch, but once i had figured out the basic concepts, what objects to use and how to connect them, it was smooth sailing. It was just a simple breaking down the problem to the lowest denominator. The 5 tap delay is defiantly too long winded and could be cut down, but I'm unsure how to do this and this was the best method that i could think of. The filter was a simple argument function and gating system, the gates are fantastic by the way, especially since u can use the 0 off 1 on function. And finally the shortcuts was a discovery, learning what each of the used keystrokes numbers were and assigning them to a switch or bang. The Shortcuts are 'f' for the black key filter, 'd' for the delay, 'b' for switching the pitch bend on and off and 'p' for the panic button. The more i play with this program, the more i love it!

Check out the patch in the Box widget.

References:

Haines, Christian. "Midi Keys 3". Lecture. Adelaide University.

Cycling'74 2006, Max Tutorial, 11/1/2007,
http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/ProductDocumentation